Semana Dos, La Vida Farellones

The pipes in the A House are frozen - no water. Which I can deal with; there are showers where my friends live, I have a few different sizes of water bottles to import water for tea and oatmeal, and I spend most of my waking hours out of the house as it is. Plus, while there is still wood we can melt snow over the stove. (editors note: we’ve since run out of wood.) But this evening my toothpaste demanded an unreasonable amount of force to convince it to vacate its tube. And when my alarm woke me yesterday morning and I began to stretch, extending my limbs from the fetal position I had maintained all night, my left shoulder made a distinct popping-tearing noise and my alarm was thus enhanced by a few moments of intense pain. It was the first time I’d experienced rigor mortis and it was, as one would expect, unpleasant.

Though I arrived in Chile two weeks ago to find half of a meter of freshly fallen snow blanketing the slopes, I hadn’t actually seen a flake fall from the sky until the day before yesterday. But it finally snowed again in Farellones. Last year I was here during a storm that lasted two days during which it only snowed about a foot, but there were sustained winds of ~100kph for much of that time. As a result some chairlift towers and snowcats were buried in monumental snowdrifts while the windward slopes were left as dry and bare looking as if it were midsummer. This storm was different. Record cold temperature have been recorded across almost all of the countries in South America as a result of a huge mass of cold air that recently spun north from Antarctica. So the snow that fell here recently, which thankfully came without wind, was incredibly cold and dry and light.

About 10 centimeters fell in the Farellones village and up on the top of El Colorado it was more like 30 in the best spots. Which is only a foot, but thanks to the amazing quality the snow would explode in fantastic waves and clouds and float in the air, illuminated by the tack-sharp light of the sun shining in the crystal sky.

But all that powder skiing came a little bit later in the day than normal. We normally access the mountain via the surface tows (andariveles) that ascend right from town. But when we got there at our normal time there was not an employee in sight. The best day in weeks? Doors locked, lifts not spinning, ticket windows closed. A few phone calls confirmed the fact that the lifties were on strike! Una huelga! I will try to find out more about the specifics of the labor dispute, but it was resolved rather quickly as groups of employees all emerged about 45 minutes later and we were soon heading up the hill.

After an awesome day at work (I was teaching my skiing class all day), we finally sent the kids home at 430. Five instructors from the same club I work for all met up at the base and headed up for one last run. We skied one of the moderate chutes that drops off the south side of the Colorado mountain down the road that leads to Valle Nevado. This is the best lift accessed skiing of all of the three ski areas here. Santa Teresa, Grey Skull, Super S, and many other lines drop from the lifts down to the road. We skied the basurero, which means trash can, and it was pretty marginal, being one of the lower elevation lines it was still very rocky. But nonetheless a great way to end the day. Once on the road we return to Farellones via hitchhiking.

Now I´m sitting in the house instead of working. Since I've been writing this blog post over a few days the water has been fixed, partially at least. After hours of pounding on pipes, putting flame to every reachable spot with a blowtorch, the water finally started to flow again. But cold only, one of the pipes in the water heater cracked and will be repaired later this afternoon. But hey, as long as we can flush the toilet I´m pretty psyched. I´m not at work currently because a storm is in progress outside, the opposite of the one that we just enjoyed. No precip, just wind, ripping away all that glorious fluff and sending it off to Argentina. So many lifts are closed, and most people are just hanging out inside.


Roomate Chino supplying the sountrack.

Waiting for the strike to be resolved. Do ski goggles protect against tear gas?

Stoked to finally be heading up the Copa lift.

The kids were killing it.

And were also getting killed.

Coworker Fabrizio Camelo (what a name, no fair) showing how to do lunch right.

Heading to our afterwork decompression mission.

Coworker Victor (Papatch).

Rumbo a Chile!

I arrived in Chile on Wednesday morning, and I plan to be here until the end of September. Coming what somewhat a leap of faith. Lots of friends told me I would have work and a place to stay but things were never concrete or guaranteed. But as I’ve learned during past trips to this amazing country, you just have to trust it will all work out.

My friend Reed and I talk a lot about our experiences living in Seattle. How hard it is to find like-minded people, how hard it is to find work, how expensive it is to live and eat. It can definitely suck sometimes but I think its worth it. The eclectic experiences that it has to offer each and every day are amazing and stimulating. But as if to prove Reed correct, I got here and found a job within about an hour and met up with so many different people who live up in the mountains just to be stoked all the time it was almost comical. And its so sunny compared to Seattle I think I’m going blind.

I should be working within a day or two but so far I’ve just been skiing a bit and meeting up with people who I had been emailing for months but needed to see face-to-face. I’ve gone on a couple ski tours to explore some areas that I’d always wondered about in my past trips here but never seen, like an abandoned refuge called el Refugio Aleman, and a valley that you can ski into off the back of La Parva, but as I found out this afternoon its way harder to get out of than it looks.

My living situation is great, I’m living in an A-Frame that is occupied by anywhere from 2-6 people depending on the day. It’s a cozy little house with an incredible view to the north. You can see La Paloma, a 16,100’ peak I skied last summer with my friend Eben. Its definitely not as tidy as Mia and I keep our apartment, which might have something to do with me being the only skier our of all the dudes that live here. Damn snowboarders. But these guys are awesome, all very passionate riders who have traveled and experienced a lot abroad and in Chile. And one of them was a sushi chef for 10 years and won a bunch of awards. I haven’t sampled the goods yet but I’ll let you know when I do.

Though I didn´t feel like I got to spend enough time on this mountain before I left Seattle, I wouldn´t have to wait long for further tempting peaks to stand out on the horizon.

Take for example Aconcagua, highest mountain in the western and southern hemishperes. As seen from the plane just before landing in Santiago.

Typical view looking north from anywhere in Farallones.

The A House! I told the Chileans its actually ¨A Frame¨ but no one seemed to care. A House it is.