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.