The Chilean Andes house quite some interesting and large ski resorts. Most well-known are Valle Nevado and Portillo. But there are even so me smaller one - and the most interessting of them is Ski Arpa.

Ski Arpa is not a ski resort in the traditionell way - there are no lifts, no runs, no tracks, no hotels, no apres ski… Ski Arpa is pure freeskiing! The Austrian Toni Sponar founded it quite some of years ago, and after some backlashs, he runs the resorts with two snowcats now. That doesn’t sound like much, but it is great! First of all, there is pure open terrain and you are free to ride wherever you want to. Second, a ride in a snowcat up to the top is always fun. How did someone had the idea for such a resort - you may ask. Well we had plenty of time to talk to Toni (as he gave us a ride in his pickup). Toni used to design ski resorts and still is an active skiing instructor in Aspen. When he came to Chile some decades ago, he helped to design Portillo. Thus he was flying in a plane across the Andes. And he did not only found the place for Portillo, but even his own place for a perfect resort. So he bought the mountain and founded his own resort, that he runs in the Chilean winter, while he still works in Aspen in the North American winter.

But now some facts:

• Ski Arpa is situated some 1,5h driving out of Los Andes (approx. 2h driving from Santiago to the North)
• As the road is a very rough dirt road you should have 4×4 drive
• Take some 2-3 days for Ski Arpa. Even if you are a fast skier, you will not make more than 3-4 runs per day. It takes the cats roughly 45 minutes to drive up.
• Take your food and drinks with you as the is no restaurant.
• Quite a good place to stay is Termas de Corazon - a 50 years old wellness resort. It has nice rooms, plenty of pools - but don’t expect to much from the catering. And be prepared for Bingo, Sining, etc. at dinner - the atmosphere in the dinning room is more like a sanatorium
• If you can, take your hiking stuff with you. There is Valle Honda, a wide open bowl - that is perfect for some lines! You can reach it within half an hour hiking from the top from Alto del Arpa. On the map you can see our round-trip - allow 2-3 hours.
• Form Alto del Arpa you have awesome views towards the Aconcagua!

Here are some of our Ski Arpa pix

Skiing terrain and skiing map

And the wayfaring points for the runs

Our second exotic skiing trip took us again to Southamerica - but this time Chile and Argentina. Why again? Well there were still plenty of skiing resorts to see and still are (even after that trip). This time we decided to go in the high winter season - that in mid to end of July.

So this time, we decided to give Chile a try, before skiing the famous Las Lenas. Therefore we flew directly to Santiago de Chile and directly organized transportation to the nearby skiing resorts: La Parva, El Condor and Sierra Nevado. You can see these resorts from town, and so it took us roughly one to two hours driving from the airport. Very nice, but also very steep road. There are plenty opportunities to stay, from cheap hostels to cabanas and luxurous 5-star hotels. After 5 days we had the more difficult task of getting to Los Andes. But again - with private transportation it is no problem. But allow at least 4 hours driving. Why Los Andes can rightly ask - the is no snow in Los Andes.

Correct, but there is Ski Arpa nearby! Ski Arpa is the perfect resort for freeskiing - no lifts, no tracks, no runs - just Toni and his snowcats. Due to the difficult access way, you may think about a good 4×4 rental car! We were lucky and Toni picked us up for the hotel - so we had some really interessting rides to the resort.

Back to the big resorts - After 3 days it was time to fly to Argentina and to Las Lenas. So we flew Santiago to Buenos Aires, took the bus to the national airport and a flew again to San Rafael. San Rafael is a small town in the Argentinian pampas - no mountains, no snow. So the bus trip took 4 hours to Las Lenas (pretty tiring hours, as the bus was a piece of garbage and was sometimes driving below 20mph! little advice: buy something to dink in advance, but zip only a little every once in a while, because there are no stops!). Las Lenas is a typical ski only resort - little like the French stations like Val Thorens, Avoriaz, or Tignes. You can normally book one week-packages - so we did as well.

So like on the first trip - after a 14 skiing intensive days - we enjoyed Buenos Aires again before flying back. Perfect to acclimatize again for the European summer

Stay tuned for the freeriding tips and details for Las Lenas, Ski Arpa, Valle Nevado!