Villarrica, Chile - Stepping on a Volcano

Fighting the Mind
It's said that during times of extreme exhaustion, the body rules the mind.  Even with 8 hours of restful sleep, my body has my mind on a leash.  I hear the alarm at 5am and my first thought is 'she might just say forget it.'  This leads to my next thought 'I cannot get my money back whether I climb it or not.  I could just keep sleeping.' 

It's not that I doubt I can do it, I simply don't feel like it.  I'm tired putting on my clothes, I yawn while lacing up my boots.  I grow exhausted thinking about 6 hours of climbing in the snow.  During the ride to the volcano, I size up my co-hikers.  Mostly young, fit, except for two grey-hairs from Massachusetts.  'Good, one couple older than us', I think.  This fails to make me feel better.

Claudio is a thin, wiry guy with a scraggly mustache, some of which is growing into his mouth.  His face is tan and gouged with deep lines - a lifetime on the mountain.  He is animated and jokey, but with a straight face, part Charlie Chaplin, part Marlboro Man.  "Yesherday, we doan make it" he explains.  His Chilean accent is almost indecipherable. "The ween.  Too dangerous, blow.  We turn aroooun, come back."  I immediately begin to root for the wind.  A first. 

The Villarrica ski season ended in September, the chair lifts hang there like ghosts.  Most who climb the volcano start with a free ride a quarter of the way up before beginning the slog.  Claudio says we're doing the real climb, something to be proud of.  He gives us some pointers before we begin - how to use our legs like pendulums, driving the toe into the snow and placing the whole sole flatly so we don't slip.  How to use our hiking pole for balance.  He tells us the most important thing is a good attitude.

Villarrica is active, it erupted just a few years ago.  We start the hike on scree - tiny gray ball bearings.  It's tiring, like walking on sand.  "We take first rest at end of chair liff" Claudio announces - pointing up the mountain.  I look up, see the last tower just a short ways away and feel relief.  We're now on the snow and in a tight, single file line.  I place my feet exactly in the footsteps of the person in front of me. This is not normal walking, it's a one-one thousand, two-one thousand pace.  Like zen meditation without the zen.  I place one foot in front of the other, thousands of times.  I look up and the end of the chair lift is no closer.  

An hour and a half to the first rest stop.  I drop my pack onto the snow, open it and dig for my water bottle.  The wind is blowing hard, but not hard enough.  I eat a banana and hand one to the Dodo.  She has that familiar thousand mile stare.  'This was your idea' I think.  Despite wearing four layers, I'm cold after two minutes of standing still and strangely prefer to continue - at least I'll be warm.  We start off again and I soon change my mind. 

I look down the mountain to see our progress but this causes me to trip.  I'm forced to watch my footsteps.  Each trip, each stumble is a leak - energy you will never get back.  I try to distract myself, I concentrate on my pendulum technique then I congratulate myself on it.  I wonder what I get out of these hikes.  It's the story, right?  I think about what I will write about this hike, then I think about thinking about what I will write.  There is a slowdown, the person in front of me stops.  I look up from my feet, peer at the top of the volcano.  There are dozens of small black dots on a white canvas.  All the other hiking groups are ahead of us.

When I hear the word "break" again I am so happy.  I dig out the cookies and we down the whole pack within minutes.  Dodo is a big hit with the guides.  They're lined around her, eager to help her, asking her how she is.  "Tired."  If I'd started to slide down the mountain to my death I doubt they'd notice.

I watch how the guides sit on their packs, I copy them.  "No, no, no - don't do that!" Claudio yells.  Someone has taken off their helmet and placed it down on the snow next to them.  "It will dowwwwn the mountain and poof!"  He claps his hands together to make the point.  I wonder why we need a helmet or any of the twenty pounds of stuff we're lugging.  It seems totally unnecessary.  Claudio is inside my mind somehow.  He answers me.  "Sometime, ice come dowwwn the mountain, hit you in the head."  

The climb becomes much steeper and our zig zag pattern adjusts accordingly.  Ten to fifteen steps one way, then a sharp turn followed by ten to fifteen more steps.  Our group starts to break up.  I am at the back of the lead group and at each switchback, I look at the Dodo, who is 20 feet behind.  She looks miserable, her footsteps tentative.

She gets personalized attention from one of the guides.  He takes the lead and slowly paces her.  Another guide does the same for the grey hairs thirty feet further behind.  I am in no man's land, between the lead pack and Dodo and get my first scolding.  "Joo can no solo, ok?" Dodo's guide yells up to me.  I fall in with them and adjust to their pace.  My left leg starts to hurt, where the top of the thigh meets the body.  Just this one leg.  Hiking on the snow is unique I tell myself - all the muscles used for balancing are getting worn out.

At the four hour point, the snow begins to change.  It's turned into an icy gravel on top of icier pavement.  The guides help us put on our crampons.  I take a few practice steps.  I think about the classic cartoon of Wiley Coyote.  He is walking on air until the Road Runner hands him an anvil.  As I lift each foot, heavier by two or three pounds now, my exhaustion accelerates.

We settle into three natural groupings.  Claudio and another guide with the lead group, Dodo and I with a guide named Jason and the grey hairs behind us with the last guide.  Everything simplifies.  Bright blue sky, white snow, steps, breathing.  I look up to the horizon and see strange tunnels dug into the snow.  I wonder if these are crevasses.

Once in a while I stop to take a photo.  It doesn't really capture it.  We're walking up a wall.

From here I am on top of the world, at least this particular world.  Everything looks to be below us.

At the final rest stop we're tantalizingly close.  The volcano is letting off a plume of white smoke which wafts over us.  "In your bag is a gas mask, put around neck now."  We do as we're told.  We dig a small hole with our feet and place our pack in it.  We'll climb this last few hundred yards without our packs.

At 1:30pm, we crest the volcano and are on flat ground for the first time in six hours.  The snow is dirty and ugly, colored by the smoke.

You hear and feel it before you see it.  Deep, breathy roars, the ground shaking.  It's alive and sounds like what I imagine a dragon sounds like.

We approach the edge.  Another roar, bits of red rock fly up into the air.  "Whooooooaaaaaa"everyone says at the exact same time.  We're in disbelief, just a hundred feet below, a real live volcano.  Seven hundred degrees of melted rock.  Claudio jokes "In Chile we let you see so close.  In your country, big fence around, you cannot see."  He's right.  No way they let you stand on an icy ledge above a belching, angry volcano in the States.

We take some photos and then get our next lesson.

The mystery piece of plastic is a sled.  Jason fastens it to my waist.  He shows us how to use our ice pick as a break.  Yes, in Chile, they also let you sled down a steep, icy volcano.  We walk a ways down the mountain and Jason says "ok, go."  I look down.  The tunnels I'd seen earlier are not crevasses, they're small luge runs made by the hikers before us.  "Go, go."  he repeats.  I squat, place the sled beneath me and sit.  I am flying, my legs bent in front of me, sitting squarely on the sled.  It's exhilarating.  Six hours to go up.  Thirty minutes to go down.