Quetripillan

Volcan Quetripillan and Lanin. — Quetripillan is the lower, flat-topped peak to the center-left. Lanin is the tall one in the background.

Quetrupillán sits between its two taller, more striking, conical siblings —Villarrica and Lanín. With an elevation of only 7740 feet, we got the impression it’s sometimes overlooked as a ski objective, and ski mountaineers instead opt to focus on the more dramatic, challenging summits nearby.

But we found Quetrupillán to be the perfect outing after the longer, more tiring days we had just completed. In addition to the summit elevation being lower than that of some other volcanoes in this region of Chile, the vertical gain was a pleasant 4000 feet. After logging several back-to-back days on other peaks, Quetripillan was a welcome part of our itinerary.

The map of our route on Quetripillan — Our route on Quetripillan: the blue line starts where we parked and began hiking. The marked waypoint was the snowline, where we switched to skis. Click to enlarge.

It wasn’t a long drive from Pucon to the end of a dirt road, closed by a gate that marked a ranch property. We were told by Rodrigo (our guide for Villarrica) that we could walk around the gate and through the property without issue, to a dilapidated bridge where the trail to Quetripillan began. It was easy to find.

The trail to Quetripillan. — Walking up the trail through some downed old-growth trees.

The dry trail would ascend through old-growth forests for about 2000 vertical feet over a couple of miles, to a clearing where we reached continuous snow. The forest was really cool. Some of the trees were enormous, and the walk was actually delightful.

Skinning up Quetripillan — From the snowline, the route we skinned was straightforward. We didn’t need boot crampons on this route; we skinned to the summit.

Volcan Villarrica and lenticular clouds — Looking at Villarrica, which we skied the day before, and the lenticular clouds forming as some unsettled weather approached.

We even managed to see a few of the Magellenic Woodpeckers along the way, which was quite special if you’re a birder like Christy.

When we reached the snow, we switched to ski boots and skis and began ascending mellow volcanic gullies, following some old ski tracks we could see in the snow. It was very straightforward and not very steep. A few hundred feet below the crater rim, we put our ski crampons on, and we climbed up into the clouds to the top.

On the summit of Quetripillan — On the summit. Two local dogs actually followed us the entire way from the car to the summit and back!

We transitioned to ski mode and retraced our route. Like every other summit we skied up to now, it was firm at the top and softened as we descended, becoming spring corn as we reached our hiking shoes.

The downhill hike out went quickly, and we were back in Pucon early for a change, which was nice. Quetripillan felt like an active recovery day; it was great to see, and it wasn’t too hard. It may not be as challenging as other nearby peaks, but it offered a nice contrast at this point in our trip, and we were glad we checked it out.