Skiing Corralco on Volcan Lonquimay

Winter in June… I am definitely not complaining – more skiing!

The rainy season has begun in Concepción, though to be honest, it is not as rainy as I thought. Lately it has rained maybe two days a week and the other five days have been partly cloudy. But I was happy to learn that ski resorts here in Chile have begun opening, so it was time to unpack my cold-weather gear and think about crushing snowflakes.

A week ago, I headed south with three other postdocs from the Astronomy Department. Our destination was the Corralco ski resort on the slopes of Volcan Lonquimay. They had opened a week prior, and we had heard reports of good snow (which we were unfortunately not to experience).

We rented a car and headed South the late-morning of Saturday the 20th. The drive was four or five hours and went smoothly.

As usual, my favorite part was seeing the volcanoes to the East, with the Andes as a backdrop. It’s the kind of view that never gets old.

After arriving at the cabaña, we decided to drive up to the mountain and check things out. The skiing was winding down, but we amused ourselves with some walking around in the snow among the araucaria trees. They are neat trees to begin with, and seeing them in the snow was really cool. Next, I need to find somewhere I can do some araucaria tree skiing!

The next day we got up to the ski hill around 10am and started off. Graeme and I headed up to the higher lifts while Yara and Yun-Kyeong met up with an instructor for lessons.

Conditions were windy and icy. From the parking lot, we could see loose snow being blown off the top of the mountain, and the groomed runs were fast. The off-piste sections were nearly boilerplate ice, making for very challenging skiing.

Up on the mountain we were treated to spectacular views of the Andes and other volcanoes in the area, including Villarrica, Llaima, and Lanin.

I did a bit of off-piste skiing on the second day, and venturing a bit towards the North, I was rewarded with a nice view of “Crater Navidad”, where the most recent eruptions on Lonquimay have occurred. The challenge of skiing the wind-sculpted snow was icing on the cake.

After our second day of skiing we loaded up the car and retraced our journey back to Concepción, arriving around 2100. Though the conditions were not idea, I had a great time at Corralco. The views were amazing and it was great to be back on skis. I did my best to ski the ice and wind-sculpted snow as much as possible, to try and improve my skills, technique, and comfort level. That might come in handy on future trips – I would love to return to Lonquimay to climb to the top and do a ski descent.

There are more photos from Corralco.