Cerro Catedral

I haven’t mentioned the ski hill here, as with most towns the ski hills give access to a tremendous amount of backcountry skiing.  It is also an important place for me, since I can get some quick vertical when the weather comes in, or when I want to have a family day but also need my vertical.

Cerro Catedral is a pretty amazing hill, 16 chair-lifts, 20 land lifts, plus two gondolas. There is 3773 feet of relief and a huge variety of terrain. Great fall line groomers, lots of learning zones, and some good inbounds gnar. They have this Laguna zone that is accessed with the craziest poma I have ever seen, steep as sh#$ and it has a 90 degree turn in it. I guess it has been closed for years and was finally opened yesterday. The Laguna zone is wild, lots of cliffs and spires and a lot of fun runs to shred.  I was skiing it yesterday and also today, since the lift was never really open it is a safe backcountry zone.  I also have used the hill to access to the Frey hut and all the terrain around it.  I have been assuming that I am allowed to tour up the hill instead of paying, and so far no one has said anything. Till today, someone finally told me I am not allowed and then he let us continue up and out of bounds. But I honestly hope that I am not stepping on toes but I do need to use this resort for my access and quick vertical.  Time will tell whether I get away with it or not.

Two decent 9000+ days and I was hoping for more but I am feeling a little sick and I will wait and see how I feel in the morning. I have been coughing for a month and wondering when it would actually hit me, maybe now maybe not….

ooops

Well, it happens. Dang, I had such high hopes of hitting the big daddy today. You can’t always get lucky,and perhaps I did not do enough research. I thought we could drive to the end of the road, skin up and climb 8000ft to the summit of this babe. It was a lot more complex than that and will require another attempt. We drove and ended up in a beautiful valley, rimmed with huge cliffs, hanging seracs, frozen waterfalls and a tumbling glacier. No easy/safe way anywhere. Oops, next time I will go the serious long way up, but the safer easy way. There was also  a tonne of wind a cosistent 40 km and calling for 60+ on the summit so it was not the day to attempt it anyway. You can see the spindrifts all over the mountain.

Cerro Tronador is huge, 11000+ feet and towers over everything near by, it is 3000 feet higher than anything around and covered in glacier, weird. I wonder how it got to be so different from everything around it.

another sweet day

Today I headed out off cerro cathedral, to go and visit the infamous Frey hut. Everyone always talks about this refugio so i had to take  a look. Its a  nice refugio with a cook if you want 17$ if you want a bed and to cook for yourself, or 35$ for a bed and dinner,and maybe even breakfast.

Cool zone, small runs but super beautiful with all the granite towers around. I met up with some friends on a ridge, and then continued on my way. I could not resist skiing one SE chute that had some great snow in it.

So nice to have a lunch with me today, a huge energy filled lunch.. It was time to head back so I looped back towards the ski hill and climbed a summit Torre Piramidal, or maybe; I will have to check a more detailed map. But here is me looking as cool as I could on the summit.

Another couple of decent south facing runs and I headed home. 10760ft later…