ski

Magnus doing the classic “did I hit a rock?” check.

We soon found a face that looked good with soft snow, a quick 30 minutes hike up and off we go!

We like leaving our stamp in the snow, as you can see, there where still plenty of mountain to rip up!

After lunch we though that this was a good peak to hike.

We took the lift as high up as we could get, signed off our lives on a document and off we went to the words of “Loco gringos” echoing in our heads.

It is always comforting when you walk by one of these signs:

As always, we are well prepared with plenty of water and snacks for the hike… or not. But we made it to the top, the hike itself was not so hard, but the altitude and the thin air make me feel like I have a lung capacity of a 70 year old that’s been smoking all her life.

We made it to the top, the view was stunning, as usual with snow covered mountains!

The Andes

Magnus was the first one to click in the skis and throw himself out.

Johan was next.

And then Geico
He made a small tumble, but was soon back on his feet.

After this amazing run it was time to call it a day, we had planned to head down south to a different mountain to ski on tomorrow. We only had one last long run in the groomed tracks to get down to the car. My legs were so tired I had to make plenty of stops, when your legs are tired, there are two ways to get down: you either go super slow, making many 180 turns, or you just keep your head up and make a straight line down the mountain without doing any turns. The later is only recommended if you know the mountain well, or if it is fairly empty so you don’t have to be a responsible skier and be aware of co-skiers. I did a combination of both. During one of my many stops, Magnus came up me to asking “Man, can you feel the burn in your thighs?” -I was to tired to even come down in position to get the burns in my thighs! But I made it down safe and in one piece.

We were 4 people with luggage and equipment in one small SUV, it was a little tricky to fit everything in.

But since we are the Tetris generation, we managed to squeeze everything in and still have room for 4 people.

Or 3.5 at least. We only had an 8 or so hours trip ahead of us, so it didn’t matter if one of us only could get one cheek down, as long as the driver was comfortable!

Good Bye Las Lenas, you were awesome to us!

We had a fairly long trip ahead of us. We had planned according to the maps, that it would take us approximately 9 hours to get down to San Martin from Las Lenas on Ruta 40. If we were lucky enough, we would get there before midnight, and if anything came up along the way, we would only be a couple of hours away and we could to the last leg tomorrow morning and still have plenty of time to ski the next day.

But who knew that Ruta 40, a decent size highway in Argentina only had one lane? Once you got behind a truck, you had to stay there for a while before you got a chance to pass.

Or that a little later, the road would turn into a dirt road that was so bumpy you thought the car would shake apart if you went faster than 40km/h?

So, it took us a little longer than planned, I managed to fall asleep in the back seat and woke up in a town in the middle of nowhere where we decided to stay over the night. I have no idea where.

Traveling on long distance buses in South America is like travel business class on any airline, super comfy, and you get a little meal as well! It was a little chill on the bus this time, but there were plenty of room so we got some good sleep in before arriving in Las Lenas and hitting the mountain.

My two friends from Sweden picked us up from the bus, we jumped in the car as they had heard that you could park at the hotel a couple of minutes up the mountain for free, rather than paying the 60 pesos down at the regular parking lot.

We were all geared up and ready to go when a car pulled up and started to questioning our choice of parking spot… were we hotel guests? Did we have a room? We off course played dumb and did not understand any Spanish at the time, when the gentlemen in the car tried to explain in English, we played even more dumb and did not understand any English. After a while Magnus just said “Amigos” and pointed at the hotel which seemed to work as they gave up, said it was ok for us to park there and drove off. Yay, we were ready for some fresh snow after 50 hours of traveling!

But wait, we forgot about lift tickets… Magnus and Johan already had theirs as they got to Las Lenas a couple of days earlier, but me and Danny still had to buy ours, the problem though was that we were now at the hotel, and we had to buy ticket from the office two lifts away.

In proper el touristo manners we sneaked by the first ticket controller, and I sneaked by the second as well as she looked away, but for geico it was a no no, he could not even use his gieco charm to explain he was only one lift away from the ticket office.

Not a big deal, the rest of us just got the ticket for him and a few minutes later we were all ready to go.

Magnus and Johan thought it was a great idea to do a hike for the very first run, me and Danny was swearing and hating and regret that we even showed up in Argentina! Hello – first run… we’ve been traveling 50 hours straight, comes fresh of the bus and you guys want to do a hike! Didn’t we just buy lift tickets?

After 30 minutes of hiking straight up, Johan said this is good, we all agreed! But then he started to hike again, he is like a mountain goat!

The rest of us had enough though and stopped where we were letting him hike up the rest by himself.
Me at the in-run, waiting to do the first turn of the season!

Which ended like this…

I ate it in the very first turn 🙁 So much snow though that it didn’t hurt. A lot of people laugh when they see a ski or two up in the air, but it is a technique to master to fall correctly… you want to get the ski’s up as soon as possible to prevent to get all tangled up, break a leg or loose a ski in waist deep powder that if you are lucky will find two ours later. Got myself organized and managed to stay on my feet for the rest of the run. 30 minutes up and 30 seconds down, but it is so worth it!

Johan blazing down the mountain.

The Las Lenas ski resort surrounded by the Andes.

Happy geico after a good run!

We checked out the other side of the mountain after lunch, the lift took us up to the peak, but we traversed over to where the snow seemed better, we just had to cross some rocky patches.

Lots of snow!

After ski beer at the hotel, since I was the first one to fall, I had to buy the first beer.

We’d heard there were a supermarket somewhere closed by, so after the beer, we all jumped in the car, hunting for the market. We had a feeling it was located behind a gate so when the gate opened for a car, we sneaked in behind. This was a high alert signal for a security guard who came running towards us, waiving his arms and gave us time out gestures. Someone from the backseat shouted FLOOR IT! But Magnus, the designated driver would not listen and politely stopped. Here we go again… Spanish? No habla! English? What’s that? Supermarcado, supermarcado! – That didn’t work either, so it was just for us to turn around with the tail behind our legs.

We stayed at a newly opened hostel in the small village of Los Molles, some 20 minutes down from the mountain. Breakfast and dinner cooked by a japanese chef was included. It was only us 4 staying at the hostel, and it was nice to catch up with old friends I only see once every or every other year over a bottle of wine after a good day at the mountain.