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September, Central Chile, Various

9/15/16
South America
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Posted by tabski on 9/29/16 5:36am
Went skiing in Chile earlier this month. This is a brief report, I'll be sharing some stories soon on other media outlets and will link through here, just wanted to share a couple pics anyway for the September TAY doldrums. 

Trip one: Got a heli drop to camp at 14k' under Cerro Altar/Cerro Paloma group at the head of the Yerba Loca valley. These are peaks you see looking NNE from Farellones, or E out of Santiago (when its not too smoggy). I've skied up here under my own power twice before, but we had a heavy camp and a cameraman so we paid the cheddar to bring the cheese and booze in the whirlybird. Just three nights but we skied a couloir from near 16k' on Altar, and then also had a sunset ski off the summit of Paloma (~16.1k'). The snow was generally atrocious for skiing, but great for climbing. Sastrugi, unsupportable wind board... Just fully fucking exhausting skiing especially being our first forays to altitude of the trip. Still great times.

Trip two: Came out in the heli, had a party, unpacked all the shit, repacked all the shit, borrowed a truck, and headed up to the Embalse el Yeso. This is a branch of the famous Cajon de Maipo road that goes into the big mountains out of Santiago. We'd heard it might be melted out enough to drive around the reservoir. We found this to be true, just barely. A few side-angled snow banks and mudslides along the precarious edge of the one-lane dirt road and we were past the lake. We rallied another few miles to where snow finally cut progress and threw down for the night. The next day carried camp up for a few hours. Early to bed for a 315am start, and we summited Cerro Loma Larga (17,730') shortly after noon. Mild temps and extremely good, steep compact pow off the tippy top, transitioning to psuedo corn down the couloir, access valley, exit valley, almost all the way to the car for a descent coming in at around 8,500' vertical. Unsure if this summit or route had been skied before though it is a dominant peak in the area. Shit never works out this good in Chile, we were hyped.

Drove out that night back to Santiago, and had a celebratory BBQ the next night with Chilean friends, keeping the grill lit from 6pm to 6am.


pic 1: Seba looking at the wild west face of Altar where we climbed and skied a couloir to near the top.

pic 2: summit push to Loma Larga.

pic 3: Melting our faces on Loma Larga.






Awesome!  Been to a few of those places in the austral fall.  They look much better with snow.

One more unique thing I thought you guys might appreciate. Check out the uniformity of the slope going from the lake at 2600m up to more than 5000m. (This is the north slope of Loma Larga's neighbor, Mesón Alto.) One passes under it when driving around the lake. A tuly notable scree field. ;D


Looks great Drew! Thanks for the TR and the pics!

Nice score on Loma Larga!

Siiiiiiiiiiii. Es la media Loma.
That slope on Meson Alto does look sick. 6700 feet and approx 34 degrees with corn aspect!
Check it:
(from this page)

And please fill us in on the Loma Larga route...

amazing. sipping jetstreams

author=kamtron link=topic=36856.msg150027#msg150027 date=1475255145]
And please fill us in on the Loma Larga route...


Something like this...


Awesome work and beautiful mountains out there in the Andes, can't wait to see what's in the works.

It's a different playing field once above 4,000 meters. Kudos!!

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september-central-chile-various
tabski
2016-09-29 12:36:04