I could write a dedicated post on confusing ticket logistics, but I had read somewhere that El Colorado had $19 senior tickets and it looked like a Farallones lift was walking distance to Chalet Valluga. It would be a variable surface walk, and it was not relevant because the snowpack in Farallones is almost gone and the lift was not running.
So we drove to El Colorado, and at 10:15 parked well below the ticket office. We skied to the Los Zorros poma but the liftie wouldn’t let us on. He finally texted on his phone and in about 10 minutes two more employees showed up and let us on.
We got to the ticket office and the tickets were $50. However Wednesday was a special day where a single area ticket could be used at all 3 areas from 10:30-3:30. We rode the Penguino, El Leon and Condor chairs to get away from the west facing frontside, obvious from this pic under Condor at 11:30.
Chile starts daylight time early and is west in its time zone like Utah, so that 11:30AM is really 9:50 sun time. So we worked our way to south facing Cornisa, where its upper half of run #20 had winter snow, and finally to the top of Cono Este with this view across to Valle Nevado and the switchback road ascending to it.
The noon descent of Cono Este’s #37 groomer was in ideal east facing corn. Looking back up from below Cono Este poma ascending at left.
The La Copa (2009) and Los Pineros (2012) pomas center and right have been added since my prior visit. View to the El Colorado sidecountry Goeff touted which leads to the Valle Nevado access road:
The road below Cono Este leads to Valle Nevado’s lowest Prado chair. Then we had a 10 minute line for the Candonga poma to reach Andes Express. Andes Express is direct south facing so the steep runs near the lift, Momia and Eclipse, had groomed winter snow.
At the top of our third Andes Express ride we met Skiwild and Sbooker and Kylie. Skiwild had been in Tres Valles for awhile and had some suggestions. We had the tasty quesadilla lunch at Olimpo, which sits at the top of the La Copa poma but is accessible from all 3 ski areas.
About 2PM we moved to Skiwild’s favorite spring corn stash, a north face dropping from an El Colorado catwalk to the Fabres chair in la Parva. I ripped it first and took pics from below.
Liz was next, followed by Skiwild, Sbooker and Kylie.
From Fabres it takes 3 lifts to get back to Valle Nevado. We reached the top of Tortolas just before the 3:30 deadline for Sbooker and Kylie to be in Valle Nevado. We skied Pirca down to the Ballicas poma, where Liz and I were able to get on without going through a Valle Nevado gate. We did not want to be sent to the VN base to show Ikon this late in the day.
From Ballicas Liz and I could ski upper Sol 1 to Cono Este. Since it was now unlikely we would ski another day at El Colorado we wanted to get in at least an hour in late afternoon spring snow.
Riding Cono Este we could see some interesting off piste looker’s left up high, but the lower half looks like unconsolidated mush. So we moved to south facing Cornisa for a couple of laps on #30 and #31.
The road from Cornisa to Condor that was bulletproof at 11:30 was nicely softened at 4:15. We tested this gully on the final approach to Condor.
Liz is on the SW facing skier’s right as the left side was getting sticky.
We noticed these interesting clouds riding Condor.
Farther out skier’s left the north face dropping to Condor chair looked smooth and enticing after what Ski Wild had shown us earlier. From above I saw a track heading out there and followed it keeping the ski boundary in sight.
This was indeed another off piste corn score. It seems odd that these two runs were north facing, while east and west facing off piste terrain had much more variable snow. The north faces needed to be sheltered from wind or they would have lost coverage.
La Parva is in the background. The deep gully in between prevents any decent ski connection between El Colorado and La Parva at lower elevation. The upper connection was difficult too until La Parva installed the Fabres chair in 2011.
On Wednesday I skied 9,200 vertical at El Colorado, 2,000 at La Parva and 5,700 at Valle Nevado.
Note to @James: The Los Andes hotel Wifi is down too. This is being posted from a Chinese restaurant.
So we drove to El Colorado, and at 10:15 parked well below the ticket office. We skied to the Los Zorros poma but the liftie wouldn’t let us on. He finally texted on his phone and in about 10 minutes two more employees showed up and let us on.
We got to the ticket office and the tickets were $50. However Wednesday was a special day where a single area ticket could be used at all 3 areas from 10:30-3:30. We rode the Penguino, El Leon and Condor chairs to get away from the west facing frontside, obvious from this pic under Condor at 11:30.
Chile starts daylight time early and is west in its time zone like Utah, so that 11:30AM is really 9:50 sun time. So we worked our way to south facing Cornisa, where its upper half of run #20 had winter snow, and finally to the top of Cono Este with this view across to Valle Nevado and the switchback road ascending to it.
The noon descent of Cono Este’s #37 groomer was in ideal east facing corn. Looking back up from below Cono Este poma ascending at left.
The La Copa (2009) and Los Pineros (2012) pomas center and right have been added since my prior visit. View to the El Colorado sidecountry Goeff touted which leads to the Valle Nevado access road:
The road below Cono Este leads to Valle Nevado’s lowest Prado chair. Then we had a 10 minute line for the Candonga poma to reach Andes Express. Andes Express is direct south facing so the steep runs near the lift, Momia and Eclipse, had groomed winter snow.
At the top of our third Andes Express ride we met Skiwild and Sbooker and Kylie. Skiwild had been in Tres Valles for awhile and had some suggestions. We had the tasty quesadilla lunch at Olimpo, which sits at the top of the La Copa poma but is accessible from all 3 ski areas.
About 2PM we moved to Skiwild’s favorite spring corn stash, a north face dropping from an El Colorado catwalk to the Fabres chair in la Parva. I ripped it first and took pics from below.
Liz was next, followed by Skiwild, Sbooker and Kylie.
From Fabres it takes 3 lifts to get back to Valle Nevado. We reached the top of Tortolas just before the 3:30 deadline for Sbooker and Kylie to be in Valle Nevado. We skied Pirca down to the Ballicas poma, where Liz and I were able to get on without going through a Valle Nevado gate. We did not want to be sent to the VN base to show Ikon this late in the day.
From Ballicas Liz and I could ski upper Sol 1 to Cono Este. Since it was now unlikely we would ski another day at El Colorado we wanted to get in at least an hour in late afternoon spring snow.
Riding Cono Este we could see some interesting off piste looker’s left up high, but the lower half looks like unconsolidated mush. So we moved to south facing Cornisa for a couple of laps on #30 and #31.
The road from Cornisa to Condor that was bulletproof at 11:30 was nicely softened at 4:15. We tested this gully on the final approach to Condor.
Liz is on the SW facing skier’s right as the left side was getting sticky.
We noticed these interesting clouds riding Condor.
Farther out skier’s left the north face dropping to Condor chair looked smooth and enticing after what Ski Wild had shown us earlier. From above I saw a track heading out there and followed it keeping the ski boundary in sight.
This was indeed another off piste corn score. It seems odd that these two runs were north facing, while east and west facing off piste terrain had much more variable snow. The north faces needed to be sheltered from wind or they would have lost coverage.
La Parva is in the background. The deep gully in between prevents any decent ski connection between El Colorado and La Parva at lower elevation. The upper connection was difficult too until La Parva installed the Fabres chair in 2011.
On Wednesday I skied 9,200 vertical at El Colorado, 2,000 at La Parva and 5,700 at Valle Nevado.
Note to @James: The Los Andes hotel Wifi is down too. This is being posted from a Chinese restaurant.
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