About 800km south of Santiago, the Araucanía Region marks the start of the Lake District and one of Chile’s major tourist hot-spots. Like our Cumbrian version, there are indeed many lakes, interspersed with plenty of mountains, although the Chilean ones are more snowy and mostly volcanoes. To extend the analogy further, the twin resorts of Villarrica and Pucón are probably Windermere and Ambleside – plenty of cafes and tourist accommodation, anything lakeside at a premium, and a propensity for rain, at least on the day we arrived!

Cerdúo

We pulled into the parking at Cerdúo about 20mins after Google expected, as it doesn’t realise the last 10km of dirt road exists – it’s actually well maintained and straightforwardly navigable. Keep following signs for the Bike Park amongst other attractions and you’ll see an escalada sign eventually. There’s a modest fee to pay for parking / climbing, as seems to be the way in most of Chile. It’s only a few quid, cheaper than parking at Stanage Pop, so why does it stick in the craw more?

The weather has perked up and it’s surprisingly busy, with at least half a dozen teams at the crag. Locals are falling over themselves to recommend routes and then someone Bluetooths a pdf. All very friendly.

We parked pretty much under the first route, Zapatillas mágicas, 5.9. Great climbing up features linked by cracks on super frictiony granite. The grade’s a sandbag, of course, but we’ve just become accepting.

Our new friends recommend Fisura Digital, 10b, as the must-do classic of the crag. There’s a team just finishing top roping it…

“How was it?” No es demasiado difícil, pero es psicó. Hrmm. A closer look revealed just six bolts in around 25m, and it was coming on to drizzle. Faith in friction was the name of the game, and it was indeed a very satisfying route.

Just to its right, Guillotina (also 10b) had the distinction of being a trad route after an initial couple of bolts to get you off the ground. Having lugged a double set of cams halfway around the globe, it was fun to finally put them to use!

You can park up overnight for a further modest payment, but we went a kilometre further up the road to camp at the Bike Park.

An early morning stroll yielded views of tumbling cascades…

… and distant volcanoes.

Relicura

An hour or so further east from Pucon, more dirt road driving brings you to the pretty spot that is Relicura. Most visited for its Mirador with panoramic views of some of the lakes, it’s also home to a few dozen routes.

There’s a well-made path which leads steeply upwards towards the mirador, passing a flat, grassy glade at about half height, with signs to the climbing. Confusingly, the web resources talk about sectors Alto and Baso, with the latter split into 3 zones, whereas the signposts have sector Alto as #1 and Baso as #2 and #3.

We started on Baso and successfully guessed at the identity of the easiest route on the crag, Exposición, 5.7 and were attracted by what turned out to be Cordero Amargo, firing an unlikely line at 10a up huge huecos.

Another topo, Bluetoothed from another friendly local retrospectively shed light on those routes and grades.

Moving on to Sector Alto, the nature of the rock changes markedly to a gently overhanging pockety rock.

The angle isn’t tilted in this shot of our new friend on Nguerpan “EL VIAJE”, 10b. Excellent climbing on so-sharp pockets, with the crux being to hang on long enough to tell the sinkers from the decoys.

Stepping the grade up to 10d for Juan y Diego resulted in some clip-stickery and an early end to proceedings. You’ve just got to admire the locals.

That left plenty of time to explore the mirador, which did turn out to have a splendid view.

Back to the parking, it’s another spot that is more than happy to relieve you of a fiver for a tranquil overnight stay.

El Cañi

Having had a mix of glimpses between clouds and distant views of the Lake District’s famed volcanoes, a stonking forecast encouraged us to grab the window to get up close and personal to Volcan Villarrica, the centrepiece of the eponymous National Park. Unfortunately, it was Monday which turned out to be “closed for maintenance” day in the Park! A ChatGPT request for “best volcano view when the Park is shut” suggested El Cañi, which coincidentally is the location of the third significant climbing area in Araucanía. Maybe we’d whizz around the 5.6km walk and bag a route at the end of the day?

Spoiler alert – that wasn’t to be! Firstly, the approach drive was a mission in itself – the first (and perhaps only) time when our 4wd truck was a necessity rather than a nice-to-have.

There’s an online booking system to limit visitors to 150 per day, but it didn’t look like anybody had been in days, maybe weeks! There are remnants of signposting…

… and rotting infrastructure, topped up by more recent efforts at a renaissance (new wooden steps and the occasional signpost) but it’s obviously a work in progress.

The mirador trail turned out to be quite a jungle adventure, fallen trees and detritus blocking the way at regular intervals and numerous “which way now” moments as dead-ends disappeared beneath new growth bamboo.

We were quite relieved to finally reach the promised viewpoint.

More impressive than the distant volcanoes were the giant ancient trees fighting for daylight with a clutch of monkey-puzzle trees.

Back down at the parking / camping area, our enthusiasm to bag a route had waned. The crag looked neither easily accessible nor well-travelled, and it was fast approaching beer o’clock.

Here’s our route trace if you fancy following in our footsteps.

Loncoyén (Valdivia)

As seems to be the pattern, a day of fine weather was followed by a cruddy one, with more prospect of rain on our intended route further south into the Lake District and beyond into the northern fringes of Patagonia. We have developed various RockAroundTheWorld strategies for such situations: the foot-to-the-floor dash and the out-flanking maneuver being favourites, but here we deployed the Gogarth-inspired “head to the seaside” plan.

Valdivia is a seaside town, famed for its vibrant fish market…

… and attendant sea lions.

It’s also home to Kuntsmann, Chile’s largest brewery. Actually that’s another bad-weather strategy, but we skipped the tour option (Disneyland for beer drinkers according to one review, and a dear do too). Instead we pressed on for the coast for a night on the edge of the Pacific (our hostess was so delighted to welcome us to an otherwise empty campsite that she erected a gazebo outside the van for us!).

Rain cleared, as promised, next morning and we set off to find Loncoyén.

Okay, Gogarth it ain’t (world’s biggest understatement!)

But this tiny lump of shisty (not shitty!) rock offered some surprisingly fun routes – super-steep on sharp, flat holds, and more solid than appearances might suggest. Dry rock and a gorgeous outlook rewarded the diversion (and it’d be another tremendous option if you had small kids in tow).

We’d successfully sat out the worst of the weather, and a day’s drive through the tail end of it would see us dipping our toes into Patagonia at the southernmost extent of our trip.