South America 2012: Las Leñas

The next destination was the one that prompted the entire South American journey in the first place - we were headed to Las Leñas, Argentina, my #1 shred destination for almost 10 years now. The goal was always to hit it on my birthday, so given what we´d just seen with the roads to Portillo (and our own experiences in Canada with mountain passes closing easily and often), we decided to err in favour of getting across the border and the Andes into Mendoza ASAP.

We left Santiago early Monday morning and easily got one of the many buses at the station heading to Mendoza. The buses in Chile and Argentina are night and day compared to the ones in Bolivia, so we were relaxed and simply hopped on to enjoy the ride. The journey took us right past Portillo again, which was once again basking in beautiful sunshine, and we saw how icy and tracked out it looked, solidifying just how lucky we were to have the pow day we did. There were still transport trucks lined up waiting to cross te pass, but we zoomed on by and enjoyed the panoramic views. About halfway we got to the border - a giant snowshack setup at the top of the pass, where all the cars and buses pull in to go through the process. The process, as we are now quite familiar with, involves standing in no less than 3 lines. The first is immigration for the country you're leaving to get your exit stamp. You then literally walk backwards into another line to get your entrance stamp for the country you're entering. Then, finally, you walk into one more line, for the police of the country you're entering to check your bags and everything you're brining in. Why this can't be condensed to a simpler, more efficient system I am not really sure, as this whole extremely boring process took well over 1.5 hours. Grrr. Back on the bus to continue the journey.

We arrived into Mendoza early evening, checked into a dumpy hostel (risks you take without pre-booking a room) and had a quick and unhealthy bite to eat before we were down for bed.

Las Leñas is still 450kms from Mendoza, and again due to impending snow storms we'd been tracking, we didn't want to get stuck "so close, yet so far" from our main destination, so we set out the very next day to Malargüe. This is a super cite, super friedly little ski town, and closest to Las Lenas, and here we checked into a Lonely Planet suggested hostel for the night. It was a cozy husband and wife owned place, so we made dinner there and chatted best we could with all the Spanish speakers about how excited we all were about the mountain and the impending snow. It was really refreshing to encounter snow enthusiasts and reignite the spark for snow!

To save some very quickly dwindling money, we checked into a Hostel International (HI) property as we're now members. We got settled and checked out the town, and discovered almost the entire community has siesta time from 1-5pm. Luckily we found a gear rental shop that was still open and got setup for the next day´s trip to the mountain. This time the gear was much better than for Portillo, with boots that still actually had some support left and boards who's brand names we actually recognized. We'd also hit the grocery store, so with sandwich supplies and snowboards in hand, we headed back to the hostel to prepare for the big day.

I could barely sleep that night as I was so excited, and was up before the alarm went off the next morning. We grabbed coffee and croissants from the included hostel breakfast before setting off on foot for the bus station to catch our ride. Luckily there was another guy at the hostel who'd been doing this routine all week, so we followed him the 10 block walk to the station. As we were loading our gear onto the bus, we practically got recognized from across the parking lot as being Canadians by a little man we would later call Frenchie. He is the definition of a life long ski bum, and you could see the sparkling passion for the sport in his piercing blue eyes from across the parking lot. We had a quick chat with Frenchie, briefly met two more Canadians from Whistler, then the bus roared out and we were off to Las Leñas!

I was like a kid on Christmas by the time we got to the resort 1.5 hours later, and was shocked when I jumped off the bus to discover how cold it was. As Canadians we often think that comparatively, there isn't any real "cold" outside our home country. Well, there is! The wind was howling, and I wasn't sure if my Bolivian "The North Fake" pants were going to cut it. I think the adrenaline kicked in then though, and we suited up, bought our lift tickets (same price as a full day at Sunshine, jeebus), and headed up the first lift. We'd made it!

We did a few warm up laps on the far skier´s left side of the mountain, and man do I mean warm up laps. The wind was so cold, and the lifts are soooo slow. For being one of Argentina´s main resorts, the lift system, although plentiful, isn´t very advanced, so we definitely had numb fingers and toes that morning. We soon forgot about this though, as we found powder! They´d definitely gotten a foot and a half over night, and once we got to the top lift, our first order of business was to hike up a small ridge from the lift line to drop into the next little bowl over. So worth it, and we were both shouting "woohoos" like only powder turns can elicit within minutes. The end of this run forced us to do a few of the more beginner chairs in the middle of the mountain, but from the angles on those chairs we saw the next bowl over that some skiers were now starting to hit, and we wanted some of those lines too! We saw how to get in from the chair, and made our way back up the triple set of chairs to the top. To get into this bowl required quite a high traverse, and it hasn´t been the best snow year overall for Las Leñas, so there is plenty of exposed rock in a lot of places. To spare the moms and grandmas reading this, we will just say we abondoned our quest before anyone got too seriously injured. Mom-approved judgements were made :)

We took a break after this little episode for lunch. Las Leñas is known as the place where rich people go to see and be seen, and it was pretty obvious when us brown baggers went to find a Daylodge to eat in, and found that such a thing did not exist here. Your options were either one cozier type lodge, or a plethora of bars that were all pumping euro-trash tunes. So, we ended up sitting on some steps outside the cozy lodge to have our sandwiches and enjoy some sunshine that had finally decided to pop out.

After our break, we decided it was time to source out the far skier´s right side of the mountain. This is where the infamous Marte chair is, which has made many an appearance in my dreams :) This chair, as we´d learned, is open maybe 3/10 days on average, as staff close it frequently with even the slightest weather and snow variations. There are stories of some snow years where the overnight dumps are so insanely incomprehendable (one legend talks of 9 metres, metres, within a 24 hour period), that the chair is either shut down until the whole face slides, or they bring in prisoners from one of the prisons close by to dig it out. This chair is also the gateway to Las Leñas´ infamous backcountry, and chutes that rival anything Kicking Horse has to offer. After riding 2 other lifts to get to Marte and finally jumping on (again, we were sooo lucky it was open on a pow day!), we were able to see first hand what all the fuss was about. This chair is high and steep, the whole way up. It reminded me of the Whitepass chair in Fernie, only way bigger, longer, and slower. We made it to the top, and were amazed at the terrain we found up there. Within easy skating distance there were 3 backcountry entrances, all setup like Delirium Dive where you need to check your beacon before you can enter. Those were only the ones we could see in-bounds from where we were, but there´s soooo much terrain accessible from here that it really is incredible. If only we´d had our own gear... and a guide ;)

We were more than happy to ride in-bounds, as it was a pow day, and all the more advanced riders were hitting the backcountry, and everyone else we saw on the mountain were more beginner level, so Colin and I pretty much had these inbetween runs to ourselves. We more or less found fresh lines from top to bottom, and these were no short runs! The snow up there was actually surprisingly dry too. I think Jay said it best when he called it "chowder" - chunky powder. Sorry Las Leñas, but you still can´t beat Canadian champagne! After we discovered this chair, we spent the rest of the day lapping it, until our legs were ready to give out. Such an amazing experience to finally be on the Marte chair, the one I´d had pictures of on my walls when I lived at home in Winnipeg, and to be lucky enough to hit it on a pow day. And, to be there with such an awesome riding parter (dawwwww hehe). I´m putting it up there with one of the best 3 shred days of my life!

After our legs were spent, we of course had to check out the scene and went for a Quilmes, the local beer, in the bar/club. It was absolutely the atmosphere you´d imagine in an 80´s European ski movie, but it was such a perfect end to an absolutely amazing day on a mountain of legend.

Viva Las Leñas!!

These photos are all from my iPhone, and they all loaded out of order, so sorry they jump to various parts of the day:

Top of one of the beginner chairs in the middle of the mountain