2026 Chile Ski Touring and Volcano Ski Mountaineering

2026 marked our fifth year of running ski touring trips in Chile and proved to be another remarkable adventure. This year we ran two trips in September and early October, both of which spent time in the Araucanía region, but we also travelled to the Ñuble Region (Las Trancas) and Santiago Metropolitan Region (Cajón del Maipo). El Niño ushered in bountiful amounts of precipitation during the Austral winter and spring. This made for some of the best powder ski conditions we’ve ever had on the volcanoes of southern Chile.

During our first trip, we kicked off with a warm high pressure that made for exceptional corn conditions and good stability. We were able to capitalize on that and summit Lonquimay early in the trip as well as do some steep skiing in the featured terrain around Malalcahuello.

September 18th delivered another day of fantastic skiing in the Corralco slack country followed by a terrific après scene on their deck at the base of Volcán Lonquimay. The Chileans take their Independence Day seriously and indulge in copious amounts of asado coupled with Malbec wine or a Corralco sour (an Araucanía variation of a Pisco sour which integrates piñones—the seeds of the Araucaria tree—to achieve a unique flavour).

The mid-part of the trip was comprised of a transfer/weather day as we travelled north to Las Trancas and Nevados de Chillán. The storm went out cold and we were treated to some exceptional powder skiing deep into Valle Hermosa, where we were able to enjoy a mid-ski tour soak in a hot spring river.

The second trip we ran kicked off with a storm of epic proportions, stiff winds, and 100mm of rain fell as we transited from the Araucanía airport (ZCO) to Malalcahuello. Further south near Pucón there was some flooding that occurred. Once again it went out cold and we were able to find some fantastic powder skiing on the flanks of Lonquimay; nothing like kicking your trip off with 1700m of quality ski touring. Another system rolled in and presented us with a bit of storm skiing in the area local to Lonquimay and Malalcahuello. We also soaked the bones at Termas Manzanar, a cool commercial hot spring on the bank of the Río Cautín.

While sitting in the thermal pools the valley clouds lifted and the rain began to taper amidst the early evening light. It was increasingly apparent the next day was going to be excellent. We got an early start to beat the next wave of precipitation that was forecasted for the afternoon and set out for the summit of Lonquimay.

We were able to break trail and skin directly to the summit with 30cm of fresh settled pow on the east face. After a bit of time checking out the views we dropped into the 1200m NE aspect run. Most people drop into the east face and trend back to the ski area, but if you head NE away from the ski area, you get a much better and more sustained run into the wilder side of Lonquimay where a massive lava flow is interspersed with Araucaria groves.

After skiing we headed south to Pucón for the second leg of our trip where we were able to summit both Rukapillán and Quetrupillán. Both volcanoes offer incredible tours through old-growth coihues, lengas, and araucarias which eventually taper off to the treeless volcanic alpine slopes. Rukapillán has some glaciated terrain that makes for exceptional skiing.

The final leg of the trip was spent based out of Baños Morales in Cajón del Maipo, southeast of Santiago. The terrain there is massive; we were able to make it up to ridge top (3750m) on the first day, which is just a prelude to Marmolejo (6109m) or Volcán San José (5856m). Two days ski touring in this expansive zone was just enough to whet the appetite, and we look forward to spending more time there in the future.