Cerro Catedral, ARG - 2-3 Sept 10

Patrick

Active member
What a difference a 4 hour bus ride north makes. This morning at the bus stop, they were more Americans at that stop than all of the ski area I was skiing the previous 4 days. The fact that Bariloche has been having a good winter and the other major areas havent might be a factor.

Meet up with a Frenchman that lives in Whistler, he was looking for someone to go exploring. Walking passed the ticket lineup meet up with two Americans that were on my flight to Santiago. Waiting for the gondola for our first ride up, we meet up with one of the Americans that I saw at the Osorno bus stop. We was showing some hot Pro skier around. The Whistler Frenchmen known him...we all hiked up Laguma and then across. At the top of a peak, meet the owner of the Hostel and he couldnt believe how people where there. A SASS group it would seem were bringing clients im there. We followed the ride and decided again skiing toward Refigio Frey (which we could see) Ending skiing beautiful untouched snow, the texture was changing. Finished in a bamboo jungle. Eventually tagged up with a trail out.

Skied Nubbes a few twice after that, but it was pretty tracked up. 15 minutes wait at the quad. Today was the warmest in a long time here. I splited ways with my ski partner as he was headiung back into Laguna and I had no legs left for a hike. Spring snow started kicking in at the bottom. This is a busy place. There is some awesome terrain, but its a bit too bus for my liking. Im back tomorrow before the weekend, not sure where Ill be tomorrow night or if Ill ski for Saturday or take a day off. Weather is uncertain as my itinerary.
 
Catedral the last two days. Weekend coming, so I leaving town for Villa La Angostura and skiing Cerro Bayo Saturday. Planing to cross the border back into Chile on Sunday. MAdPat's 2010 SA Trip is almost over...6 days of skiing in a row and today was the only subpar day in my book.

It was warm today, visibility in Laguna was nil, Nubbs lift was closed...and it was real windy. My legs were toast to start off the morning. I ended skinning toward Laguna, meet up a few Canadians, the Frenchmen from yesterday and his Swiss friend. We decided to come back toward the resorts as snow was not great and we couldn't see shit. We parted ways. Frenchman went off with the Canucks to skis the trees with their reverse camber skis, the Swiss and I went to take laps on the groomers on Condor III. Snow started sticking at 1ish. We got a few drops of rain/snow...but really insigificant.

In Villa now, so I need to go to sleep if I want to be able to wake up for day 7. Domingo is a day off and i'm traveling back across the border which is just a few kilometers west of here.
 
The most valuable takeway IMHO from both Patrick's trips to Bariloche is not to just stay there but to get out to the other areas, which seem to have better snow conditions (IIRC Catedral has an exposure problem along with its snow, a deadly combination) and also fewer people.

Even Powderquest doesn't go to La Hoya. If do their tour I'll come early to get a couple of days down there on my own.
 
13,800 on the better first day, 15,200 on the worse second one. I checked out the sunny day pictures. Is the primary exposure at Catedral east?
 
Tony Crocker":18yxkm7z said:
13,800 on the better first day, 15,200 on the worse second one. I checked out the sunny day pictures. Is the primary exposure at Catedral east?
I was running out of steam after 4 days in La Hoya. Check the hike + bushwack out of the bamboos after one warp speed warm up run with Zach and Ingrid. That hike and skiout lasted almost 3 hours.

If you look at the 4th picture entitled Laguna, you can see where the 1st was taken next to the shadow across the valley. That's where the Laguna lift (which I've never seen run) is in two different year. The resort lifts and trails network is beyond that (DelBosque chair).

East exposure, yes. Some of the stuff would be North-east, but it's a huge place. So the face on the Laguna (4th pictures) is south facing for the steeper stuff. The Frenchman I was with wanted to go beyond that and we skied an untouched northeast face. You can see the drainage in the picture with the bus.
 
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