Wow - last weekend I went for my first early season tour to the Spitzingsee. It’s a small, but nice Resort and only one hour driving from Munich. An guess what - I found tons of freshest and nicest powder for skiing. So, I chose to hike up to the Rauhkopf, thats approx. 650m in vertical drop (from Spitzingsee-level up to the Rauhkopf). It took me 1,5h to hike up. As this side of the mountain was still closed (and is not going to be opened until December) it is all freeride skiing terrain right now! That means, I had awesome conditions for November and a great ride down. Try to check it out the next days - there is warmer weather to come, and there are tons of nice spots without lines yet…

Enjoy these pix - and sorry for the quality, they were taken with my Nokia-Cam:

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

During the last years, we did a couple of quite exotic skiing trips.

The first of those trips took us to the Argentinian Andes. 3 weeks for Buenos Aires, Bariloche (Cerro Catedral), Chapelco and Cerro Castor in Tierra del Fuego. Altogether we had a dozen skiing days - the rest was travelling and enjoying the Argentinian way of life. Which is especially eating great steaks, drinking good red wine and enjoying perfect night life.

We went end of August/beginning of September - and the means Easter conditions. So a little advice: plan with enough flexibility to find the best snow. On the other hand, in order to be sure to manage 3 ski resorts in three different areas in three weeks, we did some planning ahead. Especially the flight form Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego/Ushuahia can be pretty crowded. But before going into details on the three resorts - here is our trip-schedule:

Couple of days enjyoing Buenos Aires. After that we took a flight to Bariloche. Form the airport you can easily take buses up to the skiing resort (if you stay up there, which we did).

From Cerro Catedral, we took a private transportation (that is Argentinian terms for driver with private car, but organized by hotel…) to San Martin de los Andes. San Martin is the base station for Chapelco. It took us roughly 4 hours driving, as the direct route is blocked in winter.

Because there was no direct flight connection possibility from San Martin to Ushuahia, we had to fly back to Buenos Aires and took the earliest flight the next morning to Ushuahia. The flight is really great - perfect views especially on Tierry del Fuego. We even saw the skiing resort before landing. There a dozens of hotels and opportunities to stay in Ushuahia, but only a couple of cabanas right next to the resort. So better organize transporation right away.

The next weeks, we will block on the skiing resorts - to give you some impressions and share some better runs and freesking opportunities.

Stay tuned!

What would you expect end of March 2007 up on the Zugspitz Plateau…
Well when we went there last weekend, we didn‘t expect much, except for tons of snow, crystal clear and crisp conditions and perfect pow.
And we weren‘t disappointed, it really was a perfect day.
Normally, the Zugspitz Plateau gets boring after half a day, but with perfect powder, you find enough places to play around. When the Powderalarm strikes, they don‘t groom the Aspen run - and you even have more terrain to play!
Looking for a perfect round… here you go:

1) go up Schneefernerkopf and keep on climbing towards the old chair lift (you can still see the top station) - going down you have a nice steep run
2) head towards top station of Weißes Tal and go down this nice open bowl towards Wetterwandeck
3) go up Wetterwandeck, at top leave to the left and head for the rocks right of you. Just behind the rocks opens a great bowl for perfect freeriding. At the end follow the tracks and head for Brunnthal. You have some nice terrain until you reach Brunnthal.
4) go up Brunnthal and Sonnenkar. Going up you can see your next spots: the open fields right of Sonnenkar and the moguls just below Sonnenkar!
All in all take your time and enjoy - do it twice in one day and you will love your Weissbier at the end
www.zugspitze.de

Okay - the Italian Dolomites were quite nice… but we couldn’t help and went to St Anton for another week of skiing. But what should I say? Pow?

No way! More like Easter skiing, but with hardly any snow. Pretty poor conditions for january, but we tried to make the best out of it…here you go:

Schindlerkar: Schindlerkar and Mattun where okay until the rain hit the Arlberg
region. And it rained heavily up to 2.500m! Forget about the couliers directly
below Schindlerkar top station.

Albona: Hardly any snow on the Albona II side - hard, crusted, wind blown
towards Stuben. But no people at all, and runs groomed okay

Gampen: #34 from Kapall to Mattun was okay, but currently hardly any snow.
But look out for some chutes with windslab (but watch out for avalanche-danger!
under-layers are totally garbage!)

Rendl: Runs are okay, Park is closed! Roßfall only with wind blown snow -
But Malfontal is great as always! Found Pow last Saturday! Will tell you more about
Malfontal and how to get there soon (pix will follow as well)

To check out the latest conditions check out:

www.stantonamarlberg.com