December 18, 2016
Editors note: Due to the elevation being over three thousand metres, it is suggested that you initially limit any strenuous physical activities. In the eventuality that you may experience a shortness of breath it is recommended that you go back two or three posts, acclimatize, and then slowly rejoin us.
Certainly not expecting any skiing, we will find South America's most famous ski hill Portillio quite different than most we’ve been to. (We’ve been to a bunch.) Not to take away from the place the least, other than the main lodge (lodging closed for the season), a bit of auxiliary housing and some service buildings, the area is void of everything else one finds at ski resorts today. This absence, adding to that this place hasn’t taken on the year round, summer circus of activities that most places take on leaves a rather unique feeling of desolation and abandonment amid an amazingly stark and strikingly beautiful area.
Not fifteen kilometres, the way the condor flies, from here towers South Ameica’s, and for that point the Southern Hemisphere’s highest mountain, Aconcagua.
Where are the ski runs. The majority seem to spill over the back of the lodge into the abyss of the pass.
I'm sure adding to the spectacle of wintertime crossing of
Los Libertadores.
Los Libertadores.
Portillo always seemed to be this magical far off place that you would hear about when ski racers from the Northern Hemisphere wanted to get an jump on our winter.
Go ski racing and training in June!
Like so much of this country, this place has a history of its own. Long after some of the world's most famous adventures, Humboldt, Darwin, Bolivar.... crossed this pass literally steps from here.
There is a hallway in the lodge that is equivalent to a ski racer's hall of fame.
From even before the 1966 World Alpine Skiing Championships that were held here, you will find acknowledgements of gratitude from the likes of Jean Claude Killy to today's most famous.
There is an endless line from Canada, as here Kate Pace and Karen Lee Gartner show off some hardware.
Crazy. Canucks!
Last three L to R. Brian S.,Eddy P., and Rob B.
Last three L to R. Brian S.,Eddy P., and Rob B.
Just past Portillo is the Argentina/Chile border.
We watched this traveller appear from the border control. I think as soon as he was in Chile he changed his Facebook status.
Never really needing too much, Kate and I have been travelling with a plan of where and how we might spend the night and then buying food accordingly.
We will be camping tonight. With good intentions to buy supplies on route, all of a sudden we were up the pass with absolutely no services other the the restaurant at the closed and rather deserted lodge.
It will be one of those meals that we will remember for a number of reasons.
We've planned our meal so as to have sufficient time on our descent to have the freedom of finding a camp site.
We've made it up so heading down to find a camp spot shouldn't be that hard.
Or will it.
Ruling out any brakeless emergency truck run-offs.
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