Climbing Villarrica

In January we had our first visitor! Brian, Brad's brother, visited us for 2 weeks! It was great to have him here and fun to travel around Chile together! We traveled to the South of Chile, which is known as the Lake District, to climb the Volcan Villarrica, one of Chile's most active volcanoes. We have a ton of pictures, so if you're interested, visit our flickr account for more details!

Volcan Villarrica (9,340 feet) from the town of Pucon - we're going to walk up that!!!???

This alert system was at the City Hall of Pucon.
Looks like we are all clear for our climb!

We began our climb before sunrise to avoid the sloshy snow & harsh sun. This is a picture of me - my backpack and that's right, an ice/snow pick!!!

The sun is starting to rise!

A first morning glimpse at the neighboring volcano, Llaima.
Llaima is the volcano that erupted in early January, 3 days before our climb.

The climb up the volcano was pretty difficult and tiring. It was like we were almost to the top and then we would get to a ridge and there would be another part - I think this happened like 4 times!

The shadow of Volcan Villaricca over the town of Pucon and Lake Villarrica as the sun rises.

Tough guys, especially with those pick axes!!!!

We finally reached the top!!!!!! The climb took around 6 hours!

The vent of the volcano.

After hanging around at the top, we all strapped on these things called "nappies" to slide down the volcano on our butts!!! This was as fun as it sounds!

These are the sledding chutes that we went down!

A view from the top of a sledding chute.