Climbing up an active volcano

Last week in a town called Pucon, in Chile, we trekked up a volcano called Villarrica.  The volcano looked huge from the bottom.  Half way up the mountain, the snow started.  The only thing that I could think was that I would be climbing that.  It was a full day, starting at 7:00 am, and ending at 4:30 pm.  You would think that climbing an active volcano might be one of the most tiring things ever, but surprisingly, not to me.

We started off on an optional chair lift, which didn't have a bar holding us on the seat.  The lift was meant for the skiing season, but ran sometimes in the Chilean summertime.  Everyone in our group took the chair lift, except a German couple and an Australian guy.  The lift took about ten minutes, while the hike around the lift took an hour.  Since the Germans and Australian were an hour behind, you would think that the people who didn't choose the chair lift would be at least an hour behind us, but surprisingly, they were fast hikers and passed us at one point.

After the chair lift ride, the remaining eight of us, plus two guides, started up.  The main guide was ahead, followed by me, then Oscar, after him, a Brazilian woman called Anna, then her husband, my parents, an Australian woman, and a quiet Chilean guy.

We walked up slowly, step by step, using ice picks to steady ourselves on the scree. Mostly, we didn't talk, except for our guide telling Oscar and me "good job" or the Brazilian man pushing his wife to go faster. Every now and then, we would take breaks, which were always a relief to me, to stop and have a snack.  On our second break, our guide said that the glacier was 45 minutes away.  I had looked up to the beginning of the snow, and it had only seemed about ten minutes up.   In those 45 minutes, I tried not to concentrate on when we would get there, but concentrated on not looking up for periods of time, so when I did, the top would look closer.

        Finally, we were at the snow, and took another break. By then, we were half way to the crater.  It looked like way less than half way.  There was a long stretch, then the crater.  As I later found out, there were parts that I couldn't see from where I was.

As we started up the snow, stepping in each other's tracks, I noticed the long trails of dented snow, which were where everyone sleds down the snow.  Then, I looked up at the steep mountain.  That was probably around the time that I decided to go with a guide on the sled down.

At our second to last break, I saw just a small uphill, and then, a little path leading to the crater.  "Great," I had thought, "Just about twenty minutes more."  As it turned out, there was one more hour from there.

We kept on hiking silently, step by step, and finally reached what I thought was the end.  It was actually just the point where there were 45 more minutes.  After about 25 minutes, we reached another gravely part. After twenty minutes of the gravel, we were at the crater.

I'm not really sure what I thought a crater would look like.  Maybe just a hole that looks like a pool of lava is inside?  Maybe dirt gathering by the lava?  Maybe steaming, burning, fumes coming from the volcano?  Whatever I thought, it wasn't any of those.

I can try to explain the crater as best as I can, but even when you take pictures, they don't capture the exact moment.  The only way to see how it was exactly, was to be there.

You are standing on a gravely surface, pulling your jacket tighter over you to keep warm.  There are many people standing around you, joking around, putting on windbreakers.  You walk forward ten steps on the flat surface, and come to a layer of snow.  You walk forward another ten steps, and pull your hood over your head.  You are standing a few feet from a sloping surface, going into a hole, that is steaming.  You smell the sulfur.  You see the sloping platform twenty feet below you.  You know that this hole goes to the center of the earth.  You wonder what would happen if you fell in.  You are standing at the edge of an active volcano.

On the way down, everyone walked to a row of paths, ready for sliding.  I had originally planned to go down with a guide, but was told that I had to try it first. Everyone had put on a diaper sort of thing, and a plastic sled attached to our belts.

After Oscar, I got positioned sitting at the top of the path.  Then, I started down.  Slowing myself by dragging my ice pick in the snow, I found it was pretty fun.  The next ride, I went down with no problem.  The next one though, was harder.  It turned out that I had been thinking of the wrong problem.  Instead of going too fast, I would come to a stop in the middle of the hill. That happened a few more times, resulting in a group of people behind me, trying to go down.  The next time, our guide towed me down.

When the snow stopped, everyone fell into line again, trying not to kick up dirt from the scree.  My mom and I fell behind with our guide.  We slowly made our way down.  I noticed our guide checking his email and phone.  I wondered if that was what it was like to always climb the volcano.

Later, as I sipped my Fanta from a vender, I realized what I had just done.  I had climbed an active volcano, something that people dream of doing.