North to...?

Wow... I just had the best first day of skiing I can remember in a long time.

I awoke to perfect clear blue skies on Friday morning. I took the subway to the end of the line, then walked a few blocks to the bus plaza. A ride up to the local ski hills is $14.

The ride took about one hour and I bought a ticket to El Colorado, the cheapest and most basic of the Santiago city resorts. The ski hill is completely treeless and doesn't have a huge variety of terrain, but that was perfecty OK as it had just snowed about 6 inches of fresh powder.

The view of El Colorado from the road

I spent the morning skiing with Arnaud from Belgium, then he went in to ski with his girlfriend. I spent the afternoon skiing with Ricardo, a Santiagan who knew the mountain very well and showed me a few stashes of powder that hadn't been used up.

Ricardo tests the fluff

An interesting observation of the ski scene: most Chilean skiers don't appear to like skiing powder. The majority of the skiers stuck to the groomed runs. Mind you, I'm not complaining...

I've decided to head out of Santiago in search of a little less urban feel. There is a hostel at El Colorado, but the ski areas there feel very big-city and I want a little more mellow place to hang out. I'm also trying to travel on the cheap side of things, too, which complicates how far I can travel (not to mention I only have a week left) and which resorts I can afford to ski at.

So the decision I need to make this morning is whether to head north and a bit east to ski Portillo and Penitentes, or whether I should head south for the volcanoes of Chile's Lakes District.

The volcanoes beckon, but I think north will win since the skiing there is closer.

We'll see--

Valle Nevado, a neighboring ski area