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We stayed in Los Andes and commuted 2 days each to Portillo and Arpa. We had a driver and a van and price was reasonable but that was 2007. With the way the weather works down there odds of road closure are low. No guarantees if the strengthening El Niño tries to copy 1972.

I would assume no events in LCC. Traffic issues are far worse now.

I had a general idea from the start that most of Canada’s forest is in such remote areas that human influence either starting them or putting them out is minimal. The surprise from my reference in post #15 is that these natural fires were more common in the 1700’s Little Ice Age. Why? It may...

The same is true for Skimag and Outside, though disabling JavaScript works for those.

Finals at Snowbird freeski events are on Baldy. Qualifying runs are on Upper Silver Fox. A couple of these events have been at start or end of my timeshare week.

It did not rain in Antofagasta but it rained 8 inches in La Serena with extensive flooding.

If only. The closest town with any altitude, Mokhotlong 7,400 feet, averages 35.2 inches precipitation per year, of which 1.8 inches fall May-August. The pictures in my TR tell the story. I would assume Lesotho is very green and lush in summer. It must overall rain a lot in those mountains...

Midweek yes, spring not necessarily. I've had two fresh snow days there, not optimal as both were on weekends and one not that early a start. Sultan and Mayflower got worked over fast, and it better be a big dump because the underlying surface is moguls. Plus the sun hits it hard with the...

Valle Nevado storm total is now 96 inches.

Yes, Andacor sounds like it's not far from bankruptcy. Its share of of the Three Valley terrain is what, maybe 20% including none of the highest parts? Pillan and Osorno are probably very marginal operations.

My experience: 2008 - La Grave Extremely Canadian (booked 6 days). Result: La Grave 4, Serre Chevalier 1, Via Ferrata near Briancon 1. As there had been no new snow in a month, the overcast day at Serre Chevalier was about 2 hours frozen granular piste skiing plus a gourmet lunch. So when the...

Patrick's and Harvey's skiing lifestyles are far out of the ordinary. My comment about famous/more busy vs. under-the-radar/more quiet ski areas are on a spectrum that nearly every skier has to consider, and most of us have formed opinions. I'm overall more biased toward huge ski areas...

Extremely Canadian at Whistler is also a mix of guiding and instruction, but their "World Tours" to Las Lenas and especially La Grave attracted the top end skiers. My advice stands: take a course in the Arlberg or Tarantaise, get on some terrain like I've described from Mammoth and Snowbird...

I'm fairly sure you and Kylie should be in different guided groups. The Bourg St. Maurice setup I suspect would accommodate you both just fine, as would Piste-to-Powder in St. Anton, where I was in second highest out of 4 groups. La Grave is like Alaska; people are there to ski extreme and...

Mountain Capital Partners needs El Colorado, or at least some agreement for a user friendly three area lift ticket and well integrated lift connections. MCP should avoid those southern volcano areas in remote locations with vicious weather. I was not comparing to Palisades or SoCal in terms of...

Sbooker has really stepped up his ski game if he's considering La Grave. I've aged out of that kind of skiing, which is why it was one of the first trips I made at age 55 a few years after divorce.

Yes, but Palisades is latitude 39.2 and Portillo is 32.8, same as San Diego. I think that area of the Andes is absolutely world class for corn formation (high altitude, clear weather night and day), but the meltdown of snow at that latitude can be quite strong. The latitude difference...

I forgot that we had dissected sbooker's day at St. Anton before. We were in the Alps at the same time and James had been with us a few days earlier.

Is that a good idea? I'm perhaps not the right person to question that in view of 3 years of playing soccer in high school in Claremont during the peak SoCal smog years.

You expectation should be like mid-April in the Cottonwood Canyons but with no new snow recently. Probably similar to what Adam, Patrick, Richard and I skied Sept. 6-7, 2007. We also skied Arpa Snowcat Sept. 8-9, Valle Nevado, La Parva and El Colorado Sept. 11-13. Portillo was the best of...