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Chile has great places just outside Santiago for weddings, old haciendas complete with capillas, vineyards, fountains etc. And great views of 80km of the Andes to boot. Here a view from Fundo Patagonia (what else?) of the Cajon del Maipo, with V Tupungato on the left, 90km away and half in Argentina.
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Heavy snow falling today
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Looking better, but still not much snow at 1,600m in Corralco
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Still dumping, getting the blood boiling
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Wednesday partial opening announced for LP
Not many webcams running further south, but I found Cerro Bayo running for lift rides
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Catedral and Las Leñas webcams are down.
The latest precipitation stats, with relevant stations highlighted north to south
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Pretty close to normal at all latitudes, save Chillan. The big dif is that the rainfall to date in the south hasn’t fallen as snow at the ski area bases, while Curicó (Maule) and north it has for the most part.
After high winds on Sunday, which ripped up exposed slopes, all faces look draped today
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And draped they were. 30-40cm on the wind hardened base. Hard to figure where it was just piled on rock.
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Careful with that crack, Eugene
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Just stay away from the cornices
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Good snow right to the bottom
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Some big slabs slid, along detonation ridge
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Below chimenea chica
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My pass lets me slip into the La Parva bowl and ride VN lifts, just to find this
cryptic warning
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But the pow was “regular”
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The moto boys will find a way
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Tres Puntas opened and I skied the lengthy trail over, arriving just in time for it to break down. So that was it for the day.
most excellent stoke!
X2!!
So 25cm fell last night, nice and light but drifted and bumpy on more exposed faces, with the clouds lifting at dawn. Practically the entire mountain was unpacked, with just 3 lifts running above the town. More on that later…
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Sheltered spots were great. I got to ski the Vegas lift line
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Ha ha, that is the run closed due to a “lack of snow”
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Sweeeet.
Gorgeous!
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In spite of the pathetically incompetent operations of La Parva, if the important thing was access to powder, that there was
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Falso parva
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Upper Manantiales
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Late day sweet spot
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Too much steep is scary, just south of that line it slid a few days ago
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Before the last snowfall
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La Chimenea and La Pared were skied
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Too bad about the rest
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Depending where you are, the “general appreciation” is
“Flujo zonal y aproximación de vaguada”
Or just
“Aproximación de vaguada”
Or
“Inestabilidad atmosférica”
But flurries it is north to south
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A vaguada is a trough
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After a day of wild wind and clouds,
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yesterday evening started with yet another gorgeous sunset with a sea of clouds and light precipitation below
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This gradually rose up the Andes, dropping ultralight fluff for a couple of hours, for a total of 5-10 cm overnight, refreshing things nicely
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Between turns with grandkids I got a look see at VN, here 3 Puntas slack country with new and old tracks
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3 Puntas
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Andes Express
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Las Tórtolas from VN
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So with the vaguada continuing for a couple more days we may see some minor light dumps. Long range central zone is dry.
The signage in VN just keeps getting better
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Never heard of a Pertiga in Chile
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Nice line off Cerro La Parva ridge
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Dos Tiempos and Valle Arenas are cooking.
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Poor Portillo
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“Preventive measure” due to unstable atmospheric conditions.
https://x.com/upfronterizos
The Chilean andes now have snow from the tropics to Cape Horn
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https://www.perfil.com/noticias/actu...istorica.phtml
The Pachayatas volcanos, 6,300m each, at 19 degrees south, V Pomerape south face looks skiable
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Big polar high pressure system in effect, resulting in frost warnings, and couple days of Puelche winds in the Araucanía. This is a reversal of wind direction in certain watersheds, with Argentine pampa air blasting the lakes and, some times all the way up the volcano, as now:
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This also implies high levels of woodsmoke contamination mainly, implying restrictions in many of the Central Valley cities. Good old temperature inversions….
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Elsewhere in the south there is loads of snow up high
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It should be said that the central zone base is still lacking. While the base is solid at the bottom, it is thin, and being winter holidays, overskied.
La parva has about 2/3 of the lower mountain (most of the steeper runs) closed, and many of the upper runs. Black is closed as of last Friday
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All of those black areas were skied out powder though.
Portillo has the west half closed (Roca Jack and Juncalillo).
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Thin pickings up for the central zone, but something is on the horizon for the south
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Get into the groove with Andes Touring, exploring Arenas, O'Higgins, Maule, Araucanía....
https://youtu.be/ikvjGe2yMoU?si=uUWWrEaBx_b3hUKj
Great soundtrack, big bloopers, rad terrain.
Heat wave for a couple of days, snow destroyer
“Nosotros tuvimos generosas precipitaciones durante la primera quincena de junio, se acumuló buena nieve y buena parte de esa nieve se va a perder en los próximos tres días como consecuencia de este evento anómalo de calor"
20C+ temp difs during the day
https://www.emol.com/noticias/Nacion...ndaciones.html
Local yokels to the rescue in Lonquimay
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Kudos to our friends in green too
MCP stirs the 3 Valleys pot further, and beyond, buying into Andacor. 5 ski areas, about half of the market, would be under its hat if this goes thru
https://www.df.cl/empresas/industria...y-farellones-y
The same paper lambasts La Parva
https://www.df.cl/df-mas/coffee-brea...25-de-la-parva
Corralco looks good, but a closer look reveals the new high speed quad isn’t running, and the old double is.
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Gonna be interesting to see what MCP does with their new aquistions. https://www.saminfo.com/news/sam-hea...ompany-andacor
I heard a rumor about the MCP purchases this past winter. Connecting the three big areas is pretty sick.
Go south for new snow
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So no new snow for 2 weeks, heavy traffic from winter holidays, and warm temps the last few days have done a number on the 3 Valley groomers. Pebbles and dirt are spreading up the mountain. Off piste is less hazardous than piste.
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The upper mountain has a good base, and the snow is still packed powder.
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So with no new snow forecast, things will get increasingly restricted. Too warm.
On the other hand, avalanche hazard is down
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So this is an apt photo of people who are “aperrado” or brave and stout. Full pack heading up 2000 vertical meters, hot day, sinky snow.
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And it was a good day for mini monster trucking
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And selfies
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Chillán has better snow, for now. Here celebrating the end of winter holidays
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Now the new quad is running….
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Run down on the state of the 3 Valleys…
With 16 days since the last snowfall, hard work is required to keep the piste in shape, and elsewhere is highly variable
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The lower LP La Paloma lift kinda abandoned, for the brave only
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So what better excuse do a ski-about, going high (3,000m up), hunting the recently groomed packed powder with my 7 year-old granddaughter.
Here heading to take the “cool” double chair In VN
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Vals on Tres Puntas, which was the only packed run
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Then the high road to the hotel and around the lower bowl
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What could be finer?
Well maybe La Leñera
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Some b side shots:
More irregularities
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I finally got a definition of “irregular” from the ski patrol - no “fresada”, o no “pisada” in Chilean. Yet more “newspeak” from MCP, which best describes the apparent policy of packing one run per lift, at best.
Dumpers with a view of Sta Teresa
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Yet another “Mechanical failure” leaves Ancla out of commission for the last 10 days.
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The other upper lift “Del Inca” shut down too. So VN 2nd highest run was only accesible from LP.
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Dry times everywhere
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A drought in the making. This is supposed to be the snowiest month of the year.
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