ski

Ski Chapa Verde

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Chapa Verde is like the best place in the world. It’s this tiny ski resort an hour east of Rancagua. It used to be open exclusively for the families of the workers in the Colón mine but later open up for the public. Still, it seems like no one ever go there, which makes it so awesome!
You need a permit to drive up with your car, so we just took the shuttle from the Chapa Verde headquarters in Rancagua. The lady told us the shuttle would leave between 9am and 9:30am and we started to get a little impatient as the clock past 10am, but there were 3 other people waiting that seemed to know what they were doing, so at least we knew we were at the right place and we had not been left behind.
We eventually got the OK Go! sign. I fell asleep right away and woke up as we hit the dirt road.

Last time I was here they had a ton of snow, me and my two friends were alone on the mountain and we stayed for 4 days skiing untouched snow every single run. But that was 10 years ago. I was looking at their website before I left for Chile this time and it seemed like they had made some updates so I really did not know what to expect.
As we pulled up, I saw that it looked exactly the same as 10 years ago, just with a lot less snow.

If you didn’t bring your own gear, you could rent some in this hut;

The place has 3 lifts. As we got to the second lift, I pointed over to the last lift that is kind of hidden and asked the lift guy “Abierto?” He said something to which I responded “Si?”, he shook his head and said “No, cerrado!”.
Well, fair enough – there’s no snow and we are only 5 people here.

We cruised around for a while, took some photos and jumped over gravel on the slopes before it was time for lunch.

As we had our lunch two other skiers walked in, they turned out to be the Chapa Verde ski instructors and asked us where we were from. I don’t know what to say to that so I just let Asher respond. As he said United States, the girl said -Ok, I’ll ask my boss if he can open up the third lift for you guys.

Yeah, private tour of the mountain and an open lift just for us! Somehow we forgot that the snow conditions were dull and the day turned out to be awesome!

Close to 4pm, it was time to call it a day, we felt a little bad for them keeping the lifts open just for us and we wanted to buy them a couple of beers as thanks for an awesome day before we had to take our 5pm shuttle back.

Back in Rancagua, staying at this classy hotel;

We had a TV on the room, very luxuries!

It’s all happening right outside the hotel. I love watching this kind of stuff, but never have any desire of buying anything.

This always fascinates me;

Chile definitely should try to do something with their stray dog problem. It got me thinking though; they probably don’t have a huge rat problem at the dogs will eat the rats and I rather have dogs roaming the streets than rats. The dogs also seem to be pretty friendly.

Plaza de los Heroes. Here we learned that it was Bernando O’Higgins that was one of the main figures that made Chile independent from Spain in 1818.

Not so much happening outside the hotel at night.

Ski Valle Nevado

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I remember Valle Nevado from 10 years ago, I think mostly because I got a t-shirt last time I was there. I don’t remember much of it, but memories started to get back to me as we made our way around the mountain.
Valle Nevado is right next to El Colorado, you can actually pay another US$60 and ski both mountains on the same day and ticket as they are connected. We didn’t though, one mountain is enough for one day! 

Valle Nevado has a slightly better location and a few feet higher so the snow conditions were a little better today, but they could really do with some more snow!

The views are stunning, I like mountain views way better than ocean views!

Me!

Both the snow and the weather was better today than yesterday. The clouds started to roll in for real in the afternoon, which is good – they just have to dump some snow while they are at it.

The winding road down to Santiago.

I wanted seafood for dinner today. We checked in my 10 years old guidebook and found Ocean Pacific’s, a place that seemed cool with reasonable prices. We decided to swing by to see if the place was actually still there and to look at the menu. Off course the waiter decided that our “can we see the menu?” meant “a table for two please”. It was just for us to shut up, sit down and eat.

The place was super cool though and the food was delicious!

Ski El Colorado

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First day on skis since the end of April. We headed to El Colorado, 90 minutes on a zig zag rode east of Santiago.
The conditions were not epic, but there’s snow and we wanted to take it easy on the first day anyway.

At the end of the day, we agreed that it was an awesome “bad day”. Overcast and not a lot of snow, but we are just happy we get to ski!

It took forever to get down the hill to get back and as we past one of the 180 turns we found out why; horses are blocking the road! I’m slow as usual and only got their butts.

As there were free overnight street parking after 8pm, we stopped by a sports mall on the way home to check out prices on ski gear (pretty much the same price as in the US), waste some time and a cup of coffee at the Burgers Beers and Boards cafe.

We had no special requests for dinner so we just stepped into the first place that was open and seemed ok. I got two local IPA’s, one with a terrible pour.

We are staying in the Barrio Brasil neighborhood, they have a street called Santa Monica, photo needed.

Vacation Time!

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I made it in time for the pre take off beer in the airport bar.

Whenever I travel, I try to travel light. It’s not always that easy when you travel with skis though. I take my boots as a carry on because whenever I check them the airline tend to delay my bags.

Packing

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I’m flying off to Chile tomorrow and I’ve been panicking a little over the last couple of days because I have not had much time to do my packing. 

Traveling is fun, but packing is boring. Let’s have a beer instead!

Packing

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I’m flying off to Chile tomorrow and I’ve been panicking a little over the last couple of days because I have not had much time to do my packing. 

Traveling is fun, but packing is boring. Let’s have a beer instead!

Bye Bye Mammoth

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Or as I like to say it; Let’s close this shit down! 
Even though they got a bunch of snow over the weekend and the mountain stays open for another month, this will highly likely be my last ski day of the season. 

Slasher and his posse is moving houses in a few days. I made sure I’m busy all through May so I don’t have to help with the move.

Winter

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I woke up to winter! I don’t remember the last time that happen!

Waiting by Chair 23 for ski patrol to do their magic and secure the mountain from avalanches. The 40 minute wait was well worth the waist deep snow! It almost killed me though, I don’t think I’ve ever skied that much snow. Or if I have, I was in better shape back then.

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Off to Mammoth

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I got a snow alert on my phone earlier today, stoked since I had already planned on heading up to Mammoth anyway! 

I’ve been craving Banana Cream Pie for a while, and had never been to Marie Callender’s – another American fine dining establishment, so we stopped by in Lancaster for dinner.

Pretty depressing and as gross as expected. Marie Callender’s box is checked and I don’t have to go there again. Ever.

A few hours into the drive we saw a bunch of arrows and flashing lights, that we totally ignored. About a mile later the wind was picking up and shortly after that we passed by an overturned semi-truck. The reactions in the car was “oooh, that’s why, it’s to windy they wont let the trucks pass” and “aah, I was to slow, I should’ve taken a photo!”
2 minutes later we passed another overturned truck, I was quicker on my phone this time.

We had just about calmed down from seeing the two overturned trucks when this came up on our left;

3 overturned trucks on a less than 5 minute stretch! Ok that’s enough, it’s not fun anymore. Never seen anything like that before, better slow down!

Mammoth welcomed us with 2 feet of new snow. The plow had been nice enough to stop by, but ignored the driveway, so let’s start the weekend with shoveling snow at 10pm!

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Mammoth Day 2

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Another beautiful day on the mountain. It was a little windy on top, but the snow was still awesome.

I never want to stop, but my legs thought I had enough by 2pm so it was time to head back to Los Angeles. About halfway home we were considering doing a 180 turn, head back up to the mountain and call in sick tomorrow. But the grown ups inside of us spoke out and made us continue all the way back to Los Angeles.

Categories ski