Santiago friend JP was pretty excited to ski volcan san jose (5850m) in cajon del maipo after trying with pachi a couple weeks back and retreating from their high camp after some extended cold temps and bad weather. His wife was out of town this week so the game was on. we left santiago with traffic on tuesday night with a car full of unorganized gear and food, in true cascade warrior style for a trailhead bivy. the next two days were stormy and we followed the GPS to a hut at 3200m and then a high camp at 4300m. this was my first night in a tent of the trip, and man they are way way nicer than the bivy sack! the next morning was clear and we eventually got going after missing the alarm and spending an eternity melting water.
there are two common routes up san jose. the ¨normal route¨ climbs snowfields and a small glacier to a col north of the peak and then ascends the final 600m or so on a dry windscoured ridge leading south to the summit. we´d hoped to climb and ski the steeper ¨direct route¨ that ascends the west face to the sumit but without visibility on the approach we stuck to the electronic breadcrumbs of JP and pachi´s previous try on the normal route. To sumarize our summit push lets just say stumbling around at 18,000´ in volcanoe junk scree hours above where you left your skis at the top of the skiable snow is not the most rewarding ski mountaineering in the andes. The summit is a broad plateau with several candidates for highest point. an uncommonly strong wind (for chile) was making it hard to stay upright let alone check the map so we took our best guess and headed fro the highest looking summit. when we arrived it became clear that another one of the dirt heaps was a bit higher but clouds were starting to close in on the summit and we decided to descend. plenty close for me (heck i would have prefered to stop with the snow) but i think jp was looking for an asterisk free ascent so i felt a bit bad about wimping out. i usually don´t carry a gps if i can avoid it and probably as a consequence haven´t learned to trust it as plan A as much as i should. the clouds chased us down as we descended scree fields, some crampon glacier ice and then some tolerable skiing later we were back at the tent and back into the warm calm sun. we slept there that night and skied down to the car the next day.
Not the best ski line or aesthetic peak in my book but it was a super fun trip with a good friend. i like solo day trips but for me spending a few days in the mountains is way more fun with someone to share it with. While we were climbing the sun melted a large pool of water under our tent and JP was kind enough to move over onto it, as his thermarest was twice the size of my miserly foam pad. This brought back memories of a september week in the brooks range with polashenski where my aged tent leaked on his side, and i refused to switch sides (hey, his bag was allready wet, why waste two?).
there is plenty of skiable snow in cajon del maipo (with small penitentes forming the best skiing is around 10-14,000 feet now) but i only have a few days left here in chile and am exploring around the north a bit by bus. i hope the ski gods aren´t watching but figure a few days of sunny beaches won´t kill before returning to winter in snowy WA and (hopefully soon to be snowy) new england.
thanks fo reading!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
cajon del maipo
just got back from a week in cajon del maipo, a pretty awesome part of the andes just south of santiago. It is the local playground for chilean alpine climbers with some big glaciers and steep rock faces on awesome peaks between 3500 and 6000m. more importantly the access is easy by andean standards. unfotunately my camera finally succumed to the sheep creek blues and so no pics.
i caught a ride up with nico and jp on sunday morning and we skied the north face of cerro union (3600m) with david, ariel abraham and claudio. many of the peaks around here are unskiable or tend towards the extreme but union is has a variety of aspects to pick from that are not especially steep or exposed. after a a long but pretty valley approach we had perfect corn from the summit and only a couple hundred yards of bare ground hiking back to the car.
after union everybody else headed back to santiago and i set up base camp under a big overhanging boulder and spent the next 5 days exploring the morado valley. the weather was a bit hot and the snow was dangerously soft on the sunny days but i was able to ski arenas and mohai a couple great 4300m peaks with steepish decents off the summit and the full transition from good powder to good corn to deep deep mush on the long decents to my boulder around 2500 meters. i hoped to ski loma larga, a high peak at the head of the valley but after spending a day hauling all my junk up to a high camp i got a bit intimidated by the valley glacier i would have to cross and backed off. the snow was new and windblown (making it hard to tell how many crevasses lurked) and i decided it would be better to have my first experiments with burlier andean glaciers (all the ones i´ve been on so far have been pretty benign) be on a rope with a partner. friday i skied a great narrow couloir from a false summit of cerro rubillas behind my camp and then walked down to banos morales, the end of the road villiage. i camped there with some young french tourists and caught the bus back to santiago in the morning
i caught a ride up with nico and jp on sunday morning and we skied the north face of cerro union (3600m) with david, ariel abraham and claudio. many of the peaks around here are unskiable or tend towards the extreme but union is has a variety of aspects to pick from that are not especially steep or exposed. after a a long but pretty valley approach we had perfect corn from the summit and only a couple hundred yards of bare ground hiking back to the car.
after union everybody else headed back to santiago and i set up base camp under a big overhanging boulder and spent the next 5 days exploring the morado valley. the weather was a bit hot and the snow was dangerously soft on the sunny days but i was able to ski arenas and mohai a couple great 4300m peaks with steepish decents off the summit and the full transition from good powder to good corn to deep deep mush on the long decents to my boulder around 2500 meters. i hoped to ski loma larga, a high peak at the head of the valley but after spending a day hauling all my junk up to a high camp i got a bit intimidated by the valley glacier i would have to cross and backed off. the snow was new and windblown (making it hard to tell how many crevasses lurked) and i decided it would be better to have my first experiments with burlier andean glaciers (all the ones i´ve been on so far have been pretty benign) be on a rope with a partner. friday i skied a great narrow couloir from a false summit of cerro rubillas behind my camp and then walked down to banos morales, the end of the road villiage. i camped there with some young french tourists and caught the bus back to santiago in the morning
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
pitchas
cant make the slideshow thingy work, check these out
http://picasaweb.google.com/ebensargent/Argentina09#
http://picasaweb.google.com/ebensargent/RigsOfArgentina#
these are for the most part the same as the ones on facebook if you´re so equiped
also, drew took some pretty fine pics on the paloma trip (back in chile early sept) see here:
http://www.powdermag.com/media/photo/THE-DOVE-IN-CHILES-CRAZY-HERB-VALLEY/
hoping to ski one more peak on the border if the weather shapes up then back to chile to explore cajon de maipo if the snow is still around
http://picasaweb.google.com/ebensargent/Argentina09#
http://picasaweb.google.com/ebensargent/RigsOfArgentina#
these are for the most part the same as the ones on facebook if you´re so equiped
also, drew took some pretty fine pics on the paloma trip (back in chile early sept) see here:
http://www.powdermag.com/media/photo/THE-DOVE-IN-CHILES-CRAZY-HERB-VALLEY/
hoping to ski one more peak on the border if the weather shapes up then back to chile to explore cajon de maipo if the snow is still around
rincon
I was getting a bit tired of the long approaches to high elevation snow here (arenales trip was 5 days for 1,5 days of skiing...) and planned to return to chile where there is more snow in theory (and the views west have been very snowy). On Friday I visited Malipel, irene´s family winery. I guess it is small by mendozan standards but seemed quite large to me and very nice. The nearby peaks of cordon del plata loomed high and white over the vinyards. I definately left CDP feeling a little defeated last time and that afternoon resolved to go back for another try. The next morning i caught the bus to porterillos and walked/hitched the remaining 25k to refugio maussy climbers hut (i hope you are getting bored of this bus to hitchhike stuff, i am too) arriving, you guessed it, just at dark. the next day the weather was bad so i slept in, watched a bunch of movies (satelite tv no less) and went for a hike. The next day things improved and i got and early start to ski cerro rincon. this is a big day from the hut (9200´ to 17600ish) but better than packing a bunch of camping gear up the valley on foot in my book. i was hanging on my poles and gasping a bit by the end but the views on top were well worth it. the peaks of cordon del plata are cool, but the next range back (towards chile) is amazing and gets almost no traffic according to the guides i talked to that night in the hut. definitely expedition material, next year?? the snow was really good up high, and i was able to ski a fun steep line from the east ridge down to the glacier above the salto d agua camp. below salto de agua (most of the vert) it was survival skiing on knee deep penitentes and icy crust. stayed once more in the hut (packed that night with really interesting guides, climbers and porters) and blah blah blah walked back to porterillos, nobody stopped, got drunk on andes beer waiting for the bus and then fell asleep and missed the bus. rent a car you cheap sob.
porterillo argentina
I´d heard about an area called arenales from some climbing guides i met in cordon del plata. Arenales is known for rock climbing but they said there were also some beautiful untraveled 5000m peaks in the area. i did a quick scout on google earth and panoramio (as close as it gets to cascade climbers down here) and saw an awesome looking valley over a pass that looked manageable. as usual the logistics were a pain, half day of busses, 2 hitchs and a bunch of walking to cover what could be a 2 hr car trip. i made it to a small steel quonset hut packed with argentine climbers at dark. i had dinner with 3 guys my age from Buenos Aires who were headed up a beautiful looking 6 pitch 6a (10a/bish?) route on a clean granite spire the next day. they invited me to join but without shoes and arness i very reluctantly declined. can´t carry it all.
the next morning i hiked further up the valley and was pleasantly surprised to find another more rustic hut at 3100 m (refugio dr scarabelli). i have a betamid and a bivy sack to choose from but neither are much fun to sleep in in the incessant winds here so any windbreak is like gold. i stashed my stuff at the hut and did a recon tour up the valley. it was a long way to good snow but the terrain there looked well worth the approach. I woke early the next morning and climbed a peak at the head of the valley (on or close to the chilean border). I was a little disapointed to realize i definately wasn´t in the valley i had researched, but this one looked just as good. I later learned that this was an important pass to chile used by san martin in the liberation of chile, and in later conflict in the 1940s. Unfortunately the skies over chile were cloudy and though i was quite close to cajon de maipo (site of late oct adventures i hope) i couldn´t see any of the peaks. i scouted some lines for the next day and skied pretty good stable chalky powder in a couloir down to the valley floor. that evening a snowstorm rolled in from chile and i happily took shelter in the hut. the next morning i was a bit worried about avalanche danger from the new snow and bright sun (probably a cop out, i don´t think there was enough accumulation to matter) and retreated down valley to the climbers hut. i stayed one more night at arenales and with food and motivation running low packed up for the trip back to mendoza.
after 20k of hiking down the road i was wishing for cascadian stream crossings and brush, a case of the grass is greener i guess. finally an ancient ford downshifted and slowed backfiring to a stop. i threw my skis and pack under a tarp in the bed and climbed up in the cab. A small man of about 70 was at the wheel and i had barely shut the door when he simultaneously started talking to me in rapid fire spanish, reached under the seat for a fresh bottle of vino tinto and piloted the truck across the road into the opposite ditch. Unshaken, my new companion regained the road and took off at a managable pace of 20mph or so. we drove mostly in the road and the right hand shoulder though we made an occasional return to the left hand ditch when the conversation slash monologue got especially exciting. I opened the new bottle with his ancient swiss army knife, corkscrew half straightened from use and we established that: 1) his name was oscar, 2) he was a carpenter/ builder (i had a pocket dictionary for this one) 3) i was invited to his mothers house for lunch and mas vino. occasionally oscar would pat the ancient cracked dash lovingly and say something along the lines of ¨40 anos, auto relico¨. The correct resonse in this situation was to say si, si and look distractedly out the window, or take another drink. on the 2 occasions i expressed enthusiasm about the relico, oscar mashed the ancient column shift down into tres and matted the accellerator lever (pedal long gone). the engine would roar and we would take off at a terrifying 50-60mph until the next corner, construction crew or livestock in the road slowed us down. As promised, we stopped in vista flores for a delicious lunch with his mother and then i begged off to catch the bus back to mendoza.
the next morning i hiked further up the valley and was pleasantly surprised to find another more rustic hut at 3100 m (refugio dr scarabelli). i have a betamid and a bivy sack to choose from but neither are much fun to sleep in in the incessant winds here so any windbreak is like gold. i stashed my stuff at the hut and did a recon tour up the valley. it was a long way to good snow but the terrain there looked well worth the approach. I woke early the next morning and climbed a peak at the head of the valley (on or close to the chilean border). I was a little disapointed to realize i definately wasn´t in the valley i had researched, but this one looked just as good. I later learned that this was an important pass to chile used by san martin in the liberation of chile, and in later conflict in the 1940s. Unfortunately the skies over chile were cloudy and though i was quite close to cajon de maipo (site of late oct adventures i hope) i couldn´t see any of the peaks. i scouted some lines for the next day and skied pretty good stable chalky powder in a couloir down to the valley floor. that evening a snowstorm rolled in from chile and i happily took shelter in the hut. the next morning i was a bit worried about avalanche danger from the new snow and bright sun (probably a cop out, i don´t think there was enough accumulation to matter) and retreated down valley to the climbers hut. i stayed one more night at arenales and with food and motivation running low packed up for the trip back to mendoza.
after 20k of hiking down the road i was wishing for cascadian stream crossings and brush, a case of the grass is greener i guess. finally an ancient ford downshifted and slowed backfiring to a stop. i threw my skis and pack under a tarp in the bed and climbed up in the cab. A small man of about 70 was at the wheel and i had barely shut the door when he simultaneously started talking to me in rapid fire spanish, reached under the seat for a fresh bottle of vino tinto and piloted the truck across the road into the opposite ditch. Unshaken, my new companion regained the road and took off at a managable pace of 20mph or so. we drove mostly in the road and the right hand shoulder though we made an occasional return to the left hand ditch when the conversation slash monologue got especially exciting. I opened the new bottle with his ancient swiss army knife, corkscrew half straightened from use and we established that: 1) his name was oscar, 2) he was a carpenter/ builder (i had a pocket dictionary for this one) 3) i was invited to his mothers house for lunch and mas vino. occasionally oscar would pat the ancient cracked dash lovingly and say something along the lines of ¨40 anos, auto relico¨. The correct resonse in this situation was to say si, si and look distractedly out the window, or take another drink. on the 2 occasions i expressed enthusiasm about the relico, oscar mashed the ancient column shift down into tres and matted the accellerator lever (pedal long gone). the engine would roar and we would take off at a terrifying 50-60mph until the next corner, construction crew or livestock in the road slowed us down. As promised, we stopped in vista flores for a delicious lunch with his mother and then i begged off to catch the bus back to mendoza.
las cuevas
On the bus ride over the andes from chile i´d seen a lifetime of great roadside ski terrain. Les and Camilla recomended checking out las cuevas, not so much a town as a few buildings to the border. some internet research led to a hostel there that looked open year round. by the time i got to the bus terminal in mendoza i´d missed the last bus to las cuevas but could still get one to punta del inca, 10km away. Nobody was stopping for a hitch hiker this close to the border so i ended up hiking the last leg in the dark with a steady stream of trucks groaning past towards the 10,000´ pass in first gear. Despite a prominant abierto sign, nobody answered the bell at the hostel, or pounding on the door, or gravel to the windows. defeated, i checked into my bivy sack on the front porch and slept well.
i woke at 7am to a giant st bernards tongue on my zipper. surely a dog this large had to have an owner nearby to feed him. i hid my pack and walked around town for an hour. Most of the town is in ruins, Las Cuevas was the first argentine stop on the transandean railroad, opened in 1910 and abandoned in the early 80s (?) and hasn´t had much of a purpose since then. Some of the buildings looked lived in, but there were no cars and not a soul in sight at 9am. This mystery was solved when a crew cab F100 with an entire resteraunt staff aboard showed up from uspallata (2 hrs down the pass) at 10:30. Not long after the hostel opened as well (for lunch only, no lodging in winter).
Ski lines were in greater supply than amenities. i picked a likely one and headed up what looked like a big peak, but turned out to be a 4000m false summit of a much bigger peak (cerro toloso 5300m). The snow on this lee slope was unlike any i´d skied before, 4¨mini penitentes (snow spikes) over 2' of isothermal mush. in the cascades, a ski cut or jump turn in this stuff will safely and predictably sluff the entire slope to a nice skiable surface but here i could sink in 2 feet but couldn´t start any slides. in places the skiing was really good but a little uncertain about the snowpack i skied the least exposed line i could back to the road. a south facing gully on the same peak beckoned and i headed back up. this time the snow was much better, i think because stronger winds in the couloir packed the snow as it fell, the result was 2000` of steep primavera neive perfect.
that night i stayed in a rustic brick hut (built in the 1700s for mountain travelers, dirty but proven durable) further up the road. in the morning i climbed and skied a peak on the opposite side of the road and made sure to catch the last bus out to civilization at 430. Las cuevas walks a fine line between aesthetic ghost town and depressing trash heap and somehow felt much lonelier than the remoter surrounding valleys.
i woke at 7am to a giant st bernards tongue on my zipper. surely a dog this large had to have an owner nearby to feed him. i hid my pack and walked around town for an hour. Most of the town is in ruins, Las Cuevas was the first argentine stop on the transandean railroad, opened in 1910 and abandoned in the early 80s (?) and hasn´t had much of a purpose since then. Some of the buildings looked lived in, but there were no cars and not a soul in sight at 9am. This mystery was solved when a crew cab F100 with an entire resteraunt staff aboard showed up from uspallata (2 hrs down the pass) at 10:30. Not long after the hostel opened as well (for lunch only, no lodging in winter).
Ski lines were in greater supply than amenities. i picked a likely one and headed up what looked like a big peak, but turned out to be a 4000m false summit of a much bigger peak (cerro toloso 5300m). The snow on this lee slope was unlike any i´d skied before, 4¨mini penitentes (snow spikes) over 2' of isothermal mush. in the cascades, a ski cut or jump turn in this stuff will safely and predictably sluff the entire slope to a nice skiable surface but here i could sink in 2 feet but couldn´t start any slides. in places the skiing was really good but a little uncertain about the snowpack i skied the least exposed line i could back to the road. a south facing gully on the same peak beckoned and i headed back up. this time the snow was much better, i think because stronger winds in the couloir packed the snow as it fell, the result was 2000` of steep primavera neive perfect.
that night i stayed in a rustic brick hut (built in the 1700s for mountain travelers, dirty but proven durable) further up the road. in the morning i climbed and skied a peak on the opposite side of the road and made sure to catch the last bus out to civilization at 430. Las cuevas walks a fine line between aesthetic ghost town and depressing trash heap and somehow felt much lonelier than the remoter surrounding valleys.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
cordon del plata
I was anxious to get to argentina because there is less snow there and it melts sooner in the warmer weather. I had hoped to ski at the penitentes resort on the border of chile and argentina but it closed a couple weeks earlier than expected due to low snow. After a day in santiago tracking down what might be the only dynafit jig in south america to remount my binding i caught a bus to mendoza. In mendoza i met up with adam, a friend of some washington friends. adam has a cool ski touring buisness from mendoza, argentinaskitours.com. we hung out one night in town and drove to the nearby vallecitos ski area the next day for a quick hike-ski. vallecitos hasn´t had enough snow to open in a few years but there are a couple mountain hut-hostels that are open as the valley above is popular for climbing and aconcagua acclimizing.
san bernardo survival shred
camilla approaching salto de agua camp
downvalley views (towards mendoza)
san bernardo survival shredI was feeling sick and feeling the elevation the next day but struggled up nearby san bernardo peak. Snow coverage wasn´t very good but remarkable in that i have never skied so many shitty snow types in one trip, shallow hiding rocks, deep isothermal, breakable crust over, ice, rime you name it. the next day i opted for running shoes instead of skis and hiked up a ridge behind the hut to see if i could spot some snow in the higher peaks. On the way out i met a couple, les and camilla, skinning in to ski a nearby peak called plata. I made plans to meet them at their camp the next night and give it or another peak, rincon, a go.
camilla approaching salto de agua campStill feeling ill i struggled up the valley the next morning with a big pack and small motivation reserves. I caught camilla and Les just as they were getting to the salto de agua camp (about 4200m) where we met an argentine couple in their second week of camping and climbing in the nearby peaks. They shared some mate and tips on where to camp to avoid the rats in the trashy campsite. there is lots of aconcagua influence around here and it is curbing any interest i had in climbing or skiing purely for altitude. Unfortuanately the cool peaks around here seem to be the 5-6000 meter ones so some more altitude practice is probably in store. We spent a nice afternoon in the sun but by the next morning the winds were whipping up a storm on the ridge a thousand meteres above us and we opted for a mellow tour in the valley instead of any peak bagging. I struggled with even this easy effort, partly sick but i think i dehydrated myself by trying to stretch a small amount of fuel to stay a second night. I have been burning auto gas mostly out of laziness, but Les had a bottle of white gas from a mendoza outdoor store that froze solid in the moderate 15F temps, cut with water apparently? Feeling a bit whipped i skied out and hitchhiked back to mendoza, the high peaks looking all the snowier in the rearview mirror.
downvalley views (towards mendoza)
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