The Chilean Volcano Tour: Part 1!

My brother and I managed to ski from the crater of a volcano during our time touring around Chile, and it was just enough to wet my whistle.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I was about to kick off three weeks of Chilean volcano schussing, high adventure, and hot spring soaking with a fair bit of wine drinking mixed in for good measure.  It was exactly the reason I sailed to Chile, and I had just the right cast of characters to bring it all together!

After my family flew back to the states, I zipped back south to grab all my ski gear and caught another bus to the north to meet my long-lost friend Thomas.

Thomas and I built skis together at Black Diamond for four years and had a lot of fun doing it. We got to travel all over the place – visiting suppliers, going to trade shows, and working with factories – and Thomas was hands-down my favorite person to travel with.  It was always an adventure – from late night beers at the Hofbrau house with Conrad Anker – to a literal “Chinese Downhill” at the indoor ski area in Shenzen, China.  Needless to say, this trip lived up to my high expectations. 

After he left Black Diamond, Thomas became the president of Avatech, a snow safety technology company in Park City.  It’s tough to test digital avalanche probes during the Northern Hemisphere summer, so a trip to Chile was the best option.  Thomas invited me along to help with testing, serve as a translator, and take pictures and videos of the whole program.  He flew into Santiago, scooped me up off the side of the road in Chillan late one afternoon, and we made a bee-line for the snowy peaks that were an hour or two to our east. 

Nevados de Chillán is a string of five volcanoes with a ski area by the same name covering the lower flanks.  They’re all quite tall and there is a ton of interesting terrain above treeline.  The entire mountain is built out of lava flows, so there are lots of natural half pipes and swooping curves that’re super fun to surf around on.  Its one of the bigger resorts in Chile and they're way ahead of the game when it comes to sidecountry access and avalanche education.  

It had been snowing for four or five days straight, with one clear day (the day we drove in) and lots more snow on the way.  Our timing couldn’t have been better. 

Also notable are the streams of super hot thermal water that trickle out of the side of the volcano at various points to form the aptly named Termas de Chillán.  It just so happened that we were staying at a hotel situated right next to one of these glorious hot springs, about a quarter of the way up the mountain.  Not too shabby!  

We checked in and met up with Joe, another Avatech engineer that had been there testing for a week already.  With that accomplished and several hours/days of travel behind us, we made the easy decision to head down to the hot springs with a six-pack.  The sun had gone down and it was starting to snow by the time we got out, and its safe to say that the stress of travel had melted away and was replaced by stoke for the rest of the trip!

We made it back to the hotel just in time to partake in the all-you-can-eat dinner buffet.  Which consisted, naturally, of steak, crab claws, and fresh scallops among dozens of other things.  It’s safe to say that there was a bit more selection than I’m used to on the Rascal.  With full bellies, we had little option but to examine the offerings at the bar which were quite extensive and I got the opportunity to meet the owner of the resort and the manager of the mountain among other colorful characters. 

We awoke to big flakes and some strong winds trying to push the hotel over.  We slowly stumbled our way down to breakfast, where we found out that the lifts were closed due to the winds (which were slated to get even stronger the next day).  Shucks.  We obviously couldn’t let all of that pow go unskied, and there were some prototype probes that needed testing, so we slapped our skins on and went out for a little tour.

Thus we had the mountain all to ourselves for the next two days.  Two glorious days spent skiing what pow we could find in the trees, digging cavernous snow pits to test probes, and getting spanked by the strong winds.  

The technology in the probes is really quite incredible.  They have a variety of sensors down in the tips of the probe and a user interface at the top.  When you stick the unit down into the snow, it takes a bunch of readings and eventually spits out a chart of the snow hardness with respect to depth.  Using this information, you can quickly draw some general conclusions about the state of the snowpack and track which problem layers might be capable of creating avalanches.  

Once we were done for the day, we’d retire to the hot springs for a soak and a few beers and watch the flakes continue to fall.  Once we were done there – we’d amble on over to dinner and sample whatever the nights’ glorious offerings were.  After dinner, there was always some live music, or at the very least some drunk Brazilian girls singing karaoke!  I was in heaven.  

After a couple days of this (and right when I thought life couldn't possibly get any better), a truck full of professional snowboarders showed up.  Thus, for the rest of the trip, I got to know Jeremy Jones, Forrest Shearer, and Nick Russell.  They were all there filming for next year's snowboard videos and we drank beers in the hot springs with them each afternoon and ate dinner in the lodge with them each night.

They'd all done some incredible traveling and had great stories to tell.  They'd just been out surfing along the coastline and came up to Nevados de Chillan to catch a weather window that was expected in a few days.  They were also curious to hear about the voyage of the Rascal and it was fun to share my story with them.  There was a semi-frozen tub next to the hottest hot spring to go for the "polar plunge" effect and each evening we'd push it a little longer in the cold tub.  By the end of the trip I managed seven or eight minutes!

And then, to our great delight, the wind stopped and the sun came out!

We could finally see all the awesome terrain on offer, and we had a blast surfing around the mountain and digging into the nooks and crannies we hadn't been able to tour to.  Unfortunately the upper part of the mountain was still closed, but luckily the weather was predicted to hold out for a few days.

Part of the reason for Thomas’ trip was education.  Avatech makes lots of powerful tools (both on the hardware and software side) and they’re no good if you don’t know how to use them.  Thus we had a couple of sessions with the gentlemen that work in mountain operations for Nevados de Chillan to teach them about all the technology.   It was in this manner that I got to meet Ro.

Ro (short for Rodrigo) is a total badass from Punta Arenas that gets to ski all winter (he works with mountain ops and ski patrollers to understand the snowpack and keep skiers safe) and go on adventures in southern Patagonia all winter.  He has explored a bunch of the fjords I'm planning to visit while guiding scientific expeditions and he showed me a bunch of incredible pictures and shared all sorts of tips and tricks for navigating in the far south.  As you might expect, he is also a ripping skier.  

After another night of hot springing and beer drinking, we awoke to find the upper mountain was open and we met up with a friend of a friend, Alex Taran, to do a little more exploring.  Alex runs the South American Beacon Project which seeks to help get donated beacons into the hands of mountain professionals in South America that wouldn't otherwise have the money to afford them.  She also does a lot of courses to educate folks and she has spent several years living around Chillan.  

There were all kinds of pow to be accessed from the upper part of the mountain and we followed Alex out into the side country to explore the "dedos" a series of chutes off to the lookers right side of the ski area.  They were choc full of the snow that'd been falling all week and we got to ski a couple thousand feet of glorious untouched Andean pow.  

Note those rad hot springs bubbling out in the background!

The terrain accessed by that upper lift is really top notch and when we weren't digging pits to test prototypes, we were getting as rowdy as possible and soaking up the sunshine and pow.

That afternoon, as shadows were starting to get long, and I was thinking that the day couldn't possibly get any better, we got invited on a cat ride up above the ski area.  

It was my first time in a cat and the scenery, circumstances, and snow were all absolutely astounding.  When we got to the saddle below the crater of the caldera, the cat stopped and let us out.  I'm not sure if its normal protocol or not, but Ro broke out a nalgene of delicious homemade pisco sours and we all cheersed to Chile!

The rest of the group skied down from there, but Thomas, Joe, and I couldn't pass up the chance to get up on the summit.  It was a short skin to the top and the stoke built with every step.    

You could see steam rising out from the vents at the edges of the crater, but you could also see glorious pow, and as we looked down into its depths, it was clear that there was only one thing we could possibly do in this situation: ski into the crater of an active volcano.  

Thomas led the charge (literally and figuratively) and decided airing into the center would be the best course of action.  

It was a quick, easy boot up out of the center of the crater and before we knew it we were back up on the ridgeline.  

Stoke was high and our mission was far from over - we still had 5500 vertical feet of pow to ski back down to the lodge.  

As we worked our way around the rim to the aspect we wanted to ski, we came upon a bunch of volcanic vents that were steaming and sizzling in the sunshine.  At that moment it became clear to me that I was about to fulfill what was, perhaps, my highest calling in life.  I reached into my pack, pulled out a smoked sausage, and lovingly nestled it down in the hot, black rocks.    

I'll forever remember it as the day that I skied into an active volcano, roasted a smoked sausage over a volcanic vent, and then had the longest powder run of my life.

With our bellies full, and a great mission fulfilled, we got down to business and did some top-notch schussing as afternoon slowly faded into evening.

Unfortunately, the time had come for the band to break up - Thomas had to be up in Portillo the following morning.  That said, it was the perfect cap to an incredible trip and we all went our separate ways with big smiles on our faces.  Nevados de Chillan was an incredible mountain and I'll never forget the awesome people I met nor the sunshiney pow we got to ski there!