Las Cuevas, Pehuenche, Manantiales

October is both my favorite and least favorite time of the year to ski. Life on expeditions is very simple: One need only survive. Life on expeditions can also be very complex: One needs to survive. The rest of the ski world seems to catch its breath with the release of new gear, magazines, maybe a trip to the beach, or some early season low hanging fruit in the northern hemisphere. Meanwhile, we do our best to maintain motivation and positivity to keep skiing despite heavy backpacks, long approaches, early mornings, and bland camping food.

Despite the challenges, one of the greatest benefits is having these places to ourselves. The only dilemma is dealing with bad weather. I’d like to think we’re getting smarter. Or at least less stubborn. When the forecast calls for conditions that don’t warrant skiing, we opt to stay on the couch. This gets boring quickly though, and after nearly three weeks of bad weather that followed our Mantequillas camping trip, we were ready to go skiing.

The forecast was uncertain at best. It called for some sun, some clouds, and some wind. We opted to visit Las Cuevas, in between Santiago and Mendoza, as there was the option to stay at a simple hostel should we have a down day. It’s important to note that this hostel didn’t have much heat, so sleeping bags and warm clothes for downtime were a must.

Manantiales is full of large terrain and is a fair bit higher than the places we had been skiing. We drove in late on the first day and slept at the snow line, approximately 3500m. The next day dawned with a cloud ceiling around 3000m that would stay between there and 3600m for the remainder of our trip as we skied the peaks above. We spent the next five days exploring what the terrain had to offer, and moved camp up to 3900m after day two to expedite the approach.

Pictures do better than I can for words. Though if I had to say something about conditions, there was a surprising amount of snow up there considering how rough a year in the Andes it has been. It could have been many things, though we suspect the cloudy and rainy weather we dealt with through September contributed to conditions. However it broke down, we had some of the best runs of October up here, logging one of the deepest runs of our Argentine winter. It’s a good reminder that when you’re willing to work hard in the mountains, they can give rewards in return.