We are still in the year 2013 in the town of San Martin de los Andes in Argentina.
San Martin is on the shores of a mountain lake, Lake Lacar. The road cut in the far hill is the road to Chapelco.
The weather was similar to Denver, but with a lot more precipitation. Like Denver, we occasionally got snow in town, but the sun usually melted it away by noon. Any that was left was washed away with rain . . . torrential rain. It rained every day. BUT . . . that meant snow at higher elevation! Most days, we woke to rain in town, which turned to sleet as we drove the 1/2 hour up the mountain. The sleet turned to snow by the time we got to the base of the ski resort.
- On the road to Chapelco looking back at San Martin.
The drive was spectacular. San Martin is nestled on the shores of Lake Lacar.
- One of my favorite views driving to the ski area.
The drive took us along one edge of the lake. We never got tired of the view over our shoulder. It would change daily with the weather and time of day.
And this is what we were excited for . . . mountain skiing! Luckily, we had more snow than we had at Las Leñas.
This was the kind of day we prayed for.
The skiing varied, but we could count on good snow in the morning before the sun heated things up.
Top of Chapelco looking down at the lake.
Too often, we ended our day skiing down to the base in the rain. We were glad to have rental skis since there were a number of areas with exposed rock.
Love this view from the top: San Martin below and the volcano on the horizon. Snow was dwindling.
Dog sleds ready to go.
Besides skiing, you could go on a dog sled ride with adorable huskies that excitedly barked to go for a run. There were multiple teams; one was always hooked up and ready to go.
- Snow Polo!
Or, you could watch Snow Polo! – Really! Horses and all!
Our treat after a hard day of skiing was dinner out. Our favorite place was Torino. They had a unique and delicious venison sushi – raw venison – yum! We returned a few times for this. There are dozens of restaurants serving delicious wild boar (jabali) and deer (ciervo), specialties in this area.
Looking back at Chapelco
Chapelco was our favorite ski area. It had better snow than Las Leñas. However, we were told that is usually not the case. Chapelco had a nice variety of runs for all caliber of skiers and conditions. Chris is an excellent skier. In his previous life, he coached slalom and giant slalom. The black diamonds were a perfect playground, especially when there was fresh powder. I was content with the blue runs.
While in San Martin, we needed to run across the border into Chile. We had reached our 90 days, so our passport entry stamps were expiring. It was a short enough run that we could leave the dogs in our room. I will talk about our border crossings later.
Next post: San Martin today.