Portillo, Chile 9-6-08 thru 9-14-08

Ok, this may have been the best week of my life!!! I commented on this to Bruce and then hastened to say, "Well, maybe the Honeymoon..." Haha. We love the beach, but I think skiing has overtaken our lives. In a good way, but seriously, on our last trip we took to the Carribean, it rained a lot. It was January and we are always hoping for precipitation in the form of snow of course, so we wished we were in Vail instead of St Lucia. So we learned our lesson with that and saved up vacation time/$ for the trip of a lifetime to Portillo, Chile. We had gone to a ski camp in Aspen, where John Clendenin, two-time World Freestyle Champion, and his team of talented coaches, taught us a method for all-mountain skiing. Bruce has skied since age 7, and I had only been skiing for 2 years, but was really adamant that I keep up with him. This method was difficult for Bruce, he kept fighting it and going back to the old way. I, however, had no formal instruction, just "ok, you're ready for a black now" from Bruce after only 3 days skiing in CO. So I stand at the top of the Rose Bowl at Beaver Creek and say "I will try to fall only 10 times". It is a fairly steep and long run, and needless to say I was way over 10 falls. We kept skiing every week and I got better, loving the bumps/off piste more than groomed runs. Our first camp with John in Jan. '07 was great, and we worked on the technique the rest of the season. We decided to start the 07-08 season with another one of his camps in Dec. After this, we had a great season, lots of snow, and hopefully lots of improvement! So then we had a great summer, and FINALLY, it came time for Chile. It was another Clendenin method camp, and there were 24 people in our group, including the 4 coaches: John, Chino, Lisa, and Steve. Each of these coaches have really made a huge impact on both of us and our skiing. The other campers were wonderful people, and we made so many contacts there of people we'd love to ski with again!! We even met other Americans not in our group that we HAVE to ski with again-they were awesome!! So we fly into Santiago, meet the group, and take a bus up to the resort (2½ hours away). On the way, we stop for Empenadas cooked in a mud oven, we stop for beer-of course, and also for some pictures of 22,834 ft. Aconcagua. It is the highest mountain in the Americas, and Chile and Argentina fight about whose country it is in. (Officially it's in Argentina). As we get near the resort, we start some wild switchbacking. Then all of a sudden you see ski tracks and a tunnel that take skiers right over the road!! We have arrived, and boy are we excited. After check-in and lunch, we get to spend a few hours on skis. It feels so good after not skiing since May!! We get a feel for the mountain, which doesn't look that big, but it is hard to tell, because there are no trees and no sense of depth perception. There is a lake, and the mountains look like they just dive straight down into it!! And later we found that they do: On the Lake Run, when you look down, you see a lot of avalanche debris that came down earlier in the season. The Andes are fairly new mountains, and they are not very stable. You always have to be aware, that rocks, or worse, avalanches could come tumbling down, especially when it is warm. September is spring in South America, so we had lots of sun and corn snow. We really only saw avalanches on the last day of skiing. We were about to get on the Cara Cara poma lift and they stopped it. Chino looked up and saw an avalanche coming down and had us get out of there fast!!! Despite these dangers, the skiing it AMAZING there. It is steep, and we had people that knew where the good snow would be, so we always had awesome conditions. We decided to go heli-skiing one day, and that was definitely the highlight of the trip. The ride itself was worth the $$, but the skiing was EPIC!! We took 2 runs, and they were each at least 5,000 vertical feet. The top started out with 6-8 inches of powder, and changed as the elevation got lower. Near the bottom, we got some GREAT corn snow-kinda melty, but firm underneath, so you could FLY down it. And FLY I did!!! (All I can say is, hey, I'm far from trying not to fall more than 10 times, and it feels great!). Chino took a video of our group that went heli-skiing, and I am pretty sure I kicked everyone's butt!! Anyway, besides the skiing, we had fun hanging in the hot tub/pool, the bar-of course, and the diso baby!! I even beat Bruce at a game of one-on-one b-ball. Every night we would be out till 2 or 3 am, and still get up to ski in the am. I did mention when we talked about goals at the beginning of the camp that I hoped to drink beer all night and still ski great the next day... We both managed to do this, though I'm not sure how. I guess when you're in Portillo.... Anyways, sorry this rambles on.. we just had the best time, whatever it was we were doing down there. We have set a precedent for future vacations that will be hard to match. Now, if only the snow would start falling here in CO.... I skied on Oct. 11 last year, so it is getting closer every day. We are going to go see the fall colors, if there are any left, in the mountains tomorrow. Will post some pics if anything turns out good. Also, I have some news on moving to the mountains soon that I will discuss when I know more.