Sth America Slideshow








It was a beautiful day in Calgary as Nat and I boarded our flight to Santiago. As we flew over the Andes the stoke began to rise. Above average snowpacks, below normal temperatures, the adventure was sure to be epic. When we got to our hostel we knew it was time to get things rolling. We booked a rental car and confirmed our cat skiing for the weekend. Note to self:, Rental car deliveries will not look for you in the hostel, that being said, we never got our car. Three hours before we need to start driving, Anthony shows up after his epic adventures in Peru. We began looking for a car at 3am on a that Sunday. No luck, we cut our losses and decide to take a day off and spend a night on the town. In Santiago this is not always the best idea. After some casual bottles of wine and a few liters of beer, we headed out to the discothèque. While there, a wallet and passport were stolen and a girl we were travelling with, had roofies slipped in her drink. After that we knew it was time to grab our gear and head for the mountains.







Thinking it was a good idea, we decided to take the metro to the bus station, unfortunately, we ended up getting out at the wrong station and walking a couple kms with all our gear. After a nice little stroll in downtown Santiago, with sore arms and sore backs, we were finally on the bus heading for the powder.

Destination: Thermas de Chillan. When we arrived in Chillan, things looked grim. No snow for days, and hard pack from top to bottom. So instead of going skiing we decided to get ourselves a place to call home. The first night we stayed at the beautiful M.I. Lodge. (If you’re ever in Chillan make sure you check it out.MI Lodge Review)






You’re probably all thinking, what’s so good about South America? Well this is where our luck finally turns. As we went to sleep that night it was snowing large beautiful snowflakes and when we woke up it was dumping. 29 cms of fresh overnight and bluebird in the forecast. Game on!

The following days were pure epic- blue skies and fresh turns everywhere. Not to mention a posh hotel room with buffet meals and thermal springs. All courtesy of The Gran Hotel. Five days later we decided that our time was up. It was time to move on.






So there we were back on the bus this time direction: Argentina. I had time for some overdue photo editing, Anthony had some time to figure out who he could borrow cash from, and Nat had time to figure out how much she could lend. Two days later we arrived in Bariloche, again to the tail end of a drought. They must have known we were coming though, because the next morning we woke up to 20 cms of fresh in town, and little of the mountain open. Deciding to keep our energy for the days lying ahead we took this time to settled into our lake front apartment. The next morning bright and early we headed out to Cerro Cathedral.

This mountain has enough terrain to keep any ski bum happy, as long as it snows. Our first days on the mountain were epic, heaps of snow, small lift lines, tons of sick lines to shred. The mountain was ours. Epic days turned into epic nights, with more steak and vino than an Alberta oilman’s meeting. We knew life was good. After a week well spent in Bariloche we decided to move on once again. There we were back on the bus. Anthony was off to Las Lenas, and we were off to wine country hoping to get a few more days of riding in. Unfortunately passing through Portillo we noticed no new snow and we knew that nothing could compare to our previous weeks on the mountains. That being said we headed to the ocean for some R & R and finally back to Canada!


Thanks to all the great folks that helped us along the way.

SouthAmericaSki.com

The M.I. Lodge

Powder Quest

Todd Weselake Photography