Skiing La Cordillera

This past Saturday, we got out of the city and up into the Andes mountain range to fulfill one of our more impulsive decisions: skiing in La Cordillera. Though my knowledge of the Andes is limited to what I can see from Santiago and the tales I read about in Pears Paul Read's Alive, it was not a whole lot different from what I imagined it would be, which was nothing short of stunning.

Just a quick (and winding) hour and a half drive outside of Santiago is access to three popular mountain faces situated right next to each other, though owned by different ski companies. *Side note - we learned the hard way that the 3 mountain faces are literally connected, and their borders not easily distinguishable on the actual ski runs. Though at one point we thought we were exploring a less populated part of the mountain, we had accidentally ventured over to one of the other mountains, and had to pay a shuttle to take us back to the mountain we were supposed to be on! (Thankfully only a 10 minute drive). This is definitely their sneaky way of making more money, as it apparently happens daily.

 

We  spent (the majority) our day on the middle of the three mountains, known as "El Colorado", which features runs that are rated by four different levels of difficulty. Though we ventured up to ski at the end of Santiago's winter season, the snow was still fairly good and surprisingly not too icy.

The most obvious difference between skiing here as opposed to back home or in Colorado is the landscape. Because the mountain is located at a higher altitude, we were rewarded with breathtakingly clear views of the rest of the Cordillera, as opposed to skiing through trees as I would be at home. Though we left the mountain with tired muscles and sunburned faces, El Colorado was certainly one of our most memorable days yet.