Cerro La Leonera - 4950(ish) meters above sea level

One of the benefits of living in Santiago are the numerous hiking opportunities that present themselves nearby. This is a blog post about a trek to a nearly 5000m peak, which had been on our to-do list for a few years now, and which we managed to "bag" a couple of weekends ago q-:

Cerro La Lenonera, with its ca. 4950m above sea level, isn't a very spectacular looking mountain, to be honest, mainly because it's like the shoulder of the much more impressive and somewhat higher Cerro El Plomo. In fact, looking at it from Santiago it is very hard to make it out against the backdrop of the glaciers of El Plomo.

La Leonera to the left of El Plomo, visible from the approach

It is nevertheless a worthy excursion on it's own, mainly because of the amazing views of nearby El Plomo that is constantly looming right next to it. The approach is via the La Parva Ski Resort, starting at about 3000m above sea level. There are some crazy people who climb La Leonera in a day, we opted for the slower option with a couple of acclimatization stops along the way.

Leaving Santiago Friday late-afternoon, the mission for the first day was to climb only about 500m in a couple of hours, to the Laguna Piuquenes, where we spent the night. That first night at 3500m is skipped by most folks who climb La Leonera (even if they are not crazy enough to do so it in a single day), but it helps with getting adjusted to the altitude. And it's always nice to get away from the city for an extra night (o:

Alex and Ven (our hiking buddies on this trip) getting ready Saturday morning at Laguna Piuquenes

Saturday morning starts with a relatively steep climb to get on top of a ridge (La Falsa Parva), which thereafter continues all the way to La Leonera. Once on that ridge, the ups and downs are a lot more gentle, but as one approaches the 4000m mark and Cerro Pintor, most people start feeling some effects of the altitude.

After the steep climb Saturday morning, view from Cerro Falsa Parva (Volcán Tupungato at the distance)

Day two was a pretty short day, by midday we had reached the camping spot for the second night just below Cerro Pintor, so the rest of the day was spent with pottering around, melting ice for drinking water (there are no streams on the entire ridge), cooking, eating, chilling, etc. One of our hiking buddies decided to head back down in the afternoon after feeling a bit sick because of the altitude.

Our camping spot for the second night... what a view!

Saturday night, to be honest, we didn't sleep all that well because of the thin air (restless sleep is another mild sign of altitude effects), so we were both happy to get moving at 5 o'clock in the morning. Our only remaining hiking buddy also didn't feel too great at that point and decided to stay in his tent, so in the end only the two of us headed out, in perfect conditions, with hardly any wind at all, the milky way glittering above our heads. On Cerro El Plomo we could see numerous little lights: other climbers who were going up in the dark, the same route we had scaled 2 years ago.

Shortly before sunrise, maybe an hour or so from the top, day 3

Once out and moving, we felt really fresh and with our light pack (most of our gear stayed behind at the tent) it felt almost like we were cruising up the mountain. At some point Patricia even started overtaking other trekkers, as if it was a race to the top q-: In the end instead of the 4 to 5 hours that we thought it would take, we made it to the top in three. I guess without the two nights of acclimatisation it would have taken longer.

Patricia at the top of Cerro La Leonera, Aconcagua at the far back, El Plomo to the right

After a little rest at the top and soaking up the views, we had to start the way back. What we had split into three days on the way up we still had to cover in what was left of our Sunday, picking up our gear and left-behind hiking buddy along the way. But all went well and by 3pm we had made it back to the car. In all, a beautiful trek with amazing views, and with a bit of extra altitude acclimatisation not even that challenging of a hike. A few more photos in below slide show (high-res here):