TheOctopus
08-23-2003, 10:19 PM
Cross-posting my TR from telemarktips.com. Thanks to all for the pre-trip info., which helped up navigate the mountain and Buenos Aires. I'll email Dave some pics soon, and hopefully he can out one or two up! Here it is:
Photos to follow, but I wanted to get this up sooner rather than later. It's already been a week since we got back and others may be heading down this season. I'll lead with the skiing, and then get into some logistical details and other info that might be of use to anyone planning a trip. Warning that this is long, and so either grab a beer and relax or hold out until I put up the photos with much less verbose captions.
What can I say about this place? If you've never been and you fancy yourself an "expert" at sliding on snow, you must go at some point. The place is enormous; the amount of steep terrain available is simply impossible to comprehend. And, as you read this, keep in mind that this is a terrible snow year, yet I'm still totally psyched about Las Lenas. They got off to a great start, and had a big dump in early July, but for the next five weeks they got almost no snow. The folks we talked to who had been there last year were in shock at how "bad" the conditions were. We were told repeatedly to picture everything that we were looking at totally covered in white -- an impressive feat of imagination, since nearly everything visible was a dusty brown hue. Even still, we had no problems finding powder, we had more steep corn skiing than we could shake a stick at, and despite going first chair to last for all 7 days, there's more terrain that we wanted to ski but didn't have time to than there was terrain that we actually skied. I can't imagine the possibilities if the snowpack was anywhere near "normal." Oh, and add to all of this the fact that the off-piste (i.e., ungroomed) stuff is pretty much all yours -- the vast, vast, vast majority of skiers there will stay on the grommed. We saw the same maybe two dozen people all week poking about the interesting stuff. You'll have even the lift-served obvious stuff more to youself than much of the Sierra backcountry.
The key to the kingdom of Las Lenas is the Marte chair, from the top of which you can access something like 400,000 skiable acres. The path the lift takes is unreal -- a massive double fall-line chute that gets crossloaded with huge amounts of snow. (Avalanches take out the lift on a regular basis, which happened last year.) You could spend a week lapping this chair, skiing all the couloirs that drop into this gully, and be totally content. In a "normal" year, this would have been our game plan, but the conditions under the Marte are, sadly, pretty horrid right now. Lots of textured windblown and very firm snow. Oodles of rockfall littering the surface, and numerous "hidden treasures" just waitng to rip up your rig. Add to all that the impressiveness of the pitch, and it was just too much no-fall skiing
for our taste. This year, the vast majority of the interesting couloirs that dump into this gully are severely lacking snow -- lots of mandatory air and super steep, super tight (even by our New England standards of tightness) choices, all of which would end badly with a fall. Just remember, the nearest decent medical care is in Miami. Others shared our assessment -- we saw no more than a half dozen people (none of whom looked liked they were having any fun at all) try it all week.
No worries, though. From the top of Marte, a right turn takes you along a massive nearly flat plain. Any right turns from here followed by a traverse (and a little rock scramble) will send you down one of the numerous (dozens!!!) of East-facing couloirs that are clearly visible from the base-area. Chose your poison here: it gets as steep as you want it, as tight as you want it, and as technical as you can handle. And then some. Despite the low snow year, this stuff was all in good shape. We found everything from several thousand vertical feet of steep corn, to some pretty good pow pow (in some areas that never get any sun). Bummer, though, is now you're back at the base area, and it's three lift rides (about 35 minutes assuming no lines) to get back to the top of Marte. Chose your line carefully.
Acutally, choosing your line gets a bit tricky here. Although all the goods are all clearly visible from the base area, the flat plain up top makes it just about impossible to tell where you are. Once you figure it out, you might be way more committed than you want to be. Linking up with people who have experience with a line is a big help (if not critical). Having the "Esquiar en Las Lenas " book with maps (more on that later) helps a lot. So does hiring a guide for a day (we did, and it was money *very* well spent).
Although the skiing in this area was good, continuing on and riding the Iris poma lift delivers the real goods. More traversing takes you into an area that the "locals" (i.e., North Americans bumming for the season) were calling the Sombrero. More and more couloirs, chutes, and gullies here. Hang a left out of the Sombrero area, hike up a small peak, and then drop into any one of numerous steep (nothing less than 40 deg.) and narrow (lots of stuff in the 2m wide range) and positively powder packed (no sun gets in here, ladies and gents) chutes. Fun fun fun! As it opens up, the pow pow turns to sun-baked mush and then corn within a few turns, and then you've got another 2000 feet of corn ripping to do before you're back at the base (or you hit the road and have to hike, if it's a bad snow year and you didn't continuously bear right).
Not satisfied? Head off in another direction from the top of the Iris to an area aptly named Cornercito. You've got countless chutes to chose from as to how you want to drop into this masive, 3000+ vertical foot corn-stuffed gully. In a normal snow year, ski out along the road back to the base area. This year? Hitch a ride back (not too tough) or hoof it (a well-worth-it leasurely hour hike). This was my favorite area of the week, although it was probably the easiest thing we skied. (Mrs. Octopus's favorite of the week was a steep double-fall line couloir called Las Vegas which had good consistent snow, amazing views, and some interesting technical sections.)
Still yawning? There's Cerro (Spanish for "Mount") Martin, which has several burly looking chutes on it, about a 1-2 hour hike from the top of Iris. It's on the list for next year -- simply ran out of time....
Ok. You can also turn LEFT off the top of the Marte lift. The amount of available terrain in that direction is probably more extensive (if you don't count dropping into the Hermoso Valley -- bring your bivy) than what the above-described right-turn yields. There's the massive area where the old Juno lift used to be. We skied hiked to the old Juno 2 run, which was a (powder and corn filled) bast. There's also the numerous couloirs -- many of which look super steep and super technical -- that drop into the valley where the Neptuno lift runs. There's Entre Rios (no time, no time) which delivers a 5000 vertical foot run. And also the very accessible (difficulty-wise) El Collar -- friends of ours hit this and raved about it but, alas, we never made it there. Don't want to hike for much of this stuff? Take the snow cat for 25 pesos ($9US). Or keep going and ski off the East side of the massive ridge and drop down onto the road down-hill of the resort (a 5-hour project, but worth it, according to some folks we met who did it).
And then there's always the stuff across the valley from the resort. If the snow is good and your own high speed quads are up to it. It gets its own map in Esquiar en Las Lenas. Huge huge huge area over there.
We had an amazing time, and I'm beyond psyched about this place. No matter how awesome you are, this place will test you, and as soon as you leave, you'll be counting the days until you return.
And that's just the skiing. The food is amazing (beef! wine!) and cheap. And one of the absolute highlights of our trip was the folks we met. Generally, the people you meet from the Northern Hempisphere take their skiing pretty seriously and are likely to be as jazzed about it as you are. Swapping stories and beta on lines over dinner or at the Wine Bar (a real gem of a place) was a nightly ritual. Skiing with folks from all over the world was simply great. Hopefully we'll connect with some of our new friends in the future for some more skiing!
What about tele? This was for us a locked-heel adventure. Maybe some day I'll be good enough to handle this stuff with the tele turn, but I've got some work to do to make that happen. Sadly, there really was no culture at all of telemark skiing in Las Lenas. During the week, we saw ONE guy on tele gear. And one woman we met had her Linkens broken in transit and was totally hosed for the week. No repair shop. No rentals. She spent the week on rented alpine gear after an 8-year hiatus from the p-turn (which didn't really seem to slow her down, since she bagged a 6th descent of this one totally stoopid couloir!)
The gear of choice for the off-piste crowd is the Freeride. If you go, bring your skins. Also bring your beacon, shovel, and probe. Avy control there is totally byzantine. You're on your own in bounds, let alone beyond the ropes. The plus side of the crappy snow conditions we had was that the corn cycle was totally on. And the snow pack was deep enough that there was no wet snow activity that we saw all week. Follow the sun and you were golden.
Tips on lodging: The real deal is to get some folks together and arrange for a condo (sleeps 6; $1000US for the week total), but get one away from the Disco, we were told. It closes at 4am. We stayed in the Escorpio, which was fine. For not much more dough, stay in the Piscis, which is palatial.
Tips on figuring it all out: As massive as the place is, it's pretty easy to get a handle on. You MUST get a hold of the Esquiar en Las Lenas book, which is 30 pesos ($10US) at the Drugstore. It names and describes hundreds of off-piste lines and includes directions on how to get to them. It also has three large maps which are invaluable. Also, hire a guide for a day (or longer, if you wish). We hooked up with a guide for a half day and it was well, well worth the experience. By the end of that 1/2 day, we had discovered enough "projects" to last us the entire week. Send me an email and I'll put you in touch with the guy we used.
Is Las Lenas a place for nonexperts: Maybe. The pistes are pretty ho-hum. And there's not very many of them. If it's a bad snow year like this year, I'd think intermediates would be bored silly. Probably in a good year it'd be a bunch more fun, but I'd think it would not be a great place for the terminal intermediate skier. Beginners, of course, will have fun pretty much anywhere.
Lift lines: Forget about it. Just make sure you get out there before the lesson groups mob the Venus left, or you're screwed. Anyone skiing before 11am will virtually have the place to himself, since the culture is to stay out late, sleep late, and take an evening siesta.
What if the Marte is closed? This happens frequently, but fortunately only hit us one day. Play on the groomers. Or stay inside and drink wine.
Hiking: You can probably tell from above that there's some hiking involved here. But not much, even in a bad snow year. While we "hiked" some for nearly every run, the vast majority was in the 5 minutes or less category. There were some lines where you only had to remove skis and scramble over a few dozen yards of scree. The largest amount of hiking we did was getting out of Cornercito. The most up-hill climbing we did was getting into the old Juno area -- probably 20 minutes. The Esquiar en Las Lenas book gives accurate times for the hiking involed for the various runs. Of course, if it's snowed more recently than 5 weeks ago, you can have an absolutely epic week with no hiking whatsoever.
Hope this was useful to some and entertaining to others. Anyone planning a trip or thinking about it feel free to drop me a line. It's real tough to get information on skiing in South America....
Pictures coming soon!
Photos to follow, but I wanted to get this up sooner rather than later. It's already been a week since we got back and others may be heading down this season. I'll lead with the skiing, and then get into some logistical details and other info that might be of use to anyone planning a trip. Warning that this is long, and so either grab a beer and relax or hold out until I put up the photos with much less verbose captions.
What can I say about this place? If you've never been and you fancy yourself an "expert" at sliding on snow, you must go at some point. The place is enormous; the amount of steep terrain available is simply impossible to comprehend. And, as you read this, keep in mind that this is a terrible snow year, yet I'm still totally psyched about Las Lenas. They got off to a great start, and had a big dump in early July, but for the next five weeks they got almost no snow. The folks we talked to who had been there last year were in shock at how "bad" the conditions were. We were told repeatedly to picture everything that we were looking at totally covered in white -- an impressive feat of imagination, since nearly everything visible was a dusty brown hue. Even still, we had no problems finding powder, we had more steep corn skiing than we could shake a stick at, and despite going first chair to last for all 7 days, there's more terrain that we wanted to ski but didn't have time to than there was terrain that we actually skied. I can't imagine the possibilities if the snowpack was anywhere near "normal." Oh, and add to all of this the fact that the off-piste (i.e., ungroomed) stuff is pretty much all yours -- the vast, vast, vast majority of skiers there will stay on the grommed. We saw the same maybe two dozen people all week poking about the interesting stuff. You'll have even the lift-served obvious stuff more to youself than much of the Sierra backcountry.
The key to the kingdom of Las Lenas is the Marte chair, from the top of which you can access something like 400,000 skiable acres. The path the lift takes is unreal -- a massive double fall-line chute that gets crossloaded with huge amounts of snow. (Avalanches take out the lift on a regular basis, which happened last year.) You could spend a week lapping this chair, skiing all the couloirs that drop into this gully, and be totally content. In a "normal" year, this would have been our game plan, but the conditions under the Marte are, sadly, pretty horrid right now. Lots of textured windblown and very firm snow. Oodles of rockfall littering the surface, and numerous "hidden treasures" just waitng to rip up your rig. Add to all that the impressiveness of the pitch, and it was just too much no-fall skiing
for our taste. This year, the vast majority of the interesting couloirs that dump into this gully are severely lacking snow -- lots of mandatory air and super steep, super tight (even by our New England standards of tightness) choices, all of which would end badly with a fall. Just remember, the nearest decent medical care is in Miami. Others shared our assessment -- we saw no more than a half dozen people (none of whom looked liked they were having any fun at all) try it all week.
No worries, though. From the top of Marte, a right turn takes you along a massive nearly flat plain. Any right turns from here followed by a traverse (and a little rock scramble) will send you down one of the numerous (dozens!!!) of East-facing couloirs that are clearly visible from the base-area. Chose your poison here: it gets as steep as you want it, as tight as you want it, and as technical as you can handle. And then some. Despite the low snow year, this stuff was all in good shape. We found everything from several thousand vertical feet of steep corn, to some pretty good pow pow (in some areas that never get any sun). Bummer, though, is now you're back at the base area, and it's three lift rides (about 35 minutes assuming no lines) to get back to the top of Marte. Chose your line carefully.
Acutally, choosing your line gets a bit tricky here. Although all the goods are all clearly visible from the base area, the flat plain up top makes it just about impossible to tell where you are. Once you figure it out, you might be way more committed than you want to be. Linking up with people who have experience with a line is a big help (if not critical). Having the "Esquiar en Las Lenas " book with maps (more on that later) helps a lot. So does hiring a guide for a day (we did, and it was money *very* well spent).
Although the skiing in this area was good, continuing on and riding the Iris poma lift delivers the real goods. More traversing takes you into an area that the "locals" (i.e., North Americans bumming for the season) were calling the Sombrero. More and more couloirs, chutes, and gullies here. Hang a left out of the Sombrero area, hike up a small peak, and then drop into any one of numerous steep (nothing less than 40 deg.) and narrow (lots of stuff in the 2m wide range) and positively powder packed (no sun gets in here, ladies and gents) chutes. Fun fun fun! As it opens up, the pow pow turns to sun-baked mush and then corn within a few turns, and then you've got another 2000 feet of corn ripping to do before you're back at the base (or you hit the road and have to hike, if it's a bad snow year and you didn't continuously bear right).
Not satisfied? Head off in another direction from the top of the Iris to an area aptly named Cornercito. You've got countless chutes to chose from as to how you want to drop into this masive, 3000+ vertical foot corn-stuffed gully. In a normal snow year, ski out along the road back to the base area. This year? Hitch a ride back (not too tough) or hoof it (a well-worth-it leasurely hour hike). This was my favorite area of the week, although it was probably the easiest thing we skied. (Mrs. Octopus's favorite of the week was a steep double-fall line couloir called Las Vegas which had good consistent snow, amazing views, and some interesting technical sections.)
Still yawning? There's Cerro (Spanish for "Mount") Martin, which has several burly looking chutes on it, about a 1-2 hour hike from the top of Iris. It's on the list for next year -- simply ran out of time....
Ok. You can also turn LEFT off the top of the Marte lift. The amount of available terrain in that direction is probably more extensive (if you don't count dropping into the Hermoso Valley -- bring your bivy) than what the above-described right-turn yields. There's the massive area where the old Juno lift used to be. We skied hiked to the old Juno 2 run, which was a (powder and corn filled) bast. There's also the numerous couloirs -- many of which look super steep and super technical -- that drop into the valley where the Neptuno lift runs. There's Entre Rios (no time, no time) which delivers a 5000 vertical foot run. And also the very accessible (difficulty-wise) El Collar -- friends of ours hit this and raved about it but, alas, we never made it there. Don't want to hike for much of this stuff? Take the snow cat for 25 pesos ($9US). Or keep going and ski off the East side of the massive ridge and drop down onto the road down-hill of the resort (a 5-hour project, but worth it, according to some folks we met who did it).
And then there's always the stuff across the valley from the resort. If the snow is good and your own high speed quads are up to it. It gets its own map in Esquiar en Las Lenas. Huge huge huge area over there.
We had an amazing time, and I'm beyond psyched about this place. No matter how awesome you are, this place will test you, and as soon as you leave, you'll be counting the days until you return.
And that's just the skiing. The food is amazing (beef! wine!) and cheap. And one of the absolute highlights of our trip was the folks we met. Generally, the people you meet from the Northern Hempisphere take their skiing pretty seriously and are likely to be as jazzed about it as you are. Swapping stories and beta on lines over dinner or at the Wine Bar (a real gem of a place) was a nightly ritual. Skiing with folks from all over the world was simply great. Hopefully we'll connect with some of our new friends in the future for some more skiing!
What about tele? This was for us a locked-heel adventure. Maybe some day I'll be good enough to handle this stuff with the tele turn, but I've got some work to do to make that happen. Sadly, there really was no culture at all of telemark skiing in Las Lenas. During the week, we saw ONE guy on tele gear. And one woman we met had her Linkens broken in transit and was totally hosed for the week. No repair shop. No rentals. She spent the week on rented alpine gear after an 8-year hiatus from the p-turn (which didn't really seem to slow her down, since she bagged a 6th descent of this one totally stoopid couloir!)
The gear of choice for the off-piste crowd is the Freeride. If you go, bring your skins. Also bring your beacon, shovel, and probe. Avy control there is totally byzantine. You're on your own in bounds, let alone beyond the ropes. The plus side of the crappy snow conditions we had was that the corn cycle was totally on. And the snow pack was deep enough that there was no wet snow activity that we saw all week. Follow the sun and you were golden.
Tips on lodging: The real deal is to get some folks together and arrange for a condo (sleeps 6; $1000US for the week total), but get one away from the Disco, we were told. It closes at 4am. We stayed in the Escorpio, which was fine. For not much more dough, stay in the Piscis, which is palatial.
Tips on figuring it all out: As massive as the place is, it's pretty easy to get a handle on. You MUST get a hold of the Esquiar en Las Lenas book, which is 30 pesos ($10US) at the Drugstore. It names and describes hundreds of off-piste lines and includes directions on how to get to them. It also has three large maps which are invaluable. Also, hire a guide for a day (or longer, if you wish). We hooked up with a guide for a half day and it was well, well worth the experience. By the end of that 1/2 day, we had discovered enough "projects" to last us the entire week. Send me an email and I'll put you in touch with the guy we used.
Is Las Lenas a place for nonexperts: Maybe. The pistes are pretty ho-hum. And there's not very many of them. If it's a bad snow year like this year, I'd think intermediates would be bored silly. Probably in a good year it'd be a bunch more fun, but I'd think it would not be a great place for the terminal intermediate skier. Beginners, of course, will have fun pretty much anywhere.
Lift lines: Forget about it. Just make sure you get out there before the lesson groups mob the Venus left, or you're screwed. Anyone skiing before 11am will virtually have the place to himself, since the culture is to stay out late, sleep late, and take an evening siesta.
What if the Marte is closed? This happens frequently, but fortunately only hit us one day. Play on the groomers. Or stay inside and drink wine.
Hiking: You can probably tell from above that there's some hiking involved here. But not much, even in a bad snow year. While we "hiked" some for nearly every run, the vast majority was in the 5 minutes or less category. There were some lines where you only had to remove skis and scramble over a few dozen yards of scree. The largest amount of hiking we did was getting out of Cornercito. The most up-hill climbing we did was getting into the old Juno area -- probably 20 minutes. The Esquiar en Las Lenas book gives accurate times for the hiking involed for the various runs. Of course, if it's snowed more recently than 5 weeks ago, you can have an absolutely epic week with no hiking whatsoever.
Hope this was useful to some and entertaining to others. Anyone planning a trip or thinking about it feel free to drop me a line. It's real tough to get information on skiing in South America....
Pictures coming soon!