Pucon

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Pucon
Pucon is a holiday town, built up to cater for Chileans coming to relax in the area and slowly being adopted by the global backpacking community. It is sandwiched between a picturesque lake to the North and a steaming conical volcano (very much active) to the south. The atmosphere is as laid back as you would expect in a place where at least half the people you meet are on holiday, and in September it was not too busy, with ...
...to European ski resorts, and Pucon is no exception. Before you even decide to head up to the resort, ask somebody about the weather. Pucon is both fairly low lying and exposed to storms coming in from the sea, and so if the wind blows and the higher lifts shut you can rapidly end up wondering bitterly if it was worth paying 25USD for the privilege of huddling round a cup of hot cocoa in the battered mountain café. This happens pretty regularly, but ... more

Possibly founded by the same people that thought building houses below water level in New Orleans was a good idea,
Pucón is small town in the South of Chile, located in an area Mamma nature designed as a playground for her best pals. Shady forests, winding rivers, a beautiful lake, a perfect conical volcano, geothermal springs… You can go fly fishing, horse riding, white-water rafting, swimming, sailing, windsurfing, mountain biking, hiking, or, as I was planning to, snowboarding.

Getting there
The nearest airport is at Santiago, some 800 kilometers to the North. I paid around 550GBP for a return flight (Spanair or LanChile) in September time, which is late winter /early spring. From Santiago you can either hire a car or take the bus down. The national bus company Turbus runs an overnight service to Temuco, which takes about 8 hours and costs around 10USD economy. Another 5USD will get you sufficient wine to enable you to sleep for the whole trip - this is money well spent. Once in Temuco you can get a local bus over to Pucon.

Pucon
Pucon is a holiday town, built up to cater for Chileans coming to relax in the area and slowly being adopted by the global backpacking community. It is sandwiched between a picturesque lake to the North and a steaming conical volcano (very much active) to the south. The atmosphere is as laid back as you would expect in a place where at least half the people you meet are on holiday, and in September it was not too busy, with the ski season winding down and the summer season not yet started. There are a lot of hostels in town, some of which will probably send people out to the bus in an effort to get you to visit. I paid 10USD/night for a share in a double room which was plain but good.

The Snowboarding
Chile is great place to explore from a winter sports perspective, completely different to European ski resorts, and Pucon is no exception. Before you even decide to head up to the resort, ask somebody about the weather. Pucon is both fairly low lying and exposed to storms coming in from the sea, and so if the wind blows and the higher lifts shut you can rapidly end up wondering bitterly if it was worth paying 25USD for the privilege of huddling round a cup of hot cocoa in the battered mountain café. This happens pretty regularly, but if the weather is too windy for snowboarding you can check out one of the other options available in the tour centres in town. I gave rafting and mountainbiking a shot, and the rafting in particular was good. A 3-hour ride down category 4-5 rapids, you get all the necessary gear and the guides are entertaining as well as expert.

Enough off-mountain alternatives though - once the weather sets fair, the mountain resort is about 5km from Pucon, and is accessed by a dirt (snow) road that branches off from the main highway a couple of kilometres out of town. There is a minibus service offered for about 10USD from agencies in town, but hitch-hiking as ever seemed to be the transport of choice for most people. So long as you are on the road early there are no shortage of people driving up in massive American-style 4x4's, and quite often they will stop and let you clamber into the back without even saying a word. make sure you have warm clothes to hand for when you get higher up though.

There are 9 lifts accessing 20 trails at present, although if you stick to the trails the chances are that you will be disappointed. Most of the pisted runs cruise the gently sloping areas of the mountain, and you will find more of a challenge psyching yourself up and clamber onto the battered old chairlifts than you will skiing down. All is not lost, however, as during a trip up on almost any lift your eyes get drawn to the deep and steep gullies that wind down the volcano's side. These fill in with snow after every storm, creating huge windlips on one side and a nice powdery layer across the bottom. I am not sure I have fallen over so many times and suffered so little pain as a result in my entire life. As another bonus there are few crowds, so it is possible to float through lovely soft snow for days after a good snowfall.

If you are snowboarding it is also worth mentioning that a lot of the area around the bottom of the resort is fairly flat, so if you venture into the trees and fall over… You could find yourself facing a stroll through very deep powder snow to get back to the lifts. Anyone that hasn't tried this hasn't lived - in deep powdery snow it's a full anaerobic workout just to unclip your board from your feet, and making forward progress requires the re-adoption of that crawling, floundering style last used to traverse a feather duvet at age 8 months. Any embarrassment felt at the lack of style displayed during this demeaning progress is usually compounded by the snowball barrage set up by those increasingly bored members of your mates who do not have snow up to their nipples. So the tip here is - stay out of the trees.

Further off-piste entertainment can be had by taking a guided hike up to the top of the volcano - the hike takes 4-5 hours, which is a lot of exercise all at once in my opinion, but is allegedly well worth the trip. First hand tales from the crater report the ground steaming, a bad smell, and glimpses of molten rocks through the steam. Anyone that wouldn't rather be watching that kind of thing on the National Geographic channel is welcome to take a toasting fork and a couple of muffins up, but I gotta say I haven't tried it.

Apres Ski.
Unusually for Chile, there is actually a reasonable après-ski scene in Pucon, with a number of bars, nightclubs and even a casino in one of the hotels. Even more unusually, I have not one whit of information about them, having spent my evenings loafing around in the hostel instead. I did drag myself out on one occasion to visit one of the thermal springs. Tourist information make these sound like professionally run areas, with towel attendants and the works, but the one we went to was totally empty, and consisted of several rock-lined holes dug into the riverbed, with only a padlock on the fence to stop anybody just walking in. Not that I'm knocking it though - hot springs have got to be the world's best way to relax, and why not enjoy one out in the wilds?

Future developments:
There are rumours on the internet of an upcoming 5 million USD investment in new mountain infrastructure, including new lifts and an access gondola, which should make for more consistent access to the slopes after next year.

Summary.
It isn't a place you are going to find in your local Saga Coach Tours "large print brochure for the short sighted", but if you are after a nice long winter sports trip you could do a lot worse than Chile. And once there, it would be rude not to visit Pucon. Lets face it, how many people have even seen a live, smokin' volcano, much less snowboarded down the side of one?

Website: www.puconchile.com
 

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