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I reread Jimmy's chapters on Argentina and Chile yesterday. Like skiandgolfnut, he waxes ecstatic about Hotel Portillo. Hotel Portillo is a relic of a bygone era where ski areas served mostly all inclusive onsite guests. The best analogy in my experience would be the late St. Bernard Lodge...

We are renting a 4x4 so hopefully will not need chains. Portillo is not that big or difficult to navigate. It did not occur to me to hire guides any of these places in Chile in 2007. Everything is above tree line and visible so you can decide for yourself what’s in your comfort zone.

We are staying in Farallones the nights of Sept. 16-18 if you want to meet up. You should look into that Hotel Valluga as it's the best rated hotel there. Are you there only one week and leaving Sept. 21 when we go into Portillo?

Liz still recoils in horror at my 14-hour day before we met IRL between Hakuba and Niseko on a bus and 4 trains with 73lb suitcase (I had been scuba diving in Palau first) plus double ski bag. The ski bag fit easily in the train overhead compartments but obviously the train changes were quite a...

Enough that we have committed to Sept. 16-24. Sure, especially if you consider Valparaiso too. If limited to 5 days I'd go 3-2 the other way. Why? 1) Portillo has a deeper snowpack and is also less vulnerable to wind messing up the off piste. 2) Portillo overall has better terrain quality even...

I’m way out of the loop on this topic. In SoCal the shop sales would typically start in late February or March but in the bad years it could be late January. But after the Sport Chalet chain went belly-up in 2015 there are hardly any specialty ski shops left here. Since then my purchases have...

Is that 24-30 hours of actual train travel time split up over multiple trips? Is there a time window like a week or two when it must be used? That’s an intriguing deal which Sbooker should definitely consider. Japan’s rail pass is unlimited within a time frame of 1, 2 or 3 weeks IIRC.

I'm sure that run at the top of Schilthorn is just fine in March most of the time. Caveat emptor on the rest of the Jungfrau skiing unless you make the call on short notice like ChrisC did, just as we had outstanding conditions in Avoriaz/Chatel at the end of March this year.

@EMSC, didn't the Colorado ski shops have fire sales this spring after the disastrous season there?

It doesn't really work that way. In terms of climate change we would expect that the 1C temperature increase over the past 50 years would have raised the average rain/snow line by a modest 150 meters/500 feet. But of course every storm is individual and certain seasons can lock into a pattern...

Schilthorn is higher and colder than the rest of the Jungfrau ski terrain. But the terrain around Murren itself had the worst boilerplate that we encountered in our 3 days in the Jungfrau. Off piste anywhere lower than the Riggli chair was unthinkable. I'll hazard a guess that ChrisC...

Bad seasons usually yield deals in the spring, and typically earlier than usual. Especially notable were Liz' Blizzard Sambas purchased at a shop in Reno for 1/3 of retail price in March 2014. I would not speculate that this trend continues into the summer. I think most sellers want to...

I still believe Jackson is the better analogy. I've had 4 trips to Jackson in the same late January/first week of February timeframe as we now more often go to the Alps. The first of those was the powderfest with Patrick in 2006, and while the later ones with Liz did not have much powder...

That's a new one to me and AMS is our usual connection airport flying to Europe including the outbound trip to Bilbao recently. The return from Madrid was via Atlanta.

Kylie isn't with him on the January trip.

Yes that’s dirt cheap for the lodging. And yes you want to base in St. Anton due to the early morning meetups with guided groups. I do not believe a car is more needed in Japan than the Alps. I did not have a car on my first Japan ski trip that was to both Hakuba and Niseko. The second trip...

I’m sure Sbooker has seen my 2013 and 2017 Arlberg reports. In 2013 I was with Piste-to-Powder 3 days in their second highest group. We needed guidance far afield to get powder but that did include the bucket list backside of the Valluga. With Liz in 2017 we hired no guides but there was...

This applies to our friends who were with us on the first half of the trip. The husband just retired at the start of 2026 so they are newbie retired travel mode, starting with 3+ weeks in Japan in May. Spain was their second big trip and we were traveling together in a van for the 10 days from...

Agree. What leeward side? Predominant exposure is west which I saw so much wind effect in Sept. 2007. One sheltered steep pitch off Tortola was the only chalky off piste I recall. I’m hoping the spring corn cycle will dominate when I’m there this time, similar to Mt. Bachelor.

This is my point. Of course it’s cool getting off the plane and walking across the tarmac in some remote spot in Africa or the South Pacific. And for the smaller planes used to connect into regional airports in the US Mountain West, sure. But this was a Delta transcontinental flight from a...