We got a bit tired of
waiting for some great snow, so we left Pucon to see if we would be able to
find anything good snow further south.
We headed to Osorno
where there is a small resort on Volcano of the same name.
The map of the area we
had wasn’t quite precise. We ask a bit around and we were eventually directed
towards what should be the resort.
I started to doubt as
we were going up a small dirt road with a slight cover of snow.
To make a long story
short, we eventually figured out once we got at the end of the road that resort
wasn’t on the north side of the resort (where we were) but on the south side.
To make it there, there was a bit more than 3 hours of driving involve….
The worst part is that
there wasn’t even enough snow to go out for some turns. Instead of skiing and
check out this small resort, we spend the day hiking around the volcano and
enjoying the view.
We were both a bit
bummed about the non-ski day, but that was certainly quite a great day out.
A bit pissed about
that mis-orientation, we left the area without going checking the resort and
headed to Antillanca.
That resort certainly
showed the signs of a bad snow year so far.
The cover at the bottom of the slope was really thin. It
seems that they were kind of grooming the rocks with the snow!
We skinned up the
resort figuring out we could climb the volcano Casablanca. Which is behind the
resort. As we got close to the
top, we found out that it was fairly icy. Actually, the slopes were really
shinny and we could barely stand. We gave up the idea of summiting the
Casablanca volcano..
From the top of the
ski resort Antillanca, we had a terrific view of the surrounding volcanoes. We
made one lap down the groom run the view was certainly better than the turns.
As we kept moving and
headed towards Argentina we found out we weren't the only one having problem with the ice!
First stop was in
Villa La Angostura to check out Cerro Bayo.
The bottom of the
resort had the worst snow covering: grass!!
We bootpacked up from
the bottom until we were able to put the skins on. We headed towards the freesking area. We eventually found out that the snow
was better up there.
After a quite
miserable start, we both had to agree that it was probably our best day so far!
We for the first time some nice cold snow to make turns on!
After that great day
of skiing, we heard from Vincent, a friend of mine from Quebec, saying he had
quite a good spring skiing day in Chapelco. We made it a no brainer to drive
the 3 hours to catch with him.
We caught up with them and drove to Chapelco where we skinned up the
resort and went straight to the backcountry.The scenery was
certainly quite nice, but the snow was a mix of powder, dead cookies and hard
spot.
The north slope had
seen much more sun and were quite soft.
As bad as the south
side was for skiing, the north side was everything you would expect from spring
skiing.
All and all, that was
quite a great day of skiing!
So good that we went
back for some resort skiing the following day.
Vince and Manu had
quite a night out and they woke up just 20 minutes before their checkout. We
spend the day out chilling and enjoying the lifts to another great day of
skiing!
We drove straight to
Bariloche.
We were pretty excited
to check out Cerro Catedral, the resort next from Bariloche, but we woke up to
some cold and cloudy day.
We figured it would be
a great day to start with some eggs and wine.
We drove around town,
did some laundry and catch up some undone geeking from the past days.
After wandering around
for the day, we caught up with Vince and Manu to check the sunset over the
lakes surrounding Bariloche.
We got stuck at the
Blest, the local microbrewery, that were offering a 50% on the beer from 6PM to
8PM. After our second 2.5liters of beer, we made the plan for the next say to
drive south to check out Perito Moreno near El Bolson.
From the maps, it
looks like there was a nice backcountry area above the resort.
We got there and found
the driest resort we have witnessed so far! There wasn’t even a trace of snow
at the bottom! We caught the chairlift to save some hiking above the resort.
We quickly found out the
area above the resort is dead flat and certainly doesn’t worth to make it up
there if you are looking for turns. We hiked around and made it up for the
view, but one shouldn’t go there for the turns.
Actually, I think the
town of El Bolson worth more stopping by than the resort. With it small hippy
market around the central plaza, it has a much better vibe than Bariloche.
After a homemade
sandwich, we kept driving south towards Esquel and its local resort: La Hoya.
We drove under a great night full of stars and stopped about 30km before making
it to town to chill and drink a bit of wine.
Another bluebird day
was waiting for us the following morning.
The good news was the
resort had snow all the way at the bottom! This was only the 2nd
resort (after Chapelco), that we found snow all the way down to the base! The snow condition wasn't too promising though!
The resort was actually
fairly covered! We even got the word that it this resort was pretty often
offering less snow due the high wind.
We hiked a bit around
and check out different aspect until we found the nice north facing slope that
was getting warmed up by the sun!
We lapped that face
almost all day enjoying the nice soft turns in that steady spring snow! I
thought I was making a trip in South America to get some more winter, but
instead, we were having spring day after spring day!
We didn’t chilled out
too much in the parking lot since about 4 hours of driving were waiting for us
to get back to Bariloche to catch up with Babiche who just made it to
Argentina.
The plans for the
coming days are to check out a bit more the skiing potential of Bariloche!
Vamos!
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