Last summit in Chile

Well all good things must end, and so this trip down in SA is almost over. It has been exactly what I had hoped it would be, four months of ski touring in ranges I had never seen. There was a tonne of challenges right at the start, with crazy wind and weather, but there were also some amazing volcanoes. Some great runs and some absolutely terrible ones. Bariloche was great, a fantastic house for the family and some small but beautiful mountains for me. Las lenas was huge and amazing with not very much snow. Then a few different volcanoes, a steep descent off Sierra Velluda and  I finished off with some serious vertical in las Trancas.

In the last 3 weeks I have skied 18 days, 16 of them above 10 grand, 2 others not so huge, for a total of 183 010. I had dreamed that I was going to hammer for these three weeks, but these dreams are challenging to realize, but I did I work my butt off and pounded skin track and it has payed off. I started off the month 4 days behind and I am now 7 days ahead, which will get eaten up quickly but the week off will be thoroughly enjoyed. It looks like the snow will start this weekend and Revelstoke should get up to 50 cm by Wednesday, not a huge amount but I will try and get out and ski on next Thursday. There is a spot that I have not skied at for 7 years that is perfect for early season turns.

Anyhow my buddy Frank asked me to pull a big ol daffy for him. Since this was my last run in Chile I set up my camera and got an ok one, not huge air though, the run in was a little short. 

Needless to say I am excited to go home and see my wife and kids. Life will have meaning again.

Drunken induced despondency

Like most people I enjoy a drink here and there, and a long time ago while in university I  used to enjoy many. Saturday night I joined some frenchies for a barbacue and some wine, many hours later I found myself quite tipsy and I silently exited stage left, so that I could get up and ski yesterday. But when I awoke, I was a little hung over but more I had lost my “joie de vivre”. There was so little in me that wanted to do anything, I simply wanted to curl up watch some movies and make time pass so I could head home. Alcohol, can be so much fun, yet so depressing the next day.All day I tried to summon my psych but nothing ever came, so I loitered and wasted a beautiful sunny day.

Got back after it today and skied 10 620 ft which was great, and now I have 3 days left before I head home. That is exciting!

Thanks to Gilles le skieur for his donation, gilles runs a blog in Switzerland and skis some gnarly lines. His website is gillesleskieur.com

Also thanks to George/Hoarhey Myers, he is helping me get an article in the Chilean newspaper, it would be great to have an article in a language I cannot read!

Double Double

I am most definitely ready to go home. A double double is a coffee with two creams/two sugars and bought at Canada’s Tim Hortons. It’s my road drug, whenever I am driving long distances I always get a double double, a 12 inch blt, and an apple fritter. Quick effective and always tastes exactly the same regardless of where you buy it.

In the case of my blog, it means two double days in a row, 11260ft yesterday, 11270 ft today. Both double my daily average. I only have five remaining ski days left in SA before I head home. Looking at snow up north I should realistically stay here another week, and wait for some snow to start falling. But there is not a lot in me that really wants to do that. I would prefer to go home, see my kids, wife and friends, fall a week behind and then pound vertical in deep powder.  Enough of this corn skiing..

I passed the 1.6 mill or 80% mark today which is great. In the early part of this quest, a few hundred feet extra on a day seemed irrelevant with the size of the goal. Now that I am getting closer it feels like every extra hundred feet is worth it. When the bucket was empty each drop seemed pointless but now that it is filling each drop brings it that much closer.