Since as far back as I can remember, the dream of an endless winter has plagued my brain. This year was my first chance to finally capitalize on that fantasy. With my college degree almost out of the way (finally), the financial backing of rad sponsors and nothing but snow to chase, I headed down to Chile in the middle of July. The first two weeks was spent with a special few from my Salomon team: the undisputed backcountry style master Mark Amba, the big mountain slayer Kaj Zackrisson, and the 13 year veteran of the World Cup mogul tour. We were down in Chile to test a new ski from Salomon that came straight from a meeting with the athletes last September (rad). Upon arrival to Santiago, Chile we met up and headed down to a never skied, little known valley of the Andes in central Chile. There we met up with a crew of French skiers who’ve been chasing the endless winter for 12 years straight and run a little snowmobile skiing operation in Argentina. For this trip they sleded their snowmachines over the Andes from Argentina to meet up with us in a little ranch on the Chilean side. Considering this was a work trip, I wasn’t expecting much in the terms of high quality skiing. Holy Snowballs was I wrong. The skiing ended up being completely amazing. Tons of buttery pow in one of the most spectacular mountain environments I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t the steepest or gnarliest, but damn it was fun skiing. A playground of cliffs, windlips, spines and terrain. It was all capitalized in my mind by a line I’ve been dreaming of for years. The mountain presented me with a line where I was able to hit a 10 to 30 footer, backflip a windlip, side-hit gap a huge boulder, slash two waves-like windlips and rock hit out the bottom. So fun. Yet after that, the Salomon team left me and headed back to their respective summer lives. I on the other hand had other plans.

I decided to stay in South America for the next month. After the crew departed in Santiago I waited out a storm and hopped on a bus to Las Lenas, Argentina to meet up with my best shredder buddies from Squaw Valley, Greg Lindsay and George Hjelte. After two long and brutal bus rides, I arrived in Malargue, Argentina to find that George had chased a chica to Santiago and Greg was waiting for me ready to shred. The next day was met by high winds and a closed Marte. But the day after that, the 3000’ sustained vertical face that triumphs the mountain of Las Lenas was open and ready to shred. With I’d say no more than 12 other people skiing that day, Greg and I lapped more than 20,000’ feet of 45º untracked pow. It’s pretty much the closest you can get to heli-skiing with chairlift access. From their, we met back up with George and chased a storm to Bariloche, Argentina. We got some damn fun shredding in, partied with fellow Porters teammate Michelle Parker, ate some good beef, drank some good wine and all in all had a Argentinian good time.

After one more departure of friends that send Greg and George back to the US of A. I headed back up to Lenas to meet up with girlfriend, World Champ and fellow Porters teammate Elyse Saugstad. Upon arrival we sat through a storm that dumped nearly 10 feet of snow in one day(!!!!) and waited for it to go blue. Soon it did and didn’t cloud up for another 7 days. We spent every day skiing some of the best chairlift accessed faces we’ve ever skied, hiked to peaks over 13,000’ feet and generally came home so exhausted that walking around the house was a tough task. After beating our legs up from tons of 3000 foot runs, burning our lungs up with high altitude hikes and one close call that nearly left yours truly dead (it involved tumbling a 55º couloir over serious exposure) we decided to head to the vineyards of Mendoza, sample some wine, eat some of the best steaks in the world and catch a bus to our flight home.

Looking back, I’d have to say that this ended up being the single best ski vacation of my life. Nearly two months of summer time shredding, hanging with and meeting great friends and flat out skipping the brutal heat and summer doldrums with some summer powder. It was the sauce!

Labels: Argentina, backcountry skiing, Chile, Cody Townsend, Kaj Zackrisson, Las Lenas, Mark Amba, Salomon Skis, South America

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