Backcountry skiing trip in Patagonia

A 30 minutes transfer from the airport in Bariloche brings you to the nice Hosteria in a quiet location in Bariloche city center.

You will meet me and check the gear needed for the trip. A dinner in a local beer brewery is waiting for you.

You’ll spend the night at Hosteria Las Marianas.

We experience the southern snow for the first time today!

A half hour drive brings us to Challhuaco valley.

From there we’ll ski up to Mount Challhuaco and enjoy the view over the lakes and Bariloche city.

This is an easy ski tour to begin with in Bariloche’s backcountry.

Here we will do some avalanche safety training and make sure that we are ready for this trip.

Overnight at Hosteria las Marianas.

We leave Bariloche and travel by car along the Nahuel Huapi Lake.

Passing the small, fancy ski village Villa la Angostura we will reach the Samore-pass next to Puyehue volcano.

This pass offers some great skiing as it’s one of the places with most snowfall.

After the skiing we cross the boarder to Chile and drive up to a small ski area named Antillanca.

There, we spend the night in a wooden lodge.

Overnight at Antillanca hotel.

We will reach the top of our first volcano today, the volcano Casablanca which means ‘white house’.

It lies in the middle of the Valdivian rainforest but it’s white peak sticks out of it.

After we have skied it we travel along the big Llanquihue lake. From far away will we be able to see the magic volcano Osorno.

A white pearl that is surrounded by green meadows and deep blue lakes.

A very cousy mountain lodge is waiting for us with a delicious dinner. Overnight at Teski mountain hotel.

On our third ski touring day we will ski up to volcano Osorno, which erupted for the last time in 1869.

It has the most glacial parts of all the surrounding volcanoes. With a clear sky we will be able to see Puerto Montt and the pacific ocean from the top.

After the tour, we drive down to the lakes basin and drive further north to the city of Osorno.

We will stay here overnight but before that we make a stop at a small, great Chilean seafood restaurant.

Seafood is get fresh every day from the nearby fjord.

Overnight at Hotel Lago del sur in Osorno.

We deserve a relaxing bath in natural hot spring today!

These thermal pools are located in a privileged place called ‘Cajon negro’. This path was completely inaccessible before, up in a hill in the middle of native forest inside the Villarica National Park. It has 17 pools with temperatures ranging between 8 to 42C.

They are accessible by a beautiful 450 meters wooden walkway painted in red.

Then, we’ll have a nice ride towards Chile’s outdoor paradise**, Pucon**. A city full of action at the shore of the Villarica-lake.

Overnight at Hotel Malalhue in Pucon.

The highlight of the tour!

We leave Pucon behind us and drive into the Villarica national park.

After 15 minutes we will reach the base of the small Pucon ski area. We will climb the 2840 m high volcano Villarica today.

The long ascend is very much worth it: a view into the bubbling magma in the crater and a great downhill run on the slopes up to 35°.

Today we drive back to Argentina, to Bariloche where we started our journey.

On our way we pass through the wonderful Lanin-National park with it’s typical Araucaria trees. A typical Patagonian ‘asado’ (barbecue) will be waiting for us.

Overnight at Hostería Las Marianas in Bariloche.