Villarrica stands tall above the town of Pucon, and it might be the best-known volcano in the lakes region of Chile. It’s also one of Chile’s most active volcanoes; its most recent eruption took place in 2015.
After the southern hemisphere winter, it’s a worthy ski objective.
In our initial research, we were told that guides were required on Villarrica. Its proximity to the popular town of Pucon attracted countless hikers and climbers, often inexperienced, and it was decided that the increased numbers and resulting safety issues warranted a mandatory guide policy.
We don’t usually hire guides; we’ve been ski mountaineering around the world for decades and are comfortable self-guiding, but we loved the idea of hiring a local on this day to show us the way. In fact, we’ve come to realize we get a lot out of booking a guide for a day or two on any international trip. Not only does it remove any stress or worry about logistics, planning, and route-finding, but we always find that you can get so much incredible info and insight about the place you’re visiting.
And after our long day on Lanin the day before, we welcomed the idea of skipping the route planning and having someone with us who could show us the way and do all the thinking for us!
Christy got in touch with Rodrigo Vera, a Pucon guide shop owner who knows Villarrica about as well as anyone. The four of us drove up to the Villarrica ski area (closed at this time of year), got our gear organized, and started up the volcano. By now, we were familiar with the routine, and like Llaima and Lonquimay, we began the day by walking up the dry ski area.
Eventually, we reached the snow line and switched to skis and skins. Rodrigo led us up to the top of the lifts and then beyond, sharing stories, answering questions, and pointing out anything and everything of interest along the way.
There were a lot of other groups on the mountain, much like Lanin the day before, we found ourselves skinning past rope teams heading up towards the crater rim.
As we got higher, what started as a warm, windless day morphed into a frozen, gusty summit. Just like earlier summits, as we neared to top the winds picked up dramatically, at one point, for a short stretch, it was hard to stand up.
After carefully navigating that exposed terrain, we reached the crater rim, and things calmed down a bit. As we switched over to ski mode, we could catch a glance at the smoking crater below us. It was really pretty cool.
We took the requisite photos and then began skiing down the route we ascended. The winds weren’t nearly as pushy once we got our skis off our backs and onto our feet. Not surprisingly, the snow at the top was pretty firm, but Rodrigo led us to some more sheltered terrain a bit more to the north, and from there we found excellent spring snow down through some fun terrain, all the way back to the trail we had approached on earlier.
We switched back to our hiking shoes and made it back to the parking lot trailhead in good time.
We were thrilled with the day. Villarrica was the fourth successful summit ski of our trip, and the routine was now familiar, fun, and felt easier every day. And we can’t say enough good things about Rodrigo—if you are looking for a guide for Villarrica or for any other adventure in the area, we would recommend him. For more info about his guide service, check out his website here.
And since the weather looked alright the following day, we made plans to head to Quetripillan, our third volcano in the Pucon/Lake Villarrica region.
Use the links below to see the trip reports from our other Chilean volcano ski adventures!
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