Days 8-10

Spent most of Thursday walking around town before catching the 20-hour bus ride back to BA at 5 PM.


Some shots along the way:











Arrived in BA around 1 PM on Friday and rested up before heading over to my friend’s boss’s apartment for an asado that went on past two in the morning. Tired from the long (and uncomfortable bus trip back which included back-to-back viewings of Fast and the Furious 3), we called it an early night and prepared for my pre-depression-filled departure.

Day 7

I woke up around 7 in the morning anticipating some major overnight pukage. While enjoying some granola for breakfast, the man working the hostel at that hour started some music. And immediately upon hearing it, I knew we would be in for a great day:





Got to the mountain just before nine and enjoy some coffee before eventually meeting up with C. Knight and company. There was good news and bad news.

Bad news? Mountain was indefinitely closed.

Good news? Because there was a total of 150 cm between the previous day and overnight (that’s 5 FEET of snow for the non-metric lovers).



A shot of some of the 25 or so gringos waiting it out:





Many people left before the two lifts on the right side of the mountain opened up at noon. Those that did wait it, were greeted to some of the heaviest pow ever. Pow so heavy that unless you were going down a forty-degree pitch, you were certain to be lodged at a standstill under three feet of snow.

It truly did suck, but I managed to build a nice kicker between some trees that sent you landing in a nice wet blanket of the shit. A bunch of the local snowboarders ended up staging a launch area of the side of one of the runs. About 95% of the time, they would get about six feet of air with nearly all landing upside down; everyone was having a blast.

Now the even better news?

The sextuple lift opened at 2 pm to a crowd of 40 Argentines chanting “Open, Open, Open!!”

It worked, and I grabbed the fifth chair up. I found myself with two guys … one from CA and the other from UT (names unknown but one had a green hat and Spats and the other in XXL’s). After exiting the left we traversed across looker’s left about 5-10 minutes to an empty spine complete with 150cm of untracked snow.

The first ten turns were an incredible amount of fun but quickly, the snow began to feel heavier as your got closer to the base. I made a wrong turn and ended up on a flat traverse that was a few hundred meters long. To give you an idea of how deep it was:






After about twenty minutes trekking across, I decided to duck into the trees:





I went back up several more times and even grabbed the last chair up. None of the preceding runs were as good as that first, but five feet of powder is five feet of powder no matter how you cut it.




I celebrated a great day with three pieces of steak that you could cut with a fork:






Afterwards, I ended up at Wilkenny’s which had the highest population of recent high school graduates that I’ve ever seen at a bar. A bit crowded but it sure made for a great R. Kelly playground. Left just after four and the place was still going off.

Day 6

Upon arriving at Catedral, my salivation glands quickly begin to ooze out:












Not knowing or caring much about the weather, I bought a two-day pass that set me back $42 UDS in total. Not bad, right?



Views from about one-fourth the way up the mountain:





Some nice pow lines in the distance:




And a close-up:





Because the line on the six-chair that went about three-fourths of the way up the mountain was super long, I decided to make the bulk of my day on looker’s right side of the mountain. The terrain may not have been as challenging as other options that day, but short lift lines, untracked goodies, and face shots well into the late afternoon was damn worth it.


Called it a day around 5:30 PM and saw the great Saint Bernard exploitation before catching the bus back to Bariloche:






Upon returning I rested up a bit before the main event that night which was to take place at Wilkenny’s. We had a celebrity spotting, and what could possible be more starstrucking than Christopher Knight signing autographs for endearing fans?

Day 5

Early in the rainy morning, we embarked for Bariloche and arrived in town shortly after noon. Hostel 1004 would be our home for the next four days … and for $10 a night, you really can’t go wrong. Place was well equipped with kitchen and a nice living room section … showers were a bit sketchy though. Location was just 50 yards from the bus stop to the mountain. Not too bad.

La and I did some walking around town before stopping at a vegetarian place for dinner (she loves her animal skin, but can’t eat one … go figure).

Dinner was pre-fixed and came out looking like this:




Throw in some wine and water, and this is the bill (less than $8.50 a person … again, I’ve yet to get used to these prices):




Snow was coming down pretty nicely that night, so I was hoping for a powder day the next.



Sure enough it would be face shots all day long.

Day 4

Today embarked my first turns of the trip as I headed towards Chapelco which sat thirty minutes from San Martin. The round trip cost less than $5 USD with the day pass added an ensurmountable $23.

At the top, you have a nice view of Volcano Lanin:




And a look to the east:




View towards the lake:




And with some nifty touching up skills:





Top 1/3 of the mountain was incredibly hard and cruddy with the middle 1/3 rather decent and the bottom 1/3 baked like spring break in Cancun with Bob Marley. I opted for some side/back country loving but got none of that. Snow was very sketchy and worse than typical spring conditions.


Some untracked lines to drool over:




Glimpse of my line (started on the left side of the ridge where the rocks become covered … head towards looker’s left and peeled back in where you see the slide … even if I hiked up for the lines in the middle, the snow was pretty awful):





I skied from 10 until 5 that day and the sun was not out of the clouds long enough to do anything to the top portion of the mountain which would have been sweet on a powder day (I guess I’ll have to see what Catedral brings forth).


Dinner that night was at El Regional and indulged in jabali` (wild boar). We didn’t know what it was at first, so when we asked the waiter, he pointed to his belt buckle which resembled a wolf. So until the next day when we were able to figure out what it was, I was thinking that I had just eaten wolf instead. It was a local dish so I wasn’t too worried:







We originally came here because of the local beer from El Bolson. Here’s the drink menu (if only I had more hours to spend sampling everything):




This is EASILY my new favorite beer. I was very tempted to take the couple hour detour to El Bolson to pick up a case if possible:

Day 3

Surprisingly, that was one of the best sleeps I’ve had in a while. The chair reclined back to a near horizontal position and was extremely comfortable.

Upon waking up, we were greeted with a view of snow…






Some water…






A few trees…






And purples skies??!!?







We arrive around 1 PM, and La makes her presence known:





I take a less subtle, yet more predictable approach:






Eventually, order restores.

La drinking responsibly:




Me? … Not so much:






We take a break from the booze and walk towards the lake to witness the Chapelco Tetrathlon.

5.1 miles cross-country skiing
25.2 miles cycling
4.8 miles kayaking
9.6 miles running


Link.











A view from of the lake:







Later that night, we make a dash for this Irish bar set high atop what felt like hiking up Everest to get to:




And it was certainly worth the four-hour climb as we were treated with THE best guac and chips I’ve ever had:






La takes time away to show off her gnarly bruise from earlier:




Everything smoothes out with a Hoegaarden:

Day 2

The day began with a near two-hour visit to the bank that included several line changes and miscommunications. After exchanging for local denaro, I found my way over to the botanical park. There I found this cat scouring the water for food:




Will he jump in?




“Nah. I’ll stay dry up here and admire my incredible looks.”





I soon got a little artsy before returning back to La’s apartment:




On the way, I met a dozen new friends:







We left BA at 5 PM that day for San Martin de los Andes.

My living quarters for the next 20 hours:

Day 1

As unfortunate for my liver, also unfortunate is that I was awake for the majority of the flight. There was no eye candy on the flight and all the flight attendants were well into menopause (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Because of this, I managed to grab a glimpse of the sun rising just an hour or so before landing in Buenos Aires:








The plan landed around 8 AM and two hours later, I found myself at my friend Laura’s apartment in Palermo. She’s been living here since the start of the year and we would both be making our first trek towards Patagonia.

This is La gearing up for the trip:





After unwinding for a bit, we needed some food and it was my first taste of what’s to come. We went to this small café that had some solid jazz playing. $11 USD for two glasses of really good wine and an awesome chicken dish. How could you go wrong?

You don’t, but you can make a dumbass look like me:





La ended up going back to work, and I found myself wandering around BA. Some shots around 9 de Julio (widest avenue in the world):













I eventually ended up at Plaza de Mayo just in time to witness the Mothers take their march at 3:30 PM as they have every Thursday at the same time for the last thirty-plus years:








On the floor was about a 1,000 booklets containing information about some of the 30,000 disappeared (or those that faked their disappearance):







Below is a man that spent several hours writing in the booklets and often, he would fill it entirely:








Shortly after the Mothers marched, a demonstration was underway complete with fireworks and incredibly loud drum banging:










I made my way back to La’s place where we rested up for a large late-night meal.

How large you might ask?

How about 30-onces large.




That is actually one-half of what was served. Total cost? $11 USD and came with seven dipping condiments/sauces, one of which was queso with capers. About halfway through eating the steak, the chef came out and topped my steak with 2 fried eggs:





After dinner, everyone is treated to lolly-pops:





And sticking with the culture theme of the day, La introduces me to the godfather of Tango:





A sampling of Argentina fashion:

Day -1

My trip began with an afternoon flight from Denver with about a two-hour layover in Atlanta. Braving the upcoming ten-hour flight, I parked myself in a Friday’s for some stiff drinks that should zonk me out for the whole flight. And since a day earlier I found myself a Canon A630 on the super cheap, why not become better acquainted with it while boozing up?

The results:










One would think that three 18-once LIT’s in under an hour and half would do some heavy damage, but I’ve recently been on a several months-long drinking binge that brought back from the dead my tolerance that divorced me some fifty-one months ago.

Even my first bottle of Greek wine didn’t do much to help the cause:





It was pretty tasty though … and free … always a good combination.






It gets better.


I promise.