Caviahue Argentina isn’t just a destination where you go skiing or snowboarding at the ski resort. There are various other adventurous winter activities to explore the unique landscape of the area. There are tour operators in town who can assist in organising Caviahue activities such as dog sledding or snowmobiling. Eneqene Turismo is a particularly good pick if you want to talk to someone in English.  

Sled Skiing Caviahue

Freeski tours are available via Enegene in the form of sled skiing. These are probably only ideal for experienced backcountry riders as there is no traditional guiding. The sled driver can point out which slopes typically avalanche but they don’t provide guiding per se. Christian speaks reasonably good English (although comprehension might not be quite as good!).

Copahue Thermal Springs

In winter, Copahue is a cute little snowbound village that’s only accessible via snowcat or snowmobile (or a long snowshoe or ski tour). Snowcat and snowmobile tours are available to visit Copahue, which generally includes a visit to the hot springs (termas).

The Copahue termas is now open during winter, and considering the challenge of getting there, it’s not surprising that there’s a very high staff to guest ratio. The thermal hot springs are not like Japanese onsens where they pump the spring water into a bath. Instead there is an outdoor fangos (mud) pool. Other than sometimes pumping in a little cold water, the hot water just rises up from the ground – it’s completely natural and raw and it may take a while to get the stench of sulphur off your body! The water temperature in the mud bath is rather inconsistent so you have to crawl around like a hippo to make sure you don’t sit on a very hot spot.

The facilities also include a steam room and they offer treatments such as facials and massages.

Visit to Copahue Volcano

The volcano sits on the border of Chile and Argentina. The actual crater sits in…. who knows where?!. The local Caviahue people say it is located in Argentina whilst others say it is located in Chile. It’s interesting to look at different maps that have the border drawn differently!

Whether you can take an excursion to visit the crater of the Copahue Volcano is really dependent on the volatility of the volcano at the time.

Snowmobiling

Snowmobiling is one way to get up to see the volcano crater up close. Eneqene Turismo can customise a private snowmobile tour up to Volcan Copahue.

Eneqene also offers snowmobile trips to Copahue (including a visit to the termas) with the option of driving your own snowmobile or being a passenger.