Greg Hill.ca

Sierra Velluda. Tick

On my first sunny day way back in June, I was climbing up Volcan Nuevo and looking south. I could see off in the distance a volcano and beside it a striking mountain, jagged and higher than everything around it. Immediately upon getting home that night I logged on to Google Earth and took a look at this area, the Volcano Antuco was a classic volcano but the mountain beside it was unlike anything around. Looking at the photos that people had posted I could see a couloir that seemed to go right off the summit. So I placed a thumbtack on my page “cool peak”, and I vowed that I would go and explore that area.

So after our recon day around Velluda, Jesse and Donny took a well deserved day off. I went up and climbed Antuco 9800ft and had some great spring skiing, skiing first the East side and then the west side of the volcano. Super fun creamy spring skiing, and huge planar runs. This mountain is 5200 feet above this cabin, its so great to have so much alpine to climb.

Then yesterday, Donny and I decided on a different approach up Sierra Velluda 3585m/11760ft. Since there was no way that I would climb up the line we saw the other day, we needed to find a safer way to get up. While driving around we noticed that there was a west facing couloir that  went almost to the summit, and if we could get to the summit than we could ski down the line from the other day. An adventurous loop to say the least!

So we headed up and moved quite quickly up and around the North east side, skiing through the col and wrapping around to the Nwest side. We finally got close to the couloir and it looked great.

A thousand feet of in your face boot packing, well the in your face part was the small ice balls bouncing down the chute.  It was barely warm enough but super small pellets were raining down the chute, so while moving it was imperative to be looking up at all times in case anything larger were to bounce its way down. Moving quickly through this lower part of the chute it was a relief to get out of the shower and up onto the ridge.

When we got up onto the ridge it was quite windy and I worried that the wind could blow us off the ridge and down either side. Especially as our skis were on our backpacks and acting as sails. But we were able to climb a little on the lee side and avoid most of the wind and soon enough we were on the summit. Awesome.

We had left our skis a little lower to ensure that we did not force ourselves to ski from the summit, unless we deemed it safe and a realistic choice. Assessing the snow and the pitch we decided we had to ski off this summit. So we climbed back down and retrieved our skis. It seems like such a silly thing to want to ski off the summit, but it is so much more pure when you are standing on the top and looking past your ski tips the whole way down. Especially since this was most likely a first descent we wanted to ensure that we did it from the top. Eeking our way down the top pitch we finally worried our way in.  A couple of hard ski cuts and then we were off, leap frogging down the best line I have skied in SA. Steep, exposed and perfectly stable. The snow was creamy, spring powder stuck onto 45 degree face, sloughing but only slightly. It was perfect.

So amazing to ski a line like this. I have not skied anything this steep, in a long time and the adrenaline was flowing. Flowing fast before we dropped in and then it was pure enjoyment. Donny and I worked our way down and around the cliffs till we were out and carving through creamy corn again.   In total we skied 5500 feet down to the valley bottom. Sitting in the sun we were both on cloud nine and loving Donny’s last day in Chile. What a way to finish his trip!

Its always funny how partnerships evolve, but for Donny this was our goal. We had never met till 3 days before but had been exchanging emails for months. And always in his email was the Sierra Velluda plug. He had wanted to ski this for years and never had anyone committed enough to see if there was in fact an amazing line off of it.  So it we only natural that we met up and attempted it, it was a much “cooler peak” than I had thought three months ago and will be the line I remember the most from my trip down here.

velluda

So the “guess my vert” competition has come and gone. How did the week go for me? Well it began in Valle Nevado, with high elevation and no snow, so the vertical was challenging due to the 12000 foot air after hanging on a beach, 7300 feet by 3pm and then an 8 hour drive to  Las Trancas,. The next day we went up and sumitted Volcan Nuevo and Jesse enjoyed her first volcano, I then skied two more runs and climbed  10 860 ft. I woke up the next day and was in the grasp of a flu, so managed to tour 6000 feet and bring Jesse to the Hotsprings.  Then next day I was feeling somewhat better and toured 10500, up the Volcano a few times, with 2 laps in a complete whiteout. Finally I was feeling even better and skied up and down the East side, enjoying some spring corn and lapping it up a bit for 11440 feet. The next day it was cloudy and I went up and ran in 6240 feet, and drove 4 hours down to Antuco,  The 7th day I woke up and it was poring rain and blowing like mad, so  day off. Total for the 7 days….. 52340.  decent, not exceptional but above average and with a day off.

Today we headed up to Sierra Velluda, with a new partner Donny. Donny runs alpineambitions and has been coming down here for years. Velluda has been high on his list and with his ambition we headed up and looked to see if there was a way to the summit. It was a gorgeous windless day and the touring was great. Hot though, so hot that Jesse dropped the pants and toured in her “booty” shorts.  Eventually  we were rewarded with a view of SE side of the summit and there was in fact a line from the summit. It looked sick, super steep, freshly snow covered and waiting for a “first”. As we got closer it looked more and more exposed, the final thousand feet was steep and required some real commitment.  As we got closer we noticed  a few warnings that had to be listened to. Two deep slabs had pulled out on the bottom of the same aspect we were hoping to climb up.  Wanting to go past it we went and assessed and realized that the two slabs had pulled out within the last 18 hours, on two separate incidents. It was hard to turn when we were so close but there are many more summits and days ahead so we pulled skins and shredded down.

On the way Donny spotted two condors sitting on a rock and we skied over and watched them for a bit, and then they flew off and we skied down. So great to check out this area, when I first saw this mountain 3 months ago I knew I needed to have a closer look. We may return tomorrow and look at another option or we may ski off Antuco Volcano and call it good.  Who knows?

Hostile life

I forgot to mention the washrooms! Well I am not going to mention them,  you can imagine if the kitchen is bad, the washrooms won’t be any better.

Last night Jesse and I watched “the man from snowy river”, since it was such a long movie it was around 11.30 pm as we were drifting off. Then the neighbors alarm started going off,  then he turned his music on, and started shouting across the hall to his friend. Then his alarm went off, and talking loudly on his phone. Finally he went to take a shower and left his music on, and while he was showering his alarm went off again, and again. I broke, and went and asked his friend to turn off his alarm and his music, which he did. The dude came back and put his music back on and continued to make a tonne of noise. Finally they left to the party around 1 am. It became so quiet and I was finally drifting off to sleep. It felt so nice, quiet and calm. Then the DOG began barking, and barking. At what I have no idea but for the rest of the night this DOG was going off, barking for 30 minutes, taking a brief break and then going at it again.   Needless to say I had a shitty night sleep.

While in Bariloche, this girl Steph emailed me, turns out she is on a similar quest  to mine. She is trying to ski 4 million feet, lift access. It was fun to meet someone else who has an obsession with vertical, someone else who looks at their watch several times a day every day to check and see their progress. She has a pretty amazing itinerary, traveling all around the world, Chile,Argentina,New Zealand,India, Alaska, Canada, and much more. She has a quirky sense of humour and runs a pretty funny blog, one that had Tracey laughing a lot more than mine ever has. theverticalfeat.   Honestly it is nice knowing that I am not the only person obsessing about some silly number on a watch, and as of now I am still ahead of her…..

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