Introduction

Volcán Llullaillaco is located on the Chile/Argentina border, within the National Park of the same name and at the same latitude of the Escondida copper mine. Even though it is Chile´s second highest summit, it is rarely visited owing to its difficult access and the existence of mine fields in the surroundings. It is the classic volcano of the "Puna de Atacama", with great scree slopes of ashes and stones, several snow fields and even some small glaciars caused by the intense cold.

The surroundings of Llullaillco are very beautiful. Noteworthy are the small streams which flow amidst bofedales (fields covered with a vegetation very particular to the Altiplano, normally used as feeding grounds by native fauna) and coironales (fields covered with coirón, a kind of very strong and needle-ended hay). Guanacos, donkeys and a few species of birds may be spotted in the area.

There exist two lines of ascent from the chilean side, both pretty obvious and which don´t demand any technical climbing, except for some very simple moves when reaching the summit. The north route allows to reach an altitude of 4600m by vehicle, while the south route allows reaching near 5000m. Both routes demand the crossing of some hard snow fields, thus making the use of crampons and an ice axe necessary.

About the Llullaillaco´s volcanic nature, it is a stratovolcano. There exist records for eruptions in 1854, 1866 and 1877. Since then, no volcanic activity has been recorded. Besides this, it is the world´s second highest active volcano, second to Ojos del Salado.

The name Llullaillaco means "hot water", and comes from the aymara words lloclla (hot) and yacu (water).

Note:The first humans to climb the Llullaico where the incas, more than 500 years ago. It is even suggested that after the incas, and before González and Harseim, the volcano might have been climbed by "huaqueros" or "huaca" seekers (huacas are incaic treasures buried in the andean high summits.) Thus, González and Harsein are the first known people to reach the summit in our times.
Very near the summit of this enormous volcano, the mummy of a child was found, being the highest inca burial in the Andes (to which follows that it is the highest burial of this kind in the world.) An interesting document which describes this discovery may be found in the 1999 November issue of the National Geographic magazine (vol. 5, NO. 5), authored by Johan Reinhard.