Yerba Loca

We made it back to Santiago Thursday after a wild and spectacular crossing of the Andes at Los Liberatodores. The road was lined either side of the pass with thousands of idling trucks, the backup courtesy of several days of the pass being closed. Several large slides in both countries had crossed the road and left substantial debris piles.

Friday Steven Hatcher, our really nice guest here in Santiago, took me up to Yerba Loca, a national park on the edge of Santiago and along the road to La Parva and Valle Nevado, the ski areas we went to in July. We drove up the muddy and snowy road to its end then crossed a stream and began to hike until we got to snow, where the skin started. The mountains, which look huge but simple from afar, open into mammoth and complex peaks and ridges, a single mountain practically the size of a whole range back home.



That grove of trees is where we started.



Steven sliced up a huge and very aesthetic bowl with telemark turns:







A huge place:



Skied out in the long twilight; a fantastic day: