Nevados De Chillán

After hearing rumours of snow falling south of Santiago the gringos decided it would be rude not to go and get a taste of some of Chiles finest white powder. We rented a van with one head light, no rego and flat tyres, jammed it full of smelly snowboard bags and even smellier humans and hit the highway.

The Resort was Nevados De Chillán, formally known as Termas De Chillán located roughly 6 hours out of Santiago. The ski resort is located 1,650 meters above sea level and has 11 lifts serving 28 marked trails, and a total of 35 km runs over 10,000 hectares of terrain. In the center is South America's longest ski run, Las Tres Marias, which has a total length of 13 km. Termas de Chillán is also known for its hot springs, with average temperatures of 60 C. The waters of these spas are sulfaltadas and contain iron, sulfur, manganese, magnesium and potassium, among other minerals. In addition are middle mineralization.

There is a bunch of on-hill ski in ski out style accommodation at the base of the lifts or you can save a few pesos and stay down the road about 20 minutes. Pretty impressive resort with tons of easily accessible lines, cliffs, shoots etc. and is host of a fairly potent sulfa smell.

T Rice was there with his entourage of about a bazillion filming for his new tv show. Looked like they had filmers filming filmers, helis shooting the filmers who are filming the other filmers. Those boys have been doing some mind blowing things.


Image:: Will Jack


Image:: Will Jack


Image:: Will Jack

El Colorado

Our first day on the shred we hit a resort called El Colorado which is about an hour drive from Santiago. The road on the way up are super skinny so traffic is only allowed to flow one way depending on the time of day. Conditions were warm and slushy so the park was real fun with heaps of medium to mini obstacles to keep you guessing.


The view from El Colorado. On a clear day you can see the city of Santiago. Pretty amazing view. Image:: Will Jack


Willy Jackways taking in the sunset. One of the best I have seen for sure. Image:: Will Jack


From the cafe you get an epic view of a massive pair of jeans. One size fits all! Image:: Will Jack


RMB slush fest 2010. Image:: Will Jack

Santiago

One of the many skate parks in Santiago. We hit this one on a Saturday right in the middle of a contest. ZOO!


The boys hit the church to pray for some snow.


The streets are filled with random crew trying to sell junk. Here is a kid doing the hard work for his old man.


Amongst the dilapidated dwellings there are some pretty cool old buildings. Santiago's Metropolitan Cathedral.


This bloke was playing a saw down at the entrance of the train station. Crew were lined up above him throwing coins into his hat. You would probably get a similar sound from swinging a cat! Pretty funny but.


One of the many guards out the front of Palacio de La Moneda.