Osorno

Hiking up Osorno — It isn’t overly technical, but the firm snow that it frequently has can make for challenging climbing and skiing.

The Osorno Volcano was the final objective of our Chile trip. After success on five volcanoes in the Pucon area and the region north of it, we headed south to Puerto Varas on Llanquihue Lake. Across the lake from the town stands Osorno, 8,701 ft. tall.

At this point in the trip, we were pretty familiar with the snow conditions, and we didn’t expect Osorno to be any different. Nearly every day we skied, we found hard snow up high and predictable spring snow down low. The route on Osorno was southwest-facing, which, in the southern hemisphere, is pretty late to get any sun, so we were ready for hard, icy conditions.

And that’s what we found.

A view of Osorno as we drove to teh trailhead. — The view of Osorno as we approached the mountain. Our route was near the left skyline.

A route map of Osorno. — A map of our route on Osorno. Click to enlarge.

After driving the paved road up to the base area of the Osorno ski area, we walked a dry trail up to the snowline. We switched to our ski boots and skis and started skinning, and the snow was pretty hard right from the start. It wasn’t long before we were in boot crampons. We found the skinning to be pretty slippery and challenging.

Christy Mahon on Osorno. — Booting up the lower slopes. You can see Calbuco in the background.

Christy Mahon on the upper slopes of Osorno — It was a beautiful day with very firm snow.

The slope itself wasn’t too steep or complex, and we made good time towards the crater rim. As we neared the rim, the surface was increasingly icy, and axes and whippets were welcome. After a short crux section of fairly steep and firm snow, the summit plateau opened before us, and it was a couple hundred feet of flat walking to the highpoint.

A view from the summit. — A view from the summit to the northeast.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and for a change, the winds weren’t bad at all. We could actually hang out on the summit and enjoy our time on our last volcano.

But eventually we had to ski back down, retracing our ascent route on some of the firmest snow we had on the whole trip.

SKiing down Osorno. — Joey, skiing down.

Skiing Osorno — The lake made for a really cool backdrop.

Eventually, we were back down on softer corn snow soon, and had some fun spring skiing with the blue water of Llanquihue Lake below us. Osorno was a great final objective of our trip. Six volcanoes in about 10 days, it was a fantastic tour of this part of Chile and one that we would definitely recommend!

At the end of the ski descent. — Happy skiers after a great trip!

** One additional note: we had to obtain a permit to climb Osorno, which was easy to do on the morning of your trip at the ranger station near the base of the ski area. We were told it was required.

Use the links below to see the trip reports from our other Chilean volcano ski adventures!