The time had finally come: on Thursday, August 14, I was finally on the plane from Frankfurt to Santiago de Chile. After 14 hours, Chile greeted me with summer temperatures and sunshine. But wait a minute: I actually came here to ski ...
My ski and travel companion Lee didn't arrive until Sunday, so in the meantime I went to the sea and took advantage of the warm temperatures. But at the back of my mind was always the thought: what does this mean for the snow in the coming weeks? After Lee arrived, we set off for Nevados de Chillan on Monday full of uncertainty. You rarely get reliable information about snow and weather here. But snow was forecast for the next weekend and at least the base should be here in the south. So we weren't surprised when we found firn in the ski area on Tuesday in summer temperatures. A good first day in the snow. The area offers a variety of runs with up to 700 meters of altitude difference. If that's not enough, you can double that with the help of the snowcat and a trip to the Chillan Nuevo volcano.
The next morning, we decided to go on a tour to the Nevados de Chillan volcano. To save the cost of a ski ticket, we had our landlords drive us to the snow line via a gravel road and started the ascent. For the first three hours, we crossed flat, partly wooded terrain. We slowly realized that the tour would probably take longer than planned. I was also feeling the effects of a cold, but we carried on. After an hour, however, I had to stop and decided to wait on the spot for Lee. He reached the saddle to the summit after five hours and finally decided to abandon the route due to strong winds and too much ice. We returned to our accommodation disillusioned. But looking back, it was a great tour with sunshine and beautiful scenery. I then spent the next three days in bed with a cold. As predicted, it rained in the valley on Friday. However, it snowed on the mountain until Sunday. After that, the first sunny day with little wind and good snow awaited us. We enjoyed a long day with lots of vertical meters in good conditions in the ski area.
On Tuesday we went on a tour to the hot springs and found good terrain for skiing. We joined up with three Americans, Ed, Will and Andre, at a parking lot at short notice and set off for the best day in Nevados de Chillan. From the parking lot, we headed over a small ridge into the neighboring valley of Valle Hermoso. Here we climbed out of the valley and saw an open, long and shady couloir on the other side that promised good snow. We were delighted and enjoyed the best descent of our stay. After another short ascent, we came to hot springs. These rounded off the day perfectly. Here we relaxed our tired legs before heading back. After another hour of climbing, we drove back down to the parking lot. We ended the rest of the day with a few beers and empanadas, which are small filled dumplings.
The next day, we arrived late at the ski resort and didn't feel like buying one of the overpriced ski passes. So we decided to take a short tour to Valle Hermoso. We had been annoyed by the barbed wire the day before, but on this day we were glad that the first part of our route was lined with it. This meant we could repair Lee's broken buckle on the spot with barbed wire. After just an hour, we were at the start of a short couloir that still promised good snow. Afterwards, we eagerly made our way to Las Lenas.
Continued...!
