Winter camping has always been intimidating for me. The
thought of keeping you and your gear warm and dry enough to function while in
the cold and snow can be daunting. A friend always said, “winter camping is an
art”. Despite being friends, I thought he was either insane or a liar.
On the other hand, winter camping has such incredible
benefits. You have all the joys of living simply with close (or soon to be
close) friends. On top of that, you get to go skiing. How could it get better?
When you think of all the positives, you start to forget how much it sucks
using numb fingers to jam numb toes into moist ski boots, eat instant food for
all your meals, or carry a heavy backpack for long enough to bruise your hips…right?
At least I (sometimes) do.
It had been a particularly terrible season in the Central
Andes. People in the northern hemisphere complain about a 300 inch year. It snowed
70 inches in the valley this year. So when friends Alejo Sanchez and Lee Lyon
suggested a winter camping mission to some high, far, south facing lines, the
choice was obvious. There was no snow left in the valley. It didn’t matter if
the snow we were walking towards would be good or not, it was the last place we
could go skiing.
Our plan was to use the ski resort to make access easier.
Camping behind the ski resort is not encouraged by the administration, so
stealth was essential. Easier said than done, we were easily spotted by the
Gendarmes when leaving the resort. Despite having ice axes strapped to the
outside of our backpacks, they believed our claims of a mellow week hanging out
in the termas, and finally allowed us to exit the resort for an ‘Argentine
Alpine Start’ at 1130AM. We skied off
the back of the resort, skinned up the ridge out back, and down into our
approach valley where we slogged until nightfall to reach an acceptable place
to call camp.
We awoke the next morning excited to be exploring a new
zone. Rather than dry our boots from the previous days approach, we went for
the biggest, most obvious line visible from camp. Why not? The line had two
significant pitches with great snow in both: powder on the upper pitch
seamlessly transitioning to corn on the lower. We called the line ‘Japi Hour’,
in honor of its two for one policy. Given probably none of this area had been
skied before, we tried to come up with cheeky names for what we skied this
week.
Day two consisted of slightly more bold objectives. A hidden
southwest couloir that was tucked out of view from camp, and an obvious face
off of ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain’. The hidden couloir was a personal highlight.
Despite having never laid eyes on it, the imposing rock wall above camp looked
like there had to be something hidden in there. It was an interesting moment
involving a bit of faith that paid off. The hidden line on ‘Aguja Argentina’
bolstered our confidence that things would simply work. We next moved to the jumbled
labyrinth of hanging snowfields, cliffs, and couloirs, which we named ‘Big Rock
Candy Mountain’. It was a sluffy run but overall really fun.
Starting to feel the rhythm on day three, we went for a
complex zone observed from ‘Japi Hour’ on the first day. Like many things that
are not what they seem, we got a little lost in the maze of couloirs on the way
up. It turned out that one couloir was three braided together. We momentarily
lamented not being able to downclimb the cliff to get to our intended line, but
where we were proved to be pretty sweet too. We called the zone ‘A Picture of
Dorian’s Brain’, in honor of a friend who had been with us last time out in
this area. Don’t worry, he’s not dead, just skateboarding right now.
After a punky exit/downclimb from the ‘Dorian’s Brain’, we
opted to walk farther up the adjacent valley to see if there was any ski potential
towards ‘Cerro Matequillas’ for the following day. Not finding anything skiable,
we treated ourselves to a cruisy 900m corn run back to camp. This was the first
bit of straightforward skiing we had done on the trip, and it felt nice to turn
the brain off and simply link some turns.
The following day dawned with intermittent clouds and we
enjoyed some extra rest. We opted to walk into a different valley to explore a
large tower that resembled the Soldado. Thinking of our protectors back at the
resort, we called it ‘Cerro Gendarme’. We skinned to the top of our line for
the first time of the trip. It’s easy to forget how easy skinning is when you
have to bootpack everything. Even in difficult snow with some exposed
switchbacks, the track felt cruisy. We skied an angular, sheltered line with
recycled powder on it down to the firmer carton in the valley below, then
pleasant corn turns all the way back to camp.
Feeling refreshed from the ‘rest day’, we skied a line we
had all looked at on the walk in, and wanted to call the embudo. Though the
turns were nice on the face, things got rough at the choke. One had to stay
clear while sluff moved past, then carefully pick their way through knee high
sastrugi and rock solid carton through the runout. We opted for a more
appropriate name: ‘Inodoro’. The lower section of the ‘Inodoro’ was
definitively the worst snow of the trip.
We had been watching the snow melt both around camp and down
valley, and knew the walk out would not be very pleasant. We awoke early to
give ourselves as much time as possible with snow still frozen to ease the
return.
The snow covering the creek we had walked in on had melted.
We were forced to use the icy, dirty snow on a heinously steep sidehill above
the now running water. We reached the bottom of the valley and could see we
were close. We had a creative creek crossing, then about 150m of dirt and mud
slogging before getting high enough to a snow ribbon that would take us out.
Lady Argentina had different plans…
It turns out all plants in the Central Andes tend to be
‘tear your ski pants open if you try to sit on them’ sharp, even the grass. With
this in mind, the real fun on the return got going when we found ourselves
amongst waist high spike bushes with no trail back to the snow. I zipped up the
vents of my ski pants and carefully slid from gap to gap, using my skis and
poles to hold branches off of my legs. Despite wearing thermals and ski pants,
the bushes punched through as if nothing was there, raking and stinging the
skin. At this point I would have given a lot to be back on snow of any kind.
The bottom of the ‘Inodoro’, knee deep hallow mank, sloggingly deep powder, icy
groomers. It would have been relative bliss.
Like all ‘type two fun’ experiences, the slog out took just
long enough to leave a memory. In this case a physical mark as well. Finally on
top of the ridge, we skied down the far side in late day slush. We changed to
shoes as the snow stopped and followed an unimproved road down valley back
towards civilization.
Once we got cell service, we had hoped to call for a ride
back to town, but we pushed rations an extra day and were unsure what to
expect. Nobody was answering their phone, so we continued walking, expecting to
go the full six miles back to town. However Alejo’s brother had thought ahead,
and left a car for us just around the next switchback.
We were back at the apartment an hour later. Dirty, tired,
happy. We devoured cheesy eggs and promptly opened a well-earned beer.
Usually I hate every second of winter camping and accept it
for what it is. I’ve been constantly tinkering my systems in hope of finding
something that starts to work better. Balancing simplicity and comfort is a
huge challenge when you have to carry everything.
Maybe we got lucky. Maybe we’re getting better. I’d like to
think the latter than the former. Whatever we did, we did pretty well this time
around.
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