2024 - 2025 Far West Skier's Guide - 95

sort of blindness that powder hounds long for.
The sun was short-lived, but we were already
used to skiing by Braille from the day
before, and after all, a meter of fresh powder
covers a broad range of inconsistencies in the
terrain.
Shortly after noon, another brief glimpse
of sunlight allowed us to ski down into the La
Parva ski area, a very different ski resort from
Valle Nevado. While Valle Nevado lives off an
international clientele of Brazilians, Americans,
and many other nationalities to the noticeable
absence of Chileans, La Parva is so
dominated by the local upper class that it does
not even have a hotel! Tourists must stay in
nearby Farellones, while the entire village of
La Parva consists of private houses and apartments.
The
Chilean upper class is apparently
not heavily into skiing extremely deep snow
in pea-soup fog, for there seemed to be well
under 100 skiers on the entire mountain.
Antti and I managed to find a couple of very
friendly ski patrolmen, who, perhaps in consideration
of the lack of visitors, deemed it appropriate
to give us some one-to-one service
and act as our seeing-eye-dogs for the rest of
the day.
Similar to Valle Nevado, the upper
mountain was closed due to the storm, but
our newly found guides had no problem to
lead us to a long, steep pitch called Loma Vega
where we did laps for the rest of the day. We
soon understood that the village of La Parva
might well be owned by the rich folk of Santiago,
but the slopes were " owned " by the
local ski patrol. Even in South America,
there are a few realities that manage to level
the playing field between the classes.
Even the ski patrol has to do some real
work sometimes. When our new friends departed
for duty around four o'clock, it was
time for a rather long and cold 20-kilometer
hitchhike back to Valle Nevado, since the
upper lifts of La Parva that ordinarily connected
the resorts were closed.
August 5 was one of those magic days
that skiers live for.
Three days of heavy
snowfall had covered the Andes in a meterthick
coat of white, and we awoke to a windless
morning of crystalline blue. It was a little-boy-in-the-candy-store
kind of day. We didn't
know where to go first; deep powder
beckoned to us from all directions. We began
by laying tracks in a large off-piste valley just
west of the Andes Express lift, known as Valle
Olimpico. This took us to the Cono Este Lift,
a T-bar that serves the steepest sector of the
El Colorado Ski Area. Four virgin laps on both
sides of the lift was all that time allowed before
the entire face was decimated. The eastfacing
snow was getting heavy anyway.
It was time to move. The west facing
slopes out past the Avion piste towards the
area boundary were still untouched - three
more laps. There was so much more around,
but time was not on our side. No matter how
hard we tried, we could not use up all the
powder. Oh, well, some people refer to the
Spanish speaking regions of the world as " manãna
countries " , and we could certainly wait
until " manãna " to continue our " work " .
Jimmy Ackerson, the general manager of
Valle Nevado made an interesting point while
describing Valle Nevado. " This may be the
highest resort in South America, " he said, " but
look at this map here, we are literally only in the
" foothills " of the Andes. " Sure enough, El
Plomo, the southernmost point of the old Inca
Trail, situated just behind the highest lifts,
stands proudly at 5,430 meters. Not far behind
stands Mt. Juncal (6,060 m.), Mt. Tupungato
(6,570 m.), and a host of other monsters
that line the border between Chile and Argentina.
If
one wants to explore the territory that
is beyond the limits of the conventional resort,
one can . . . with the help of a helicopter. The
following morning, Antti and I did just that.
Our guide, Nelson, led us down the steep
pitches of powder into the Ballicas Gorge behind
the base of the ski area. At the end of
our run, I huddled close to the ground, as the
chopper approached, whipping snow around
like an Arctic storm.
Antti left his face exposed to the snow
blasting blades, and as we boarded, he
quipped, " Feels just like a typical spring day, skiing
in Finland. "
When one begins the day heliskiing in 60
cm. of powder, whatever one might try as a
follow up seems doomed to the fate of an anticlimax.
This was, surprisingly, not the case.
Powder still abounded all around the La
Parva area. We skied fresh lines into La Parva
from Valle Nevado. Then staying as high as
possible, we traversed out west of the Manatiales
Norte run, beyond the area boundary. A
couple hundred powder-turns later, we traversed
again, having completed an afternoon
of heliskiing without the chopper.
Skiing is a worthy activity to pursue in
Chile, but one should really not travel this far
afield without also seeing a bit more of the
country. I could hardly top the powder I had
experienced in Valle Nevado, so I climaxed my
Chilean travels with a couple of non-ski excursions.
I
first escaped the snowy environment
that we had recently experienced with a short
visit to the Atacama Desert in the far north
of the country. This is the driest piece of real
estate on the planet. According to Wikipedia,
" Evidence suggests that the Atacama may not
have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to
1971. " That, dear readers, is a span of 400
years without precipitation! If you want to
know what it might be like to live on Mars,
check out the Atacama.
Piling contrast upon contrast, I finished
my Chilean adventure with a trekking excursion
in Patagonia - the southernmost region
of Chile. One cannot do that, however, right
after skiing the Andes in August. I visited
many other locations in South America in the
interim, and only returned to Chile to visit
Patagonia in November - as trekking in the
southern reaches of the country is hardly possible
in winter. This is a place which experiences
flurries of rain multiple times a day,
even in summer, and the wind makes certain
that the rain often travels horizontally. Be that
as it may, a more spectacular section of
Mother Earth is hard to find.
From the powder snow high in the
Andes to the sun-drenched Aticama altiplano
to the wind-swept glacial lakes and valleys of
Patagonia, Chile is certain to leave an indelible
impression on all travelers. Happy Trails! ss
Jimmy Petterson's career as a ski journalist began back in 1985, and he shows no signs of slowing down. In 2005, he published
Skiing Around the World: Volume I, an anthology of his travels, which included chapters about 47 countries in which he had skied.
He recently completed Skiing Around the World: Volume II. He has visited, skied in, and written about, more than 500 ski resorts in
over 75 countries. Whether you are interested to read about the world's most famous resorts like Kitzbuhel, Ischgl, Zermatt, Banff,
Aspen, or Sun Valley; or you prefer to learn about hidden ski gems around the world, you will find a treasure trove of information in
his Two Volume Set. Go to www.skiingaroundtheworldbook.com for more information and to order. Also refer to page 2 of this publication.
Far
West Skier's Guide 2O24 - 2O25
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2024 - 2025 Far West Skier's Guide

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