Volcán Poruña

February 5, 2020

3601m

Calama, Chile

Volcán Poruña is a small cinder cone about 90 km north of Calama right beside the highway to Ollagüe at Chile/Bolivia border. This small cone offers zero mountaineering interest but because of its proximity to the highway it does get ascended fairly often. The peak is very visible from both directions. To hike to the top one simply needs to plod up 150 vertical meters of volcanic choss. It’s not pleasant, but the views are nice.

Volcán Poruña ascent route. GPX DL

I made a last-minute decision to hike up this volcano while driving back from Ollagüe towards Calama. Connor and I tried to ascend Volcán Aucanquilcha but the access road was washed out. This was towards the end of our uber-successful South America 6000-m peak-hunting trip. We had climbed Mercedario, Marmolejo, Ojos del Salado, Llullaillaco and then Pili (Acamarachi) earlier in the trip. In terms of Volcán Poruña there’s little worth documenting other than showing a few photos… By Andean standard this “peak” would be considered as a dumpster-dive…