My last experience on Volcan Lanin was two years ago, and it was severely windy. Since then I've yet to talk to anyone who has had a calm experience on this mountain. Two days ago as our team was climbing a steep gully, with 7,000' of vertical relief above us, that Lanin wind taunted us. The weather forecast called for things to calm down in the late afternoon, but weather forecasts in southern Chile should be read with a degree of skepticism - there's simply a lack data points in these parts to expect much accuracy. At 3:30 in the afternoon I thought to myself, we'll give it 45 more minutes. The wind needs to mellow out significantly. And we need to find a safe place to camp. Basically some alignment of the stars, or we're going to have to retreat to the monkey puzzle forest... At 4:15 I scampered up the steep edge of the gully while our group took a break under a rock outcrop. On a protruding ridge I stumbled upon a perfect, safe, snowy ledge carved out by that Lanin wind. And then I thought wait a minute - where's the wind? Gone. We had an amazing evening camped in our fortified perch, looking out on dramatic cloud layers. Darkness turned to what felt like daytime, with a very full moon illuminating our tent walls. The next morning we started climbing - kicking steps in the frozen snow with crampons on our boots. Our Chile Volcanoes trip landed in the middle of a very unsettled weather pattern here in Araucania. 1,500' above our camp on Lanin, the snow started to fall, the wind started to blow, the clouds came in, and my attention started to turn from my surroundings to my GPS. Time to go down. Good thing skiing is so much fun in and of itself. We were smiling big by the time we rolled into camp, and smiling bigger by the time we hit the snow line on the lower flanks of the mountain. 3000' or so of perfectly smooth corn... Thanks Chile for 8 awesome days of skiing, and thanks Lonquimay and Sollipulli for allowing us to visit your summits. Llaima and Lanin...we'll be back next year. And thanks to our awesome Chile 2015 crew: JP, Stephen, and Wendy. And a special thanks to our amazing local outfitter and guide, Sergio Perez. RMI Guide Tyler Reid