The first South American Qualifier in this year’s Adventure Racing World Series will be Tierra Indómita – Vulcania, taking place amongst the snow-capped volcanoes and ancient araucaria forests on the Andean border of Chile and Argentina.

This will be the second Tierra Indómita Qualifier, organised by Nelson Yañez, one of Chile’s most renowned endurance athletes and Race Directors. Yañez led a team at the recent ARWS South American Championship race in Uruguay and the race organisation is a family affair with his wife, daughter and son playing key roles, as they welcome 15 teams from 8 countries.

Speaking ahead of the race he said, “Our aim is to show visitors the amazing landscapes here in Chile and to present them with a challenging route with some difficult navigation. We present them a problem and they have to find the best solution”.

“That will be the case for the stage where they ascend 2700m to the top of a volcano, where the reward will be views of 5 other volcanoes. This climb will be hard, but the rest of the course is quite fast and we expect the winners to reach the finish line in 72 - 80 hours.”

The course is 485km long, and mixed gender teams of 4 will have a total of 6 days to complete the course, sleeping where and when they choose, but the race clock does not stop when they do. They will race over 8 stages of trekking, mountain biking and paddling, including two volcano climbs plus lake and river paddling stages. The weather forecast looks stable and at the tail end of summer teams can expect night time temperatures around 0-5C depending on the altitude, and up to 20C during the day.

Team Vidaraid (Spain) were the winners last year, but are not returning to defend their title, so there will be new race winners this year. The entry list includes several of South America’s top teams and a close contest is expected.

Team Uruguay Ultra Sport has previously won an ARWS Qualifier (Raid Guarani in Paraguay) and they are joined this time by UK racer Nick Gracie, a former World Champion. They are the most experienced team in the field. Black Mamba of Brazil are regular ARWS competitors, as are the Argentine teams Propanel and Sportotal, and Norte Claro are the most experienced team from Chile. All will be aiming for a podium place.

Team Expenatur.fr/Track the Race is a combination of two successful and very experienced teams from France and Spain, and they too will be competing for the title and the prize of a free place at the World Championships in Canada in September.

There is a combined Chilean/Argentine team as well and this multi-national sporting cooperation is common in adventure racing. It’s a sport open to all levels of experience and the youngest team will be Izan Invictus, who made the finish line last year, while the Dama Roja team (Chile) is taking part in their first expedition race. The longest time they have raced for previously is 12 hours.

Teams are now arriving at the race HQ in the small Andean hill town of Lonquimay, which is surrounded by volcanoes and mountain lakes, and is the main town in the valley with some unique Patagonian flora and fauna. It was also one of the locations for filming the natural history programme ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ and is reached via the third longest tunnel in South America (4528m). In the middle of the tunnel it is not possible to see light at either end.

There many indigenous communities in the area where the teams will be racing, but until the race briefing the teams will not know where that is or which volcanoes they will be climbing.

The race will start at 8.00am on Sunday March 9th and there will be live satellite tracking of all the teams at https://tracktherace.com/en/tierra-indomita-vulcania/

You can find out more about Tierra Indomita Vulcania at https://tierraindomitaar.com/en-us/vulcania-adventure-race/ and there will be regular social media updates on Facebook and Instagram on @tierraindomitaar and @arworldseries