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)volcan pt 2
over the next few days we settled into a routine of ski a day, travel a day scouting for good empenadas and cheap lodging as we went. I stayed out of the planning so it mostly happened over my head in spanish. It was fun not knowing if we were about to stop for a hot meal or throw tents up in the bushes somewhere. One time we were bouncing up an impossibly rutted 4x4 track through the woods at 1 am when we suddenly turned into a friends lake house complete with private rooms and kitchen staff to prepare the meals. The night before we skied Lonquimay a friend Pachi showed up at midnight seemingly up out of nowhere at our campsite in the woods. Though traveling with 5 people with ski and kiting gear in a smallish hyundai suv took some artful packing, pachi was a great addition to the trip. She is a mountain and skiing guide in chile and antarctica with an impressive mountaineering resume and could answer all my questions about future adventures.
The snow on lonquimay was pretty bad but there is a large flat area there with good winds (well a little weak during our visit) and we did some kite skiing, or in my case practice slamming the kite into the snow again and again until it broke. Llaima was my favorite peak, crazy steam and fumes on the scenic summit and perfect snow. i played deaf to shouts of foto foto foto and skied nonstop until there was no more to be skied. Villarica is a popular guided climb (the most climbed summit in in south america? chile?) and has a justifiably awesome summit crater. supposedly you can see lava inside but all i got was a lungful of acrid smoke. a far cry from the dormant volcanoes in the northwest US. When we descended to the top of the ski area on villarica at 6 pm the groomers had just finished laying perfect corn corduroy pistes. i dread the day that karma debt comes due. Osorno is a beautiful peak, much more glaciated than the others, rising from sea level to 10,000 feet above a big lake. The weather gets worse as you travel south and we had to wait a day for the skies to clear enough to give it a try. the coastal air coats the peak with ice and while trying to stomp a skin track into hard crust i pulled a binding toepiece from my ski. The timing for this mishap was as good as it could get, on our last peak before returning to santiago. In the end everyone else had to downclimb much of the route due to hard ice so the inconvenience was small.
will update this with some better pics from nicco, my camera was suffering some ghosts of a packrafting trip earlier in the summer and i didn´t take many pictures. there are some on the link at right.
antuco
I wasn´t planning to visit this part of chile, volcanoes don´t seem to capture my attention as much as the folded kind of mountains even if they are bigger and blow up sometimes. Still i jumped at the chance to come on the trip with Nicco and JP, they were great skiers and great company (when translating for the gringo) and it seemed like a great chance to see some back roads of chile. The lower valleys look a lot like northern new england (what i look for in a place i guess...) and the skiing was great. most of the volcanos have a small 1-3 lift ski area at the base which makes for easy access and you can usually put your skis on at the car at 5000´ or so. The peaks we skied were all 9500 or 10,000 feet, which made for a nice day, lots of skiing but no alpine starts or thin air. One exception to this is Lanin (which we didn´t ski), it would be an overnight or a mt baker sized day.
The employed Sebastian, JP and Nicco were geared up with all the nice things modern ski mountaineers enjoy, while students tom and claudio were duct taping mismatched skins with bad glue to their ski bases. Tom was touring on alpina xc skis with 25 year old silvretta bindings and rear entry alpine boots of the same vintage. To my great discredit i started to wonder how far we´d make it. When they took off almost at a run and led the first 2000´ in an hour i started worrying about myself instead. fortunately the pace eased a bit and we all made the summit with the sun low in the sky. hugs all around and photos with the chilean flag (which came on all the summits, we need more of this spirit in the US) and then we skied great corn down as the sun set. When we got to the car we convinced the ski area care taker to open the kitchen for beer and steaks with fried egg. This patronage entitled us to a some floor space in a storage shed where we made our camp out of the wind. The next morning we loaded the car and departed for Volcan Lonquimay.
The employed Sebastian, JP and Nicco were geared up with all the nice things modern ski mountaineers enjoy, while students tom and claudio were duct taping mismatched skins with bad glue to their ski bases. Tom was touring on alpina xc skis with 25 year old silvretta bindings and rear entry alpine boots of the same vintage. To my great discredit i started to wonder how far we´d make it. When they took off almost at a run and led the first 2000´ in an hour i started worrying about myself instead. fortunately the pace eased a bit and we all made the summit with the sun low in the sky. hugs all around and photos with the chilean flag (which came on all the summits, we need more of this spirit in the US) and then we skied great corn down as the sun set. When we got to the car we convinced the ski area care taker to open the kitchen for beer and steaks with fried egg. This patronage entitled us to a some floor space in a storage shed where we made our camp out of the wind. The next morning we loaded the car and departed for Volcan Lonquimay.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
travel interlude: getting to antuco
after getting out of yerba loca i caught a ride back to santiago to meet up with Nicco and JP. they had been planning a 10 day tour of the southern chile volcanoes for some time and invited me to come along. it sounded awesome and i was pretty bummed and i when i found out i was confused about what day it was (this happens a lot) and they had allready left for volcan antuco (maybe 8 hours south by car). after some self pity i kicked into mission mode, googled ¨ski antuco¨ saw ¨92 km from los angeles¨, grabbed my ski kit and remaining oatmeal packs and hike-metro-hike hustled to the terminal omnibusses just as one was leaving for LA.
it was sept 17, the night before chilean independance day and the red velocidad sign at the front of the bus hovered between 0 and 25 kph for the first 2 hours. when we got to LA at midnight, the bus station is empty and in an emptier part of town. i took my best guess and struck out. of course it starts to rain and i dodged from awning to awning until i got to a more inhabited part of town. internet cafes and hostels were not forthcoming and the only hotel i found was too pricey so like any good ski mountaineer errant (credit) i headed for the liveliest tavern i could hear. i had the good fortune to pick a table next to the owners family and by 1 was enjoying all the pisc-cola i could drink. karaoke started around 2, i doubt finer rendition of ¨she don´t know she´s beautiful¨ has been heard south of the equator. mostly we sang songs like ¨puerto montt¨, and my favorite, one that had a line about los piedras del camino (?) . more importantly, along the way someone drew me a map to antuco. when things shut down around 5 i politely declined offers of youuuu staaay at myyy hoooussse from my new amigo/a´s and started hiking again.
the rain soon came back and i found a shed to nap in for a bit. a little after daylight a woman caught up to me and assured me (in elaborate pantomime) that nobody was going to stop for a hitchhiker and if they did they would cut my throat. at last a bus stopped that said antuco, saved! i payed my $2, and promptly fell asleep. when i woke up the bus was empty and we were stopped with no buildings or side roads (or volcanoes) in site. the driver assured me this was the end of the line, and antucco was only 10k away. i think he was confused about his numbers because roadsigns soon revealed it was over 3 times that. 6 painfully short hitches (including the house-house bread delivery van which isnt any faster than walking but way more interesting) got me to the entrance of the park. the valley below antucco is pretty amazing (and a little like VT down low) and i was well stocked with bread so it was a pleasurable morning. i walked the last 5k or so up to the small ski resort and arrived at 11:00 just as JP, Nicco, Sebastian, Tom and Claudio were hoisting their packs to head up!
it was sept 17, the night before chilean independance day and the red velocidad sign at the front of the bus hovered between 0 and 25 kph for the first 2 hours. when we got to LA at midnight, the bus station is empty and in an emptier part of town. i took my best guess and struck out. of course it starts to rain and i dodged from awning to awning until i got to a more inhabited part of town. internet cafes and hostels were not forthcoming and the only hotel i found was too pricey so like any good ski mountaineer errant (credit) i headed for the liveliest tavern i could hear. i had the good fortune to pick a table next to the owners family and by 1 was enjoying all the pisc-cola i could drink. karaoke started around 2, i doubt finer rendition of ¨she don´t know she´s beautiful¨ has been heard south of the equator. mostly we sang songs like ¨puerto montt¨, and my favorite, one that had a line about los piedras del camino (?) . more importantly, along the way someone drew me a map to antuco. when things shut down around 5 i politely declined offers of youuuu staaay at myyy hoooussse from my new amigo/a´s and started hiking again.
the rain soon came back and i found a shed to nap in for a bit. a little after daylight a woman caught up to me and assured me (in elaborate pantomime) that nobody was going to stop for a hitchhiker and if they did they would cut my throat. at last a bus stopped that said antuco, saved! i payed my $2, and promptly fell asleep. when i woke up the bus was empty and we were stopped with no buildings or side roads (or volcanoes) in site. the driver assured me this was the end of the line, and antucco was only 10k away. i think he was confused about his numbers because roadsigns soon revealed it was over 3 times that. 6 painfully short hitches (including the house-house bread delivery van which isnt any faster than walking but way more interesting) got me to the entrance of the park. the valley below antucco is pretty amazing (and a little like VT down low) and i was well stocked with bread so it was a pleasurable morning. i walked the last 5k or so up to the small ski resort and arrived at 11:00 just as JP, Nicco, Sebastian, Tom and Claudio were hoisting their packs to head up!
crazy weed
on plomo, drew and i made tentative plans to ski the next week. after a couple santiago rest days i headed back up to farellones (town below la parva) and did a couple skin powered laps through the santa theresa backcountry. at the australian hotel rest days easily turn into drinking days (my cricket bowl is improving...still cant hit anything) and i wasn´t feeling too strong. that night i met drew and some friends for a bbq. drew was excited to check out the yerba loca valley which sounded great to me. it starts pretty low, so the next morning we hitchhiked down to the entrance and spent the day hiking and skiing in to the head of the valley. on the way we passed a group of chilean capital-M-ountaineers wearing helmets, gaiters, shorts over polypro, and harnesses a good 10k from the nearest glacier. they happily informed us that they were headed for the same stone hut we were and there would be plenty of room for all. When we arrived just before dark the casa piedra was just a boulder that you crawl under with a stone windbreak so when no chilean mountaineers showed up we were a little relieved.The next morning we decided to head up La Paloma, another popular (summertime) peak at the head of the valley. the route looked a bit roundabout for a good ski but it looked like a pretty cool peak. when we finally got to the top of the ridge (around 16000´) drew said you aren´t going to believe this. i was thinking a sweet ski line but instead there was a giant open pit mine (copper?) that had to start at over 14000´.
With some daylight to spare we climbed to another ridge in the sun hoping for some good corn which didn´t really materialize. we spent another night in the casa piedra and hiked out the next morning. there is another cool looking peak closer to the road that looked like a great ski but i was feeling a bit lazy and worried about meeting up with nicco and jp to ski volcanoes the next day so we dodged the gaurds at the valley entrance (you are supposed to pay $4/day but we are cheap) and hitched back to town.
plomo
El Plomo is kind of like the local mt rainier for santiago, its big and impressive looking, you can see it from town and its relatively easy to get to and climb. i had enough food left to give it a go and it looked like a great vantage point for checking out the rest of the nearby peaks. The forcast was pretty cold so i figured i would camp relatively low, start early and see where i got to. this worked out pretty well, i had a short day´s ski in to a camp on dry ground around 12000´ and spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun and went to bed early. solo adventures are fun but solo camping is pretty damn boring.
I got going around 3 and with the help of a bright moon and a pretty straightforward route was able to make quick progress, but i was pretty happy to see the sun when it started to light up the NE ridgetops. i got to the top about 9am and spent awhile checking out the views and wishing i had a better map to id the peaks with (got one now). The terrain between plomo and the argentinian border is pretty awesome, i hope to get back in there and explore some more someday. Also had a good laugh at myself, i was worried about the altitued and had been debating whether to turn back at 3 or 330pm i think.
i walked down some flat glacier icy stuff and put my skis on on the top of the face, mostly thinking about getting down safely. As it turned out the skiing wasn´t super steep and the windpacked snow was plenty soft for fun turns. Halfway down i noticed what looked like a tent on the rocks with 2 people by it. i stopped to investigate, a little confused what somebody was doing lounging in the sun at 16000´ at 10am. At a small metal hut i met Drew and Griffon from seattle and utah, they were doing plomo in a day from la parva, drew was skiing on k2 obsethed´s with duke bindings (very heavy alpine skis). most people say this route takes 4 days!
non goofy ski partners wanted for action photos
i had some more great turns down to the valley bottom, got my gear and headed out along the ridge to la parva. this is a little more direct and scenic than the way i came in but ended up being a lot of walking on rocks on the scoured ridgetop. i got to la parva just as the resort was closing, put out my thumb and got a ride from andres and friends. they were climbers and skiers and after a short phone conversation of which i only understood ¨gringo plomo solo! gringo plomo solo!¨ andres offered me a place to sleep at his place in santiago that night which gratefully accepted as i was out of food and ready for some rest.
I got going around 3 and with the help of a bright moon and a pretty straightforward route was able to make quick progress, but i was pretty happy to see the sun when it started to light up the NE ridgetops. i got to the top about 9am and spent awhile checking out the views and wishing i had a better map to id the peaks with (got one now). The terrain between plomo and the argentinian border is pretty awesome, i hope to get back in there and explore some more someday. Also had a good laugh at myself, i was worried about the altitued and had been debating whether to turn back at 3 or 330pm i think.
i walked down some flat glacier icy stuff and put my skis on on the top of the face, mostly thinking about getting down safely. As it turned out the skiing wasn´t super steep and the windpacked snow was plenty soft for fun turns. Halfway down i noticed what looked like a tent on the rocks with 2 people by it. i stopped to investigate, a little confused what somebody was doing lounging in the sun at 16000´ at 10am. At a small metal hut i met Drew and Griffon from seattle and utah, they were doing plomo in a day from la parva, drew was skiing on k2 obsethed´s with duke bindings (very heavy alpine skis). most people say this route takes 4 days!
non goofy ski partners wanted for action photosMonday, September 28, 2009
some skiing at last
after 3 days in the city i was getting pretty ready to ski. Still, the road to the mountains was closed while mudslide debris was cleared (heavy rain caused unstable steep slopes to wash over the road and into some house. tragically, a family was killed when their house was swept away; keeps things in perspective). I gathered a few days of food and what maps i could find in case the road opened up. some very good topos are available for popular hiking and climbing areas, in most places google maps terrain feature and internet cafe printers seem to be the best bet.
Tuesday morning the road opened suddenly and i was able to catch a ride to valle nevado resort. I hadn´t done any real research into the resorts and it turns out Valle Nevado is not where its at (La Parva is). i was able to stay interested skiing some flattish powder fields for awhile and then while hiking for better skiing out of bounds met JP, Nicco and Danica who were skiing the sidecountry of the nearby El Colorado resort. Nicco and Danica are young doctors who work in the clinic at colorado and were able to get me on the lifts there. we skied a few great slackcountry runs and then parted ways when the lifts closed.
Night came quickly i began to have second thoughts about my budget accomodations (bivy sack and a shovel). i neglected to get any gas before in my rush to catch the ski shuttle and was struggling to convince a maintnance guy solo ingles to let me siphon some gas from his sled by waving a msr bottle and 2000 pesos in his face. He is not buying whatever i am selling and i am steeling myself for cold dinner when a woman stops to clear some snow from her jeep. It is Danica! Soon i am eating with friends and spend the next two nights in a bunk above the clinic.
Wednesday i hike up and ski a nearby peak, cerro la parva with a french couple i met at the resort. The powder from the storm is getting pretty wind affected but very stable, time to see some real mountains.
Tuesday morning the road opened suddenly and i was able to catch a ride to valle nevado resort. I hadn´t done any real research into the resorts and it turns out Valle Nevado is not where its at (La Parva is). i was able to stay interested skiing some flattish powder fields for awhile and then while hiking for better skiing out of bounds met JP, Nicco and Danica who were skiing the sidecountry of the nearby El Colorado resort. Nicco and Danica are young doctors who work in the clinic at colorado and were able to get me on the lifts there. we skied a few great slackcountry runs and then parted ways when the lifts closed.
Night came quickly i began to have second thoughts about my budget accomodations (bivy sack and a shovel). i neglected to get any gas before in my rush to catch the ski shuttle and was struggling to convince a maintnance guy solo ingles to let me siphon some gas from his sled by waving a msr bottle and 2000 pesos in his face. He is not buying whatever i am selling and i am steeling myself for cold dinner when a woman stops to clear some snow from her jeep. It is Danica! Soon i am eating with friends and spend the next two nights in a bunk above the clinic.
Wednesday i hike up and ski a nearby peak, cerro la parva with a french couple i met at the resort. The powder from the storm is getting pretty wind affected but very stable, time to see some real mountains.
getting started
apologies for low literary, gramatical and photographic standards. the plan here is to keep folks up to date on my adventures in chile and argentina with a minimum of time on le internet (las internet; das internet¿ fuck i cant even find the question mark and what is alt GR? got it¿)
a storm rolled into chile just after i landed in santiago and closed the roads both to the resorts nearest to santiago and the mountain pass to portillo and argentina. this was ok by me because i needed to figure out a) where i wanted to ski and b) how i was going to get there. i spent the first 3 days exploring the used car lots of santiago, as the plan was to buy a cheap car or truck to live out of and resell after my trip. my rule was that if i got in a bind and had to sell quick for 1/3 the purchase price it should still be cheaper than renting a car for the time i was here. used cars are pricey here and i soon found myself looking at barely street leagal 10 year old xr250 dirtbikes and it still wasn´t working out. so i started looking at the ski possibilities using ski area shuttles and public transportation and realized that there were way more than a couple months of adventures to be had there.
a storm rolled into chile just after i landed in santiago and closed the roads both to the resorts nearest to santiago and the mountain pass to portillo and argentina. this was ok by me because i needed to figure out a) where i wanted to ski and b) how i was going to get there. i spent the first 3 days exploring the used car lots of santiago, as the plan was to buy a cheap car or truck to live out of and resell after my trip. my rule was that if i got in a bind and had to sell quick for 1/3 the purchase price it should still be cheaper than renting a car for the time i was here. used cars are pricey here and i soon found myself looking at barely street leagal 10 year old xr250 dirtbikes and it still wasn´t working out. so i started looking at the ski possibilities using ski area shuttles and public transportation and realized that there were way more than a couple months of adventures to be had there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)