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´.

We were excited to see a way around the main central glacier ice cliff that allowed us to ski a more direct steeper route into a different side valley than we had climbed. soft but supportive windpacked snow and some shallow powder on a perfect 40 degree pitch made for a great 3000´ or so descent with views


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.