Thread Starter
TS
18th August - Bluebird Powder Day and Best Day of the Trip!
After a decent day of skiing on the 17th, expectations were even higher for a great day on the 18th. We'd had more precip the night before but this time, it turned to snow down in Las Trancas. That is going to mean good quality snow on the mountain, so we were keen to get up there as soon as possible. I took Andrew, Kevin and Mike and we quickly bought our tickets and headed to the Otto chair. There was a small lift line but it passed quickly. Surprisingly the lift opened on time so up we went. It looked great! The visibility was perfect and from looking at people's tracks, the powder was settled but looked much lighter. This was going to be a good day!
I wanted to go for quality, not quantity of laps and preferably ski untouched lines to really give the guys the true Nevados de Chillan experience. Patrol were at the top of the lift and they were checking beacons for anyone wanting to go through the gate and into the Freeride Zone. They will do that normally for the first couple of hours when they re-open the Otto chair. I appreciate that they do that. We were checked and then we headed straight up the quick 3-minute bootpack to the top of a big, steep, open bowl. We were the first ones there. There is a big cornice and a part of it had collapsed into the bowl. To the right there was a steep ramp but no cornice.
When the cornice had collapsed, it broke off and obviously went down the slope, but it didn't en-train any new snow with it; no slabs had been disturbed. That was a good indicator of stability in my mind. As long as we stayed away from the debris, we should have a nice run. I dropped in first and skied some big GS turns with speed, down to a knoll which would be our meeting point. Stability was solid. The rest of the guys skied the face one at a time and there was a lot of hooting and hollering from them. I think people enjoyed that first pitch.
We stayed high and headed up onto a ridge that took us back towards the resort boundary. There was another large open bowl ahead of us so with decent spacing, we dropped into that next. That was also untouched. It was a great line and the energy of the group was really high now. We had some traversing to do to get back into the resort but we moved quickly and were soon back at the Otto chair again.
It was very tempting to do another similar lap but I wanted to keep skiing untouched lines so we put the skins on and took the 40 minute skin up higher to the same area I had skinned with the previous group. That was untouched and I made sure we would get to it first. With no one on our tail, we could take our time, work on a little ski touring technique and take some nice photos. We made it to the top of the line and I scoped the terrain. You could only see down the top bowl and then there are two more nice pitches after that. My concern was the steeper, wind-loaded slope to the right so I did a ski cut and then tested the steeper slope with speed. Nothing moved. The guys then skied to the left of my tracks, one at a time. I asked them to spoon the tracks and they took me very literally, skiing a very tight series of lines spooning my tracks very tightly. Bravo!
On the next pitch, we could ski fall-line and as long as they stayed off the far right side where it was again steeper and more wind-loaded, then the turns should be nice right down the middle of the longer bowl. I did some shorter turns and then the guys skied one at a time parallel to my tracks. That was a lovely line. Then it rolled over steeper through some rock bands, so again it was one at a time and I could see and film the guys from a safer spot further down. We had a nice spread out, team-ski ski after that in the valley before making the traverse out again. We stopped into the Alto Nevados for some lunch after that.
For our final run, again it was very tempting to ski another lap in the same area, but I wanted to show the guys another side of the mountain and a new line for them in the Tres Marias area. I was confident the top would be good but it would be a little bit of a roll of the dice to get out given the general lower snow year. They were up for the adventure though so we took the Mirador chair up (more so they could see that area too) and then down to the start of the Tres Marias run. This is a mellower run but with a ton of fun features like wind-lips and natural quarter pipes to play on and it's very long at more than 14km's long.
We had a couple of nice steeper faces at the start before we hit the main ridgeline and our run proper. There were no tracks on it and the guys were still keen, so off we went. Once you are on that particular line, you are pretty much committed. If it got really bad, we could always skin out. The top was great, with some soft snow and lots of fun little hits. With mine being the only track, we could ski some longer pitches at speed with the guys following my tracks and no danger of anyone taking a wrong turn. We had a long ski down through some really fun terrain before things got more complex. The ridge we were on had a deep gorge to the left with a partially exposed creek in it and to the right, very tight brush. We had to stay on the ridge.
As long as you went slowly, you could pick a line though and miss the rocks and bushes. When it's got more snow on it, it's a really fun time, but with the added bonus of critical turns, it was a nice challenge you had to concentrate. It took some time but we made decent progress. There was just one section where we had to do a little sidestep but otherwise it was all downhill, but we took it slow. We finally made it to our exit which was a snowmobile track insight of the Refugio chairlift and then after a 3 minute herringbone up a gentle hill, we were on the track and skiing out. That bought us almost to the bottom of the groomed Tres Marias run and down to the bottom lift at Tata. That whole run had taken almost 2 hours so were pretty much done for the day. We took the lift and then the poma before heading back to the Hotel Alto Nevados for a well earned adult beverage before taking our van ride back down to Las Trancas.
I had made the claim that I thought it was probably going to be the best day of the trip and it turned out it was. The weather was about to come back in, in a major way with huge amounts of precipitation in the forecast. Unfortunately the storm was going to start off very wet and translucent snow was in the forecast before turning to snow a couple of days later. Anyway, we'll go through all of that in due course. Here's some photos from the day and later on, I have some edited footage of the day. Here we go.....
Heading up the Otto chair for our first run
The snow in the Freeride Zone is looking great!
A quick 3-minute bootpack takes us to the top of our line.
Skiing to the right of the cornice area, one at a time,
Some big chunks of debris came down from the cornice collapse (natural, would have happened during the end of the storm), but none of the layers below had pulled out, so a pretty good sign of stability.
View attachment 20230818_105002.mp4
Nice skiing down into the valley. Those 4 tracks our the continuation of the cornice line.
Seal of approval!
Dropping into a steep face as we continue our line through the Pirigallo Valley. From here, it would be a traverse out to the skier's right.
The skins are on for the next lap. Time to go higher into the Pirigallo Valley. All three of the local volcanoes are in the shot; Nevados de Chillan on the left, then Nuevo (former active volcano) and then Viejo on the right.
The old cross, one of the landmarks on the way.
First part of our line after the 40 minute skin.
Definitely some aggressive spooning going on!
View attachment 20230818_124654.mp4
A better view of the second pitch.
View attachment 20230818_124754.mp4
View attachment 20230818_124820.mp4
The aftermath!
The 3rd pitch, my tracks are in the middle through the rock band.
All four of our tracks, plenty of room so everyone had a fresh line.
Nearing our exit. If you look closely, you can see our tracks in the upper middle of the valley,
Tres Marias, at the end of the run where we had to do a little sideslip and then sidestep up and out a little canyon. You'll see more of this run in the edited video in the next post.
A happy crew! It had been a fun day with great skiing and a great overview of some of what Nevados de Chillan has to offer. Boys are stoked!
Edited video from the day is coming next......
- Matt
After a decent day of skiing on the 17th, expectations were even higher for a great day on the 18th. We'd had more precip the night before but this time, it turned to snow down in Las Trancas. That is going to mean good quality snow on the mountain, so we were keen to get up there as soon as possible. I took Andrew, Kevin and Mike and we quickly bought our tickets and headed to the Otto chair. There was a small lift line but it passed quickly. Surprisingly the lift opened on time so up we went. It looked great! The visibility was perfect and from looking at people's tracks, the powder was settled but looked much lighter. This was going to be a good day!
I wanted to go for quality, not quantity of laps and preferably ski untouched lines to really give the guys the true Nevados de Chillan experience. Patrol were at the top of the lift and they were checking beacons for anyone wanting to go through the gate and into the Freeride Zone. They will do that normally for the first couple of hours when they re-open the Otto chair. I appreciate that they do that. We were checked and then we headed straight up the quick 3-minute bootpack to the top of a big, steep, open bowl. We were the first ones there. There is a big cornice and a part of it had collapsed into the bowl. To the right there was a steep ramp but no cornice.
When the cornice had collapsed, it broke off and obviously went down the slope, but it didn't en-train any new snow with it; no slabs had been disturbed. That was a good indicator of stability in my mind. As long as we stayed away from the debris, we should have a nice run. I dropped in first and skied some big GS turns with speed, down to a knoll which would be our meeting point. Stability was solid. The rest of the guys skied the face one at a time and there was a lot of hooting and hollering from them. I think people enjoyed that first pitch.
We stayed high and headed up onto a ridge that took us back towards the resort boundary. There was another large open bowl ahead of us so with decent spacing, we dropped into that next. That was also untouched. It was a great line and the energy of the group was really high now. We had some traversing to do to get back into the resort but we moved quickly and were soon back at the Otto chair again.
It was very tempting to do another similar lap but I wanted to keep skiing untouched lines so we put the skins on and took the 40 minute skin up higher to the same area I had skinned with the previous group. That was untouched and I made sure we would get to it first. With no one on our tail, we could take our time, work on a little ski touring technique and take some nice photos. We made it to the top of the line and I scoped the terrain. You could only see down the top bowl and then there are two more nice pitches after that. My concern was the steeper, wind-loaded slope to the right so I did a ski cut and then tested the steeper slope with speed. Nothing moved. The guys then skied to the left of my tracks, one at a time. I asked them to spoon the tracks and they took me very literally, skiing a very tight series of lines spooning my tracks very tightly. Bravo!
On the next pitch, we could ski fall-line and as long as they stayed off the far right side where it was again steeper and more wind-loaded, then the turns should be nice right down the middle of the longer bowl. I did some shorter turns and then the guys skied one at a time parallel to my tracks. That was a lovely line. Then it rolled over steeper through some rock bands, so again it was one at a time and I could see and film the guys from a safer spot further down. We had a nice spread out, team-ski ski after that in the valley before making the traverse out again. We stopped into the Alto Nevados for some lunch after that.
For our final run, again it was very tempting to ski another lap in the same area, but I wanted to show the guys another side of the mountain and a new line for them in the Tres Marias area. I was confident the top would be good but it would be a little bit of a roll of the dice to get out given the general lower snow year. They were up for the adventure though so we took the Mirador chair up (more so they could see that area too) and then down to the start of the Tres Marias run. This is a mellower run but with a ton of fun features like wind-lips and natural quarter pipes to play on and it's very long at more than 14km's long.
We had a couple of nice steeper faces at the start before we hit the main ridgeline and our run proper. There were no tracks on it and the guys were still keen, so off we went. Once you are on that particular line, you are pretty much committed. If it got really bad, we could always skin out. The top was great, with some soft snow and lots of fun little hits. With mine being the only track, we could ski some longer pitches at speed with the guys following my tracks and no danger of anyone taking a wrong turn. We had a long ski down through some really fun terrain before things got more complex. The ridge we were on had a deep gorge to the left with a partially exposed creek in it and to the right, very tight brush. We had to stay on the ridge.
As long as you went slowly, you could pick a line though and miss the rocks and bushes. When it's got more snow on it, it's a really fun time, but with the added bonus of critical turns, it was a nice challenge you had to concentrate. It took some time but we made decent progress. There was just one section where we had to do a little sidestep but otherwise it was all downhill, but we took it slow. We finally made it to our exit which was a snowmobile track insight of the Refugio chairlift and then after a 3 minute herringbone up a gentle hill, we were on the track and skiing out. That bought us almost to the bottom of the groomed Tres Marias run and down to the bottom lift at Tata. That whole run had taken almost 2 hours so were pretty much done for the day. We took the lift and then the poma before heading back to the Hotel Alto Nevados for a well earned adult beverage before taking our van ride back down to Las Trancas.
I had made the claim that I thought it was probably going to be the best day of the trip and it turned out it was. The weather was about to come back in, in a major way with huge amounts of precipitation in the forecast. Unfortunately the storm was going to start off very wet and translucent snow was in the forecast before turning to snow a couple of days later. Anyway, we'll go through all of that in due course. Here's some photos from the day and later on, I have some edited footage of the day. Here we go.....
Heading up the Otto chair for our first run
The snow in the Freeride Zone is looking great!
A quick 3-minute bootpack takes us to the top of our line.
Skiing to the right of the cornice area, one at a time,
Some big chunks of debris came down from the cornice collapse (natural, would have happened during the end of the storm), but none of the layers below had pulled out, so a pretty good sign of stability.
View attachment 20230818_105002.mp4
Nice skiing down into the valley. Those 4 tracks our the continuation of the cornice line.
Seal of approval!
Dropping into a steep face as we continue our line through the Pirigallo Valley. From here, it would be a traverse out to the skier's right.
The skins are on for the next lap. Time to go higher into the Pirigallo Valley. All three of the local volcanoes are in the shot; Nevados de Chillan on the left, then Nuevo (former active volcano) and then Viejo on the right.
The old cross, one of the landmarks on the way.
First part of our line after the 40 minute skin.
Definitely some aggressive spooning going on!
View attachment 20230818_124654.mp4
A better view of the second pitch.
View attachment 20230818_124754.mp4
View attachment 20230818_124820.mp4
The aftermath!
The 3rd pitch, my tracks are in the middle through the rock band.
All four of our tracks, plenty of room so everyone had a fresh line.
Nearing our exit. If you look closely, you can see our tracks in the upper middle of the valley,
Tres Marias, at the end of the run where we had to do a little sideslip and then sidestep up and out a little canyon. You'll see more of this run in the edited video in the next post.
A happy crew! It had been a fun day with great skiing and a great overview of some of what Nevados de Chillan has to offer. Boys are stoked!
Edited video from the day is coming next......
- Matt
