Volcan Puyehue

Getting a  bit short on time and loving Chile too much to want to leave and hit ash-covered Baroliloche, I planned a two day stop in Parque Nationale Puyehue 20kms shy of the Argentine border and just east of the Chilean lakes district.

Apart from being a beautiful park, I had heard that there was a great walk one could do in two days spending the night at a refugio at 1600m and then ascending the caldera of Volcan Puyehue to 2240m for some great views of the Andes and the various spectacular volcanoes in the region.

What I hadn{t realised was that just north of this caldera (which last erupted in 1961) is the current Volcan Chico that is depositing tons of ash on Bariloche and the Argentine Andes that  started erupting in June 2011....
So waht was normally a scenic and punchy hike through forests to a quiet hut set in a meadw, is now a trek through ash covered desolation to a deserted hut with no water and then an ascent of the dormant caldera with no path but a scramble over ash and volcanic debris to the summit and you have to go when the wind is right or else you need to take a gas mask!   luckily thee wind was right for me as I hadn{t thought to bring one of these....

So I headed off for a 3 hour walk straight up the guts to the refugio on Monday afternoon and shared dinner at the hut with a little farm dog with the shortest legs, called Penguino (I found out afterwards) who followed me up, despite me trying to chase her back down.
There was no running water and I had been warned to boil any standing water due to ash etc. 

I woke early hoping to catch the sunrise and left by torchlight for the last 600m of climbing making it up in two hours.  It was rough going, with no path and only a few footprints in the scree and mud to follow.  Penguino came along, but seemed to stop at a particulalry hairy section just before the top (although i am now not sure she did), which I was happy about at the time as it was quite steep and loose.  In the pic below which I took from the refugio (hut) when I got back, the summit of the caldera which I was heading for is the high point on the right of the pic and the path sort of followed the gully up the centre before running right up the ridge, the new volcano is off to the left and you can just see its ash cloud.  It would have been straightforward but steep normally, but it was a bit more interesting with all the ash which was a bit like walking on icing on a cake, as it seemed to have formed a wet mud with the rains and so had covered everything in a crusty layer, but part of it was frozen which in the early morning was hard and good for walking on.

360 degree views when I got to the top and it was exhilirating.  It was still early and the sun had come up as I crested the ridge, so from walking in shade I was suddenly in full sun and had this for a view (pic below) looking north west to the new volcan with the frozen caldera of the original Volcan Puyehue below me to the right in the pic.

The views to the south west were also spectacular of Volcan Osorno, Casablanca and a few other domes and calderas as below.

 Here is Penguino on the way up just before she stopped.  When I  walked down though I couldn{t find her and after making lunch at the hut she still hadnt arrived so I headed down and halfway back she appeared behind me a little hurt, seems she had taken a tumble the poor thing, bit of blood and looking a bit unhappy, but I dug some ham out of my bag for her and she was fine after that, wso tail wagging we headed off back down and I dropped her at the estancia where there were many choruses of "pobrecito" but they were happy she had come along and she seemed fine.  One tough pup!

So having had a steak and an ice cream in Barloche, it is time to head home to Lucy, Thornicroft and Uni.....

Patagonia is magnificent and I will be back.

Chaiten and north on the Caraterra Austral

After getting back to Coyhaique after fishing, I hopped on a bus and had a days travel north passing all the spots up the Caraterra Austral that Lucy and I had biked earlier on the trip.  It was pouring with rain, quite a change from the sweltering days we had enjoyed and I felt for the cycle tourists we passed as the rain pelted down.
I had two days in Chaiten waiting for the ferry to get to Peurto Montt and spent these exploring the Parque Pumalin and the caldera of the Chaiten volvano that blew up in 2008.  The town was pretty messed up after the eruption with a lahar bringing a meter of ash and mud down the river and flodding a lot of the houses, many of which have now been taken over by the government and apparently there is a debate going on as to whether the town should be abandoned or rebuilt.
It is in a good spot and some great people trying hard to make a living, so hopefully it survives.
The volcano walk was terrific, it was a bit of a climb to the rim of the old caldera where one could look across to the new rhyolite dome that is smouldering and steaming.  The old rim was heavily forested and now it looks more like a world war 1 battlefield, with all the tree´s either blown over or snapped from the force of the eruption with all the bark on the side facing the volcano stripped off and the wood full of pockmarks from the pyroclastic debris, while the side of the tree´s away from the volcano retained its bark and some are now starting to regenerate, you so you get these half green trees.
The area is quite beautiful and lush and in the Parque Pumalin we walked to a few waterfalls and also to see the ancient Alerce tree´s which are up to 3000 years old.
I caught the ferry north to Peurto Montt on friday, got in very late and then hit the seafood market the next morning.  It was good, but not much chance to eat much except for mussels, clams and fish...although their were one or two interesting little critters for sale raw.
Now the plan is to head across the border to Bariloche via one last national park, Puyehue, and if the clouds lift I might get a two day walk in before flying home.....

Looking up to the caldera of Volcan Chaiten

The top of the old crater rim looking across to the new dome

The pockmarked tree´s and looking back down the valley

Peurto Montt´s seafood market

Flyfishing heaven

It took a few days to organise in Coyhaique, but Friday found me in the car with a local guy who had agreed to drop me off about 60kms south west of Coyhaique at a junction of three rivers that I had heard was good fishing and had spotted a camp site on the map.
Turned out he was the best person to get a lift with as he knew the local farmer who ran the campsite with his wife and so I got to enjoy some good Patagonian home-cooking and hospitality at the same time as camping for three nights in one of their sheds at the river.
The Rio Mogote and Rio Balboa joined the Rio Paloma within a few km´s of each other and I had a stunning 4 days fishing mostly the Mogote and the confluence with the Paloma.
It was classic dry-fly fishing, with long runs that about half the time had a fish in the spot you would expect him to be and they were mostly hungry, so if you got your cast right and found the spots, you were into fish.
Very rewarding!
I fished solid for the 4 days and must have landed well over 50 brown and rainbow trout, with the mix about 75% browns.  They ranged from 8" through to my best which was over 20", and after the first day where the weather was a bit cooler and I took a few on the nymph I fished just the dry and so the takes were great and they spent a lot of time in the air too.
Apart from the great fishing, the scenery was also spectacular, with Lenga forests along the banks and steep slopes heading up to snow capped valley ends, lots of good birds including a few Kingfishers along the river.
The family who´s farm I was on were great and I was roped into carrying milk pails back to the house from the yard one morning as I was walking past, but it did earn me a breakfast of fresh bread, homemade cheese, the first fresh milk I have had in two months and a lunch invitation that included a creme caramal and more homemade treats!  They initially indicated that I give the milking a go, but I was pretty useless and hence was relegated to the more manual labour.

My best brown of the trip.

Looking upstream on the Rio Paloma, the Mogote comes in on the right and my campsite was just down below...

Another nice brownie...

Looking upstream on the Rio Mogote where I fished mostly

One of the brightly coloured little rainbows

I mostly used a fly I called a Patagonian Slop (jandal) which is a high floating beetle imitation which the fish seemed to love.  These beetles were flying around the river and so I suppose it is not too suprising the trout get excited when they see something like this land on the water.  Bit like a whole roast lamb!

The flies I was using and the beetles that made the odd appearance!

Cerro Castillo hiking

Headed south on Sunday morning hitching to Villa Cerro Castillo, a small town below the mountains of Cerro Castillo in the national park.  As luck would have it the hitching was quite fast and when I got into town there was a ´traditional festival´on the go with bull castration, horses being broken in and 10 sheep on the spit for lunch.  I was too late to see the bulls being done over, but watched some great rodeo action as the local gaucho´s broke in their new horses and queued up for the lamb which was handed out to all and sundry in great hunks of meat, no plates, with a sophapilla.  Damn fine food.
The next morning was still raining but I decided to head up on a shortened version of the 4 day tral in the park to tweak out the highlights of the views of the main Cerro Castillo and the head of an awesome valley with a camp aptly named Camamento Neozelande.  It was named after a group of kiwi´s who based themselves here in ´76 to climb a few of the peaks in the area.  A solid few hours of uphill and I got to spend the afternoon with the weather clearing enough to see the peaks at the head of the valley, but still cold enough that it was sleeting in camp and the hills were covered in fresh snow.  The valley that the campamento neozelande is in is quite stunning, circled to the west, north and east by these raggy spired peaks of the cerro castillo range and with morraine walled glacial tarns filling each valley, I was quite spellbound, spending almost an hour huddled in the sleet drinking tea and looking at them through the bino´s.
Camped that night under lenga trees with parakeets for company.
The next morning was still a bit cloudy and wet, but I headed off up to about 1200m in the company of a Swiss guy, Tom, who had arrived at camp the previous evening.  We had a stiff climb for 2.5 hours up to the base of the main Cerro where the views of the peak were really close with a hanging glacier coming off the foot of the cliffs emptying into a laguna.  The wind was so strong, the strongest I have ever had on a hike, that at times i had to crawl on all 4´s to get up the scree and boulder covered slope to the top.  The wind and cold had turned the hard granite rocks on the slope into a field of weathered slices of rock, like onion rings, so it was like walking on rubble.  We had a brief lunch in a tiny bit of shelter at the top soaking in the views, snow and wind before heading bak down to camp.
What was also so good about the walk was I got to see the peaks that Lucy and I had so enjoyed watching when we were biking from Chile Chico south along the southern shores of Lago General Carrerra.  They had looked so stark and awesome from across the lake in that hot almost desert environment we were in that it was a treat to be able to get up close.

south face of the Cerro Castillo with me being blown off my feet!

the foot of the hanging glacier and the laguna at the base of the Cerro looking east

the view from campamento neozelande of the west face of Cerro Castillo

Cactus pack and Saffa hiker at the NZ embassy in Patagonia