Thread Resurrection: The Original Traveling SA Junk Show

[Yossarian]

Or at least as much of it as I can find on my machine.
Bear with, this may take a few attempts and posts.

Original Trip, SEP 2003.
Resurrection Date, JUN 2007.


Part I

The Reverend

Hola Maggots!

The huevo plato has arrived in Bariloche, Argentina. A brief TR and pics to come later this afternoon, after we burn them from Cornhole´s CPU.

Cletus, Cornhole and I met in Dallas as planned, and hopped aboard a 767 with more stoke than a Montana wildfire. Goofing around with the DV and other cameras, we drank a few cocktails, had dinner, watched some ski porn on Corn´s CPU, and tried to ignore the yapping granola momma in the seat behind us who was determined to talk to us about everything under the sun. 3 valum, 6 cocktails and 9 hours later, our plane touched down in Santiago where we immediately hooked up with my homeboy, Scott (Adolf Aller Busch in the LL thread). We collected baggage and realized Scott´s gear had been put on a plane to Mendoza, so we scrambled and actually got them to find it and remove it before the plane took off. We then picked up our van (El Huevo Plato or The Silver Egg) and took inventory of gear while Cornhole and Gramps went into Santiago to get food, stove fuel, etc. 4 hours later, Odin arrived and the band was put together.

Driving through Santiago is very similiar to the plight of the Humvee convoy in Blackhawk Down. The drivers are nutty as snickers, and the buses are only there to kill people. Scott negotiated the egg through all sorts of mayhem, while we continuously got on course, off course, on course, off course, etc. Finally, we hit the 5 due south to Chillan. We pulled into a monsoon in Chillan, and the stoke began to rise uncontrolably. Powder was going to be had the next day, and we knew all the traveling was a small price to pay.

Between Chillan and the resort of Termas lies a small rural village called Recinto, where we found a ¨cabana¨ owned by a couple named Javier and Maria Elizabeth. A great little spot, the cabin had bunk beds, a kitchen, hot water, a shower, a wood stove and communal area. We decompressed via a few pisco sours with our gracoius and comedic host, Javier, and then hit the sack with visions of fluff playing on the screen.

The next morning, Javier woke us up with fresh, warm pan (bread) and proudly showed us how one of the many chickens in his yard laid yummy eggs which he would cook for breakfast. The morning was foggy and gray, with dense clouds rolling through the lush, green forests of the valley. Surprisingly, the valley below termas looks like a rain forest...a canopy of dark green, huge waterfalls, and a dirt road through the villages up to Termas. We packed the egg and were on our way, redlining the cuisinart under the hood and blaring Particle as we made our way.

Termas was not what we expected. Turns out they are having a pretty bleak snow year, and it had rained on the mountain the night before. No fluff, but crusty snow and warm temps. That day we skied groomers and explored the resort, getting our bearings and rediscovering our skiing legs. We found some really nice corn slightly off piste and made some nice turns while I filmed on the DV. Unfortunately, the ravine we followed ended up turning to dirt, so we had to downclimb through dense fog, only to hitch a ride back up to the resort. No fluff was had, but our spirits were strong because we knew the touring would be good.

That evening we hooked up with Cornhole´s amiga Karen, who is a very cool girl in med school rotation in Santiago. She joined our team and we shared a great dinner at a tiny little ¨hosteria¨in Recinto. The chicken in our soup had been killed minutes before dinner, and the empenadas were to die for.

That night we got drunk. Piscos with Javier and Cristal beer flowed like wine. A few of us commenced shotgunning beers and bludgeoned our livers.

The next day was sunny and beautiful. After some Nescafe and few pieces of pan, we headed up to the resort ready to tour. Took a few groomers to heat up the legs, and then toured North off the top of the resort. Undulating terrain with gullies and ridges made the tour fun and beautiful. We slowly gained elevation until we gained a big ridge where we had to down climb through scree on the otherside. At the bottom of the scree was a gully of pure ice, so the gang glisaded with skis horizontally in their laps down to the bottom of the gully, laughing all the way while sliding on their asses.



I somehow managed to get my skis on at the bottom of the scree, largely thanks to a shelf Cletus had cut with his shovel, so I side slipped down and we all skinned up to a high saddle connecting two peaks. The view from the saddles was simply overwhelming...the Andes for as far as you could see, with massive volcanos in the distance. Cletus swore one was Aconcagua due to its incredible height, and we later decided it probably was in light of our geographical location. From the saddle we skinned up the second peak, shooting slides and DV as we went, everyone mostly silent from a combination of altitude and awe. We arrived at the top where we cut a bench and ate our PB and Js for lunch, admiring the view and taking our skins off. Cornhole dropped in first and the conditions were less than ideal. The wind had scoured the snow so that the texture was extremely rough and bumpy for the first few hundred yards down. Then it smoothed out, but the snow was very grabby and crusty. We all went one at a time, weary of an unfamiliar snowpack that appeared to be very, very bomber. Cornhole shot DV and soon we were at the bottom of the first pitch. We then skated up and over another ridge, to the second decent which was short, but steep and held nicer snow. Down we went, one at a time, making pretty nice corn turns while Cornhole graciously filmed yet again. At the bottom we reattached our skins, and toured back to the top of the resort, with an Andean sunset as our backdrop. Ullr may not have blessed us with new snow, but there´s no doubt in my mind that he was smiling on us from behind that orange, hazy sunset!



That night Javier and Maria made dinner for us, with garlic potatoes, lettuce, pan, and longinizas (delicious pork sausage). We soon deemed him the papas pusher (papas=potatoes) as he kept shoveling the fuking things onto our plates just as soon as we´d finish the previous one. He clearly thought it was funny as hell, and I thought I was going to vomit starch all over his dining room. The dinner was delicious, and we chatted about Chile, about what we did in the US, about his father the doctor, and many other topics. Javier and Maria were quite possibly the most gracious hosts Ive ever had, and our room cost us around $10 per person per night. After many a pisco sour and cristal beer, we returned to our cabin and packed up all of our gear and equipment, loading the egg for the mornings journey as we went.

[Yossarian]

(The Reverend, Continued)

6am came very, very early, particularly after **** **** * ******* ****** *****. Anyhow, that morning we piled into the egg, said goodbyes to Javier and Maria, and sped off towards the Argentine boarder with Zep rocking the stereo and Scott flooring the egg like Buck Rogers. The incredible traveling junkshow, with ski bags strapped to the roof and 6 people plus gear jammed inside, hugged the curves and passed the ox carts, milk trucks, and tour busses the crowded the narrow road towards Argentina.

Let me start by saying that Patagonia is simply everything you´ve ever heard it was. We were only on the northern most tip of the region, and my noodle was thoroughly fried by the scenery of expansive azure lakes, and rolling green forested hills the sat below some of the most spectacular volcanoes I´ve ever seen. And this was before we really got into it! We stopped a few times to film and take pictures, but mostly motored along.

File this next part under Unsmart Things Done:
So we finally hit the boarder. The first step is exiting Chile via their boarder station, which was composed of a guard house and then a simple building where we had to go in and fill out paper work. No big deal, right? I mean, we all had our passports and the papers for the egg, so it was just a matter of walking in the the building, blundering along in spanish as usual, filling out the forms and being polite to the military guys and old men in imigracion, only to drive away. Right? No sweat. So we went to the first desk to do our personal immigration. No problem whatsoever, and all was good. Then we went to the second station, a window kiosk where we had to register the egg. An old man sat behind the window with the small opening at the bottom, patiently explaining that Scott and I, as the registered renters of the egg, had to fill out the necessary paperwork. The rest of the gang sat around us, and Cletus stood next to me helping translate the epanol and the form. The old man dithered on, ¨Por favor, necisito tu direccion en EEUU y tu numero de....¨ CRASH! The sound of glass cracking...Cletus had been leaning on this man´s kiosk window, and it had suddenly fractured. We all went silent for a few secnnds, looking nervously around, waiting for the men with rubber gloves, handcuffs, tazers and lube to come running at us. Cletus nervously started apologizing, while the rest of us awkwardly smiled and awaited certain incarceration. Destruction of federal property at a border facility in rural chile. Great. Cletus nervously continued on, offering to pay for the glass. Fortunately, the old man smiled and was nice enough. They let us proceed without even having to pay.

Between Chile and Argentina is the most wonderful, mind blowing no-man´s land on earth. 17km of buffer zone that was actually a mountain pass in the Patgonian Andes. Spires. Unreal spires like the posters you see, and jagged peaks watching quietly over blue and white lakes with thick, prickly looking yellow and green forest accenting the whole thing. I quickly decided that I will rule this buffer zone and found my own country, seeing as the other two countries obviously don´t want it, right? I mean, it was unreal, surreal, and way too much for me to swallow. Patagonia is everything you could want it to be. We continued to navigate the egg on the somewhat nasty gravel road that curved on through the pass, finally hitting the Argentine border. Thankfully, Cletus kept his elbows to himself.

We stopped for dinner in a very nice mountain town sitting on a lake that reminded me VERY much of Tahoe city. Pizza and Argentine beer went down the hatch, followed by a few of the chocolate treats that make Southern Argentina famous. We hopped back into the cramped and smelly egg, Cletus, GC, Odin and Karen playing Bridge in the back while Scott and I piloted the silver bullet to the tunes of AC/DC, Spearhead, Crowes, and much, much more.

We arrived at Bariloche and quickly found a very nice hotel to the tune of $5 per person. This time Cornhole and Karen got a room down the hall.

We got dressed and headed out to a pub where we swilled all sorts of rocktails and beers. From there we went to a rowdy, rowdy Irish bar where the Quilmes beer flowed like water.

Now, for this next part, I´ve thought long and hard how to describe the scene to you folks. I mean, I feel like I can articulate when I want to, and can generally paint an accurate picture using the keyboard and my imagination. Unfortunately, however, I simply have no means to describe the pure beauty, grace, build and god-granted, overwhelming presence of the Argentine woman. In other words, there are no adjectives to describe the smoking ass that packed this bar from wall to wall. Ive lived in Madrid, visted many a major city in the US, been to the caribean, central america, all over Europe, and all over Chile. But nothing, absolutely nothing compares to the ratio and sheer number of incredibly beautiful Argentine women. The are, in essence, the perfect genetic recipe for talent--Spanish, German and Italian all gently stirred to creat a cocktail that´ll make your head spin and your boner dance in your pants like the tango in Spain. We were all so dumbfounded that words were rarely spoken, other than ¨mother of god¨ or ¨just give me 5 minutes with that...¨ YOU MUST SEE THIS PLACE.

Needless to say, we got completely and utterly fuct, and we stumbled out of that place around 5am. We then stopped at a gas station-mini mart for fries, where Scott and I decided to load small containers with sliced pickles. We then proceed to decorate the windows of Bariloche with sliced pickels all the way back to our hotel.

This morning we awoke around 11, and I thought someone had done the macarena on my head. Hangover doesn´t even begin to describe the world of pain I´m currently inhabiting. The other folk went up to Catedral to ski groomers. Me? I´m drinking coffee, sweating liquor, and typing the longest post in my few thousand here at pmag.

I hope you all are well and Í´m off to try and find a disc to burn our images to, which I can then upload to this post. Warning, though--no action pics, just skinning and hiking. All action has been via DV and slide film, which is not an option at this ghetto cafe.

Cheers, and see you soon.
The Reverend

[Yossarian]

Cornhole

As usual, the good Reverend has painted a fantastic picture of this incredible place. The ski area in Bariloche is called Catedral, which is appropriate because I´ve never been in a place more suited to be called a place of worship. The beauty of this place is truly breathtaking.

Rev took today off to nurse his hangover (*cough* sally *cough), but we went to Catedral and got some great laps up high off of an old wooden double. There were some bumps, and an open slope that was begging for some maching GS turns, and a few launchable cat tracks. Scott threw a fantastic daffy-to-yardsale for the final act of the day that had us all doubled over all the way to the bottom.

So far, an incredible trip. The people down here are really incredible, patient with our broken spanish and ready to help with anything. Except that Cletus can´t find a ski bag to replace the one he smeared in one of the many piles of steaming dog sh!t that abound here, we´ve lacked nothing.

More pics and TR to come....
-Cornhole



Benito

omigod omigod omigod

this has been an insane trip so far and I think its about to go from crazy loco to mind-boggling epic in a day

my espanol is coming back, the skiing is a blast, the company is fantastic, I´m laughing my ass all day every day and...

I think we´re about to haul ass back to Chile to see if we can hit the 100cm dump that is about to pound the living fuk out of the place

makes for logistics problems, but who the fuk cares, we´re chasing storms, trading away amazing argentinian nightlife (oh, las chicas aqui!) for the possibility of la Santa Rosa

will update in a couple days if we pull this off..

ciao
-benito



Odin

The women and liquor abound as many a man was sent to the depths of a pisco-quilmes induced coma yesterday morning. The arrival times for the maggots back to la hacienda was 500 or so as the slap happy crew rejoined upon the beds.

The next morning was an interesting experience in the tolerance that the rev had for living.

I have been to many places in my lifetime, but never has the •••••• (insert stoke for hot chicks) been this high. Argentinian women are a pleasure to the eyes. The US has nothing on Baraloche!

-Odin

[Yossarian]

Part II

Cornhole

First, a quick review for those who missed last time:

Day 1: Arrive Santiago, infest our van with the Junk Show. Depart for Termas de Chillan, arrive at Javier's after 6 hours and only 2 U-turns.

Day 2: Ski Termas on-piste, regain ski legs, revel in skiing after so much anticipation. Stayed at Javier's, experienced wonderful hospitality, and heard a rare live sermon from the Rev himself, which Javier and his wife undoubtedly thought was a true blessing for our dinner, and so were probably a little disconcerted at our laughs and grins.

Day 3: Skin to nearby volcanic shoulder under the watchful eyes of Aconcagua and Ullr himself. Crystal blue skies and 360 degrees of Andean beauty did much to alleviate any potential grumbling about skiing the windblown up top, and added immeasurably to the stoke of the soft corn down low.

Day 4: 6:00 am gets us off to Bariloche. After 12 hours, 1 broken border station and no rubber gloves, we arrive in one of my new favorite places in the world. The region is called intralagos, the inter-lakes. Snowpack and glacial runoff feed these lakes via beautiful waterfalls and streams from which trout must jump into waiting nets. From these lakes, the local summits jump to their 3000m heights. The beauty of the scenery and local talent is seriously without equal. We stay in a hostel, and get quite drunk. Cletus tries drunken, broken Spanish on a porn-star quality waitstaff, to moderate success.

Day 5: The Santa Rosa arrived. Rain and 45 mph winds closed Catedral, but we receive the word: as much as 1 meter is headed for Termas. And so, therefore, is the Huevo. Hastily packed and repacked in the rain, our trusty steed heads out with 11 pairs of skis strapped to the roof and the Reverend's lead foot strapped to the pedal. The border crossing is uneventful, having asked Cletus if he could please keep his hands in his pockets unless asked otherwise by the gendarme.

The return to Termas takes 14 hours. Although the drive was brutal and through relentless rain, constant laughs, jokes, bridge hands, and the promise of what the downpour meant for the peaks kept us entertained until we arrive back at the resort. We also came distressingly close to running out of gas, but all the hardship is forgotten when the rain turns to snow. Having decided to stay at the resort itself due to the possibility of an approach road closure, we treat ourselves to a condo into which we pile ungraciously and fall rapidly to sleep.

Day 6: Snow.

Finally, the Santa Rosa has hit. Graupel has stacked 5 inches deep at the base, and at the resort's high point for the day, there is much more. The front face of Termas is a series of gullies, all holding the soft windblown snow for us to shred. Access to the part of the mountain that is open today is via a triple-to-surface combo that earns you about 600 vertical meters. The surface lift is a painful experience this day, generously getting described as "being shot in the face with 1000 bb guns."

There are perhaps a total of 90 people on the entire mountain this day, with maybe ten others venturing in to the gullies to lap up the soft spring dump there. We start skiers right, and work our way across with successive laps. Every run is fresh, soft spring snow. The light is bad, the winds are fierce, we drove 14 hours and are now skiing on our 5th consecutive 4 hour sleep, but none of this enters our minds as we ski to last chair.

The surface lift is closed when we get there for the last run, but this is going to be my last run for months, so I persuade Cletus to hike the 200 vertical meters to the catwalk over to the gullies, and savor one last, long run. Rev, Odin and Scott head to the base to find Karen, who has aggravated a knee injury ("It doesn't hurt... but I can feel the bones moving when I turn"), and check out the DV footage for the day.

And with that last run, my adventure ends, at least on skis. I'm not sure if that was the first run of this season, or the last of the last, but I don't really care. I spent a week in a smelly van, with 5 of the funniest, chargingest, smartest, nicest, and in-general-greatest people I've ever met. We chased what snow was to be had, and although it wasn't the finest the Andes have ever offered, this past week was still perhaps the greatest ski trip of my life. Perhaps it was the crew, or perhaps skiing snow in Spanish is somehow more fulfilling. At any rate, I am now home wishing I was not.

To Cletus, Odin and the Rev: Stay safe doods, and have fun. Get the stuff that Scott, Karen and I couldn’t hang out for, and keep us all informed. Talk to you all next week.

Note: Some of this was written on a dying laptop battery in the Santiago Airport, although I’m now back in Cleveland, and have edited out the effects of Valium and Pisco. Pictures are forthcoming. Patience, young jedi.

[Yossarian]

Part III.

Cletus

Well, I guess I’ll pick up for a bit where Cornhole left off. There’s actually quite a lot of funny stuff that got skimmed over in his and the Rev’s reports, such as (among many other things) the looks the wait-staff of the trendy bar at the resort where we played the aforementioned game of Asshole gave us when we tried to explain (in drunken Spanish, of course) why one of us was lording over the table in a high chair while another was sitting a foot too low for the table, rocking back and forth on a firewood log with a grin on her face...or the actual sensation of sheer terror/absolute hilarity when, 11 hours into the 14 hour drive through Noah’s flood, on a darkened dirt road in the middle of nowhere Chile, I had to bring the Huevo from 100kph to a skidding, screeching, death-defying halt in a pool of muddy water not more than 5 feet from the unannounced end of said dirt road (and the decrepit house and its inhabitants that resided there), gas tank already reading EMPTY and the engine starting to stall, with a Shell station in sight but on the wrong side of the highway...

But let’s move on, and we’ll come back and fill in the details at a later date.

Part 3.1: The Storm Continues
After we got Cornhole, Adolf, and Karen on their way on Saturday morning (a feat in its own right), Odin, Rev, and I got our gear together and sweet talked our way - sans tickets - onto the lower lift that runs from the hotels up to the base of the resort (we'd done much the same the day before when we mooched a ride off of the fancy hotel shuttle driver that got us to the main base), whereupon, in fine style, we proceeded to take the next lift up to the midway point on the mountain and sneak in a run before returning to actually buy a ticket. Not that that the mere $25 USD wasn’t worth it anyway: the storm had kept pounding away all night, and with temps dropping and winds howling at a reported high of 70kph through our too-short respite, had blasted the resort with a couple feet of new snow, and continued to do so throughout most of the day. With visibility still low but snow accumulation rapidly increasing, we explored more and more terrain, farming turns in areas we had hit before until in a stroke of sheer luck, we encountered a yellow clad skier with a PM on his helmet.

Shouts in the lift line ensued, and in short order we were riding with Dude Le Ski Bum and his crew, who spend their summers down in this little corner of Chile. We chased Dude and his gang down one fantastic pitch we'd never seen before, and then Dude dropped out of sight, out of bounds into a hidden valley below. The Rev followed, but with small slab release upon his entry and an unexpected blind drop halfway into the chute radioed back up to us from below, Odin and I told El Padre to stick with Dude and we turned towards a different direction. Heading right and back towards the resort, we discovered an untouched low-angle gully that brought us back to homebase and earned us sweet knee deep pow in the process. Meeting back up with the Rev at the next run, the three of us proceeded to battle the continuing storm, now in its third day of precipitation, until we were done for the day. We reluctantly skied back to the Huevo, still waiting at the Hotel where we’d left it.

Unfortunately, in the mad scramble of the morning’s departures, a light had been left on, and for the second time in a week, the battery was dead. This time, however, Cornhole wasn’t there with his practiced hand to pop-start it, and it was mired in the parking lot of the hotel with no way to get it rolling. However, within minutes, the Karmatic forces of the world had rebalanced, and our new British friends Will and Timbo, who we'd encountered earlier, appeared from nowhere to help us maneuver the Egg down to the road where we engaged a passing resort worker and eventually requisitioned ourselves a jump-start from his truck. By 5:30p, we were on our way towards the Las Trancas Hostel a couple kms down the road to drop off the Brits. As we pulled out of the hotel road onto the main dirt road, we ran into Le Dude again, hitchhiking home. Karma indeed. We picked him up as well, and hightailed (and fishtailed) our way back to the Valle Las Trancas, with a quick stop for beers at the market on the way.

We dropped off the Brits, shot the sheet with Dude, Gorillo, and their crew for a while, watched the sun go down as the storm finally began to break, and then headed down valley for a return to Javier and Elizabeth’s, where we were again greeted with an incredible display of hospitality and warmth, of the sort that it is hard to imagine finding here in the States.

As I nodded off to sleep for the first real night of rest in 5 or 6 days, after 1 daffy to destruction, 2 border crossings, 2.5 feet of new snow, 4 nights of partying, 7 new friends, and a 14 hour drive through torrential downpours, it occurred to me that we’d never paid the bill for the last two nights at the resort hotel.

[Yossarian]

(Cletus Continued)

Part 3.2: The Day After The Storm
Sunday morning we woke refreshed, and after a clusterfukk of icy roads, Chilean busses, broken chains and hired help (Juan the chain rental guy and his kid who polited raped us when he saw he needed new chains) to get up the road in the Huevo, we hit the resort at 10am, before nearly everyone else, to find that the storm had left us with bluebird skies and a full 3 feet of accumulation in the lee slopes of the myriad low angle gullies and bowls that dominate the volcanic terrain there. Had we only farmed the shots we could find on our own, this day still would have ranked as one of the best snow days of my life. The storm had come in warm and wet (just they way I like it, heh heh), laying down a nice thick, sticky bed of resurfacing glue, and then cooled off slowly, leaving behind the perfect right-side-up-cake of cold powder on top, with progressively thicker base underneath. This wasn’t balls deep Alta, but it was drier than 30 inches of sierra cement in Tahoe. And there was 3 feet of it. Call it luck, or call it fate, I'd call it surreal. And although I can’t – even after what followed – recommend Termas as a destination in its own right (terrible road, so-so terrain, total lack of good nightlife; Las Lenas, Bariloche, Portillo, etc all still hold the pole positions in the ranks of South American areas), the combination of this storm, and the re-discovery of Le Dude on the next run, made the 14 hour storm chase all worth it.

I cannot even begin to describe the next few hours of skiing. In fact, at one point I distinctly recall looking over at the Rev and simply shaking my head in disbelief, only to get the very same from him in return. The Dude was alone that morning, having gotten up early to lay down a couple sick early-bird lines on the neighboring peaks, and was now happy to play tour guide through his own quiet home away from home in the best conditions of the South American season. He showed us a few of his stashes, regaled us on the slow, creaky, wind-blasted double lift with stories of touring, partying with his few close friends there, and the slow simple life of rural central Chile, and then proceeded to blow us away with some of the most stylish, smooth skiing I’ve seen in person in a long time. The Dude rode the lips, curves, and waves of what was otherwise unexciting terrain like it was a terrain park, and painted gorgeous lines of grace and motion on an as-yet untouched canvas of white, effortlessly leaving his signature in the wind-buffed meter of Andean fluff. We kept up for a couple runs, but when Gorillo showed up mid-day to rip with the Dude, we cut our gracious tour guide loose to find his own turns, and went back to farm more of the South American cocaine we’d just feasted on. We didn’t speak more than a few more words to each other for the rest of the day.

Having skipped breakfast yet again, and on only one real night of sleep after 5 consecutive nights of 4-5 hour rests, we pulled in to the base lodge for some quick grub around 2pm. After chowing on papas fritas and completos, we hooked up with the Brit boys again, and the 5 of us returned to search for more untracked shortly thereafter. Will charged the pow old-school style, popping up and down with beauty short-radius, eye-catching turns, and Timbo ran through the fields of semi-tracked pow like the rugby player he was – strong and aggressive but with a touch of quickness that belied his size. Odin, having switched off his 201 Asteroids from the day before and onto the No Ka Ois (which, I have to say, ruled the Roids in these conditions), lapped up the pow as well, and through it all, the Reverend Floater made his classic ultra-smooth, magazine worthy GS turns, alternatively railing banked turns on side hills and floating through the virgin white like his name implies, leaving rooster-tails and the occasional airplane turn in his wake as proof of passage.

By 4:30pm when the lift stopped running, we were good and spent. We retired to the lodge for celebratory Cristal beers, and watched the vid we had taken of the day. Tired and happy, we hopped in the Huevo, picked up a few other hitckhikers (the Brits had found another way home already), and headed down valley yet again. Returning to La Piedra Cabanas, we were welcomed back with our wood stove already burning, dinner in the works, and our awesome hosts ready for stories, homemade Clari (another Chilean drink made with White Wine, Peaches, and Sugar, a knockout combination), and tastless jokes for all. Apparently, gross humor transcends all language barriers.

Not long after our nightly feast, the Clari overtook us, and we soon retired to our bunks to dream of the day's turns and smiles. In an otherwise uninteresting ski area, tucked in a hard-to-get-to corner of Chile, with shoddy lifts, no nightlife, and in a low snow year, we had lucked out and hit the best storm of the season, hooked up with a ripping tour guide, and made friends with amazingly generous local residents, with hearts as big as their appetite for humor. Claro!



Part 3.3: The Second Day After The Storm
As the consecutive bluebird days of freshies we found following this epic dump have since blurred in my now Milton-Cube addled head, it's a bit hard to seperate where some days begin and the others end. Or maybe that is just the end effect of the loads of Clari we drank, which left us moving none too fast the next morning.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that Monday dawned bright and sunny yet again, and we headed back up to milk the lifts one last time for all they were worth. We dedicated this day to sluttery and porning ourselves for film and DV glory, and burned the morning in fully entertaining style by attempting magazine schmear turns in pockets of untouched pow, with, I have to say, largely unimpressive results. Oh well. We can't all be BakerBoy and Gunderson. But the stoke was still high, and although the legs were starting to take a real beating from the days of pounding, we were still grinning ear to ear when we found arguably the best couple turns of the trip.

Tucked away just out of bounds, in an area probably not really worth all the work we had to put in to get there, was one little headwall and bowl that dumped down lower into the same hidden valley that le Dude had slid into earlier in the week. And although some tracks sliced across the short, steep face (no doubt, skiers' attempting to return to the resort lest they get lost among the nettles and brambles not far below), the snow here was blown in deep and dry, and beckoned to us with siren's voices too seductive to deny.

Dropping in one by one, we were rewarded with 8-10 turns each, of thigh deep, super stable, 38-40 degree pitch, dry fluff; 10 turns that have played themselves over in my mind every minute since. All tiredness temporarily washed aside, we battled the bushes below to regain a ridge, struggled back into the resort after a losing fight with roots and tree branches, and caught the next lift up for another run at the same.



At the top of the lift, we met up with Tele-Ben and East Coast Stan, who we'd seen around the mountain as some of the only other gringos out chasing the good pow. Ben hailed from Snowbasin, UT, knows Stoy, and is probably recognizable to Meatdrink, GT, Meats, and any of the other regular Basin crew. Stan was just some dood that was staying in the hostel where Ben was, who lived out east, and was on rented Explosivs from years ago. Introductions made, the two of them followed us back and proceeded to rip the piss out of everything in sight. Being humbled by a gnarly tele-ripper like Ben was super cool - the guy was nothing but positive stoke and energy. Stan, on the other hand, was a different story. On borrowed boards and with a typical season a fifth the length of mine, Stan quietly and smoothly outskied the three of us without seeming to put much thought or effort into the matter. He made me feel just plain silly, in a very good way.



In short, another killer crew had been assembled, and we proceeded to chase each other through the cut up pow across the resort for the rest of the day until our legs gave out. Tele-B and ECStan took off for one more lap, and we wearily but happily retired to the Huevo to retreat to the Cabanas for our now standard rest and roast. As per our MO, we got roaring drunk on Clari again, this time made first my yours truly, and then the next batch by the Dirty Reverend Baracho. We watched a bit of the Chile v. Peru match on the tele, warmed ourselved by the roaring wood stove, and when the world got blurry and fuzzy, stumbled again back to our waiting cabana.

Another day in paradise.

[Yossarian]

Next up, I'm off to find some pics.
Back in a bit.

[Yossarian]

Sorry, pics are going to be tough.

I might have a video I can put up on YouTube, although it may take some time to edit down small enough.

The story should be enough anyway.

[Phill]

Wow I just read the whole thing. Super stoked for this summer.

[Odin]

So So many good memories. I forgot about that hilarious glissade down the gully.

Yo, for pics do a search on my name at biglines. some of the good ones are there.

Edit - Find any information about THE BET

[Odin]

Moderately Drunk

[Yossarian]

Mr. Cock! Excellent.

Well, that segues nicely for this sub-par video effort from back then:



I think I have some more video somewhere, and tomorrow I'll go find some of Odin's pics and bring em back in.

[enlosandes]

Great reading! And you boys arne't kidding, the girls are smoking down here, they almost all got boo-tay!

[Yossarian]

Some pics back in, thanks to the mang Odin.

[Odin]

I think I have one or two that didn't make it onto the boards.... I'll have to find them.....

I know I have one of everyone at dinner with Javy and all. I also have one of The BETTING SLIP.

let us just say that The odds on Oral Sex have never been so good for the Argentine Peso.

[Buster Highmen]

Tanx for the rev-erection of a classic.

[rehabit]

Sweet! Memories... I need to get on my research if I'm gonna make the trip happen this year!

[Squirrel99]

Yoss great resurrection. You guys had a killer trip with a solid crew. the way everything came together was tits. 2003 was a sweet summer down under, for sure.

[jibij]

One of the all-time great TR's.
Plus, the birth of this ski was a fun thing to watch back then:

[TyWebb]

great read...thanks.

[Split-It]

yes the ladies are unforgettable. my girlfriend was practically crying on the bus last night into town because she was so jealous of the gorgeous babe in front of us. holy shit. i recommend NOT bringing significant other if you want your relationship to survive.
(more snow forecasted all weekend at Catedral...pics coming soon)

[enlosandes]

Or parlay it into a vacation to really remember

[Odin]

sometimesitisgreattoremember

[Cornholio]

Heh. How did I forget so much of that trip in so little time?

Odin, you should post the betting slip.