Hiking La Campana

In between Santiago and Viña del Mar, there lies a national park by the name of La Campana. In this national park there sits Cerro Campana (Cerro meaning hill, which is an extremely loose use of the word, if you were to ask me). In order to climb said “hill”, you are looking at a 7 kilometer hike up (approximately 4 miles) and a 7 kilometer hike down. Not too terrible, right? Once you factor in the 1,600 meter elevation gain (5,250 feet), you’re looking at quite the hike! I considered doing the math to figure out the angle of the climb, but that just sounded tiring.

My climbing partner!

Rachel and I headed out to Olmué, where we also had our program orientation, on the 7:30 a.m. metro and caught the micro that we thought would take us to the entrance of the national park at 8:15. As always seems to happen with these micros, we hopped on the wrong one, but the driver said that he could drop us about a kilometer away from the park entrance, so we settled down in good faith that all would turn out well. As usual, we were wrong. The driver called us up front after a little while and explained that he had forgotten about us and therefore had driven past where we needed to get off. He handed us a 500 peso coin and then proceeded to usher us off the bus before continuing to scream at the other drivers on the road. One (correct) micro ride later, and we were finally on the right track in the park. We paid our CHP $2,500 ($5.00) entrance fee and headed up the long trek to the top of La Campana.

This was actually taken at the end of the trip, but I am sure that it would have welcomed me to the National Park of La Campana earlier in the day, as well.

A warning sign to tell us that the Yeti lives at the top of this climb! Unfortunately, the Yeti was not to be found that day.

From the bottom, looking up, this is what we were facing--see the top there? That's the goal.

 I will be the first, and most likely not the last (should anyone ever talk to you about La Campana in the future), to tell you that La Campana is a trek. I will admit that I underestimated what I was getting myself into. The lower 3/4 of the climb is lovely and shaded with periodic look out points that show you the surrounding towns and the rolling "hills" around you--something like this:

 

 And this:








As we continued to climb, we were feeling pretty good about how things were going. It was steep, but not outrageously so, and we could not have asked for better weather. We even took a little break for a snack:
 

 After munching on maní (peanuts) and manzanas (apples) we carried on our merry little way. We celebrated when we finally came upon La Placa de Darwin, which marks the five kilometer point of the seven kilometer hike:

It's always a bit unnerving to consider that you are walking the same trail that a historic figure, such as Charles Darwin, once walked. Everything suddenly has a historical significance--"I bet that rock I just touched was also touched by Charles Darwin" or "Did you know that we are walking on the same dirt that Charles Darwin walked on?"

Little did we know that the final two kilometers were two kilometers of nothing but steep boulder field--talk about a push to the top.

This warning sign makes me a bit nervous...

We finally, finally made it around 2:00! The draw of La Campana is that from the summit you are able to see the Andes on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other, and the view does not disappoint. Let me say this about the Andes, they keep me in a constant state of awe. I live in Denver, so I'm accustomed to mountains, but these just seem to be the most rugged, raw, and powerful mountains I have ever seen. Pictures can do it little justice, but I had to try:

Oh sweet, sweet La Campana victory!

Up top we feasted on the lunches that we had brought and soaked up the incredible surrounding scenery. Unfortunately we had to tear ourselves away to start the trek downhill, which was approximately 100 times easier than the trek uphill, but this time we were racing the fading daylight. Legs shaking and sweaty we left the park with the setting sun to make our way home.

Rest area? Oh, don't mind if I do!

The final image of the day!