Mid to late July, 2013, Farellones, Chile

Arrived in the middle of July to Farellones in the zona central of Chile. The region is apparently in the fourth consecutive drought year. Some say its the continuance of El Niño keeping things dry. Some long term forecasts seem to say it will break down in August, letting moist flow back onto the region. But I seem to remember hearing the same thing last year.

Upon arrival, things were quite depressing, really thin snowpack at the ski areas and no storms on the horizon. Then, last weekend quite out of the blue, we got a miraculous snowfall that put conditions back into a great state. The forecasting is totally inadequate here, everyone just uses weather.com or snow-forecast.com, but there are apparently no dedicated mountain weather forecasts, at least available to the public. I believe some of the industrial installations (mines, hydroelectric) in the cordillera have dedicated mountain meteorological services, but none are available to the public, or even ski resorts.

Back to the storm, snow-forecast.com was calling for something like 4-8cm this last Friday and clouds on Saturday. Instead we got about 30cm on Friday, a brief clearing Saturday morning, and then the clouds closed back in and another 30cm fell without wind (uncharacteristic for the region). Ski conditions since then have been amazing. Super stable, unconsolidated, dry powder, nicely preserved on S-SE slopes. Definitely a rocky in places under the fresh blanket, but it was a much needed storm and skiing has been great. Now, obviously, we need more, or we gonna be in the same spot again in another couple weeks.

Taking a look in the El Colorado backcountry.


Finding nice stability, we proceeded with the next step of assessment.


Dropping into a nice long run behind Valle Nevado.


Enjoying the full moon with a short hike with friends.