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Published: July 19th 2009
home sweet home
Corbus #7.. it doesn't look like much, and sure it could use a coat of paint... but it now feels like home!All right
So I'm sure everyone is sick of getting these things by now.. but this one is a good one I promise with lots of photos of snow and very little writing.
So we've been here for 3 weeks now and things have gotten of to a fantastic start.
When we arrived on Thursday evening they had just finished clearing the streets from a massive storm and opening day wasn't set until saturday, so I went back down the valley early next morning to get a few things that we were missing from the apartment and was very surprised when I drove back up the hill at midday to see the charilifts turning and about a million people on the hill.
Turns out that the day before the official opening day is Dia Libre.. when they open half the mountain to anyone who wants to have a go for free. As a result half of ARgentina was there, splaying themselves across the hill and generally trying to kill themselves.
Despite the large crowds I was itching to get out there and Ali (God bless her) had my board unpacked, bindings on and all me
We are here
If you are in Las Lenas - you will find us here! gear laid out ready for me to jump into as soon as I arrived. 20mins after parking the car I was dressed, up the hill and getting on our first lift of the season... damn it was good to be alive
Only the lower part of the mountain was open, but with over a meter of snow falling in the past week and with mainly beginners on the piste there was some fantastic pow lines to be had... despite the late start we could ride to 5pm and by the end of the day we were shattered...
2 days after that we had another 3 day storm that dumped a further 1.5m of snow across the resort and that set us up for a fantastic first 3 weeks. It took a further 3 days for them to open the Marte chair to access the top of the mountain... luckily it took a good 3 days to track out the lower mountain and some easily accessible low altitude hikes... Thus when Marte finally opened it was like having another 3 powder days to track it out again.
After that we had some crazy wind storms that shut most
dawn
Sunrise over Cerro Las Lenas on our first day of the mountain.. it was frustrating but we took the opportunity to fix up the house a little - namely filling the holes in the walls and windows that were allowing the wind into the bedrooms!
and voile, 3 days later when they opened the top of the mountain we found the wind had blown in about 20cms of new snow and the whole adventure started again.
Since then its been very dry on the snow front but we have been hiking and climbing out a bit further every day and are still having a fantastic time.
We have also had our first official Argentine Assado with our neighbours where we pretty much barbecued an entire cow and washed it all down with an unhealthy amount of delicious Malbec.
So life is good.. damned good.. the storm we were hoping for this week looks like its not going to eventuate but spirits remain high, the steak is plentiful and the wine is cheap... and when the snow comes, we'll be ready and waiting with a whole bunch of the Oz crew coming out to join us for the next couple of months... it seems the madness
volcano
pow pow... waiting for the Volcano chair to open on "opening day" with all those lines from the top of the mountain to remain unridable for another 3 days is just beginning!!
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Rolf Gehrmann
non-member comment
Better you than me
Glad it is you doing it than me . Here is as close as I ever want to get to snow, I don't the look of snow I get the shivers just looking at a photograph of it. Has got down to 10C here and that is to cold should go back up north and live in Darwin. Have fun although I doubt that is possible when you are freezing your tits off. Cheers Rolf