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  4.5 of 5 27/09/2005 @ 00:51:58 |
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| Price Paid |
| Total cost £100 for the week - incl lift, transport and accomodation |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| DIY - cheap, cheap, cheap |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
I've been living in South America since April 2005 and everyone I spoke to said that Chapelco was the best resort in South America. So after spending most of the winter riding the slopes around Santiago my girlfriend and I thought we'd spend the first week of Spring on t'other side of the Andes.
Chapelco is situated about 20km from the Argentinian town of San Martin Los Andes, which is about 200km north of Bariloche and 600km South of Neuquen. We travelled down from Santiago via Pucon, Chile, which took about 16 hours, however we stopped in Pucon for a couple of days to ride the volcano there, awesome. Total cost of the trip from Santiago was about £50 return, which involved a nice comfy bus where the seats recline into beds!! You can also get buses direct from Buenos Aires and there is an airport too, although flying into Bariloche is probably cheaper.
Accomodation is best sort in San Martin. There are plenty of hostels, hotels, and cabins for those staying longer. We paid £80 between us for a week in a really nice double room with ensuite bathroom. There are lots of companies offering transfers up to the resort, the prices vary from £2 to £4 per day. Most companies have various departure and return times so you can go up when it suits you. Note - it's a good idea to leave your board at the resort, it costs £1 per day, as the road up is little more than a dusty gravel track. Little stones peppering your board isn't best.
Lift passes are ridiculously cheap at £10 per day, or £8 for an afternoon pass (valid from 12.45.)
A cable car gets you from the base up to the midpoint of the resort at 1600m. From here you can head in two main directions up towards Cerro Teta or Cerro Escalonado.
Left takes you up towards the lift for Cerro Teta, which is a windy summit featuring two black diamonds and two reds, one is strangely just a cat track across the top of the mountain and the other is a steep and vicious set of moguls. I did my best to ride the moguls but ended up on my a*se more times than I care to remember. This route is the best way for boarders to get over to the Pradera Del Puma area, the only other way is via a long, awkward, skier-centric cat track, which had too many uphill sections for my liking.
The Pradera Del Puma area features a medium length T-bar up to two main runs, a red and a blue, and also offers access to the off-piste area to the side of Cerro Teta. The two main runs are good, if not a little short, but the area is fairly quiet and offers some good conditions when the snow on the lower slopes deteriorates.
To the right of the midpoint are some excellent long runs. A long button lift takes you up to the top of Cerro Escalonado where two steep, moguley reds whip you back down to the Refugio Graeff area. From here two blues and a long red take you back down towards the base. All three runs are served by a long double chair lift (journey time is 14 minutes) back to the Refugio Graeff area.
This latter area offers some great riding through some beautiful forested areas. The red run, Los Italianos, is particularly good featuring lots of ledges and little jumps to keep you entertained. The more adventorous can head into the forests, although be warned the trees get pretty tight in places!
We spent 5 days boarding at Chapelco, spending at least 7 hours a day up there, and we did manage to do almost all the runs, however there was plenty of off piste areas that we didn't have time for so I'd imagine Chapelco would keep most people happy for quite some time.
Definately my favourite South American resort. Lift queues weren't too bad, but the resort wasn't as quiet as it's Chilean counterparts. The Argentinian resorts offer local residents ridiculously cheap deals on ski trips, we met a guy that had paid US$110 for 7 days equipment hire, lift pass, transport and 2.5 hours of lessons each day, bargain. The majority of lessons start at 2pm so this is a good time to break for lunch as the lift queues are crazy with all the classes hitting them at the same time. |
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| Strengths |
Loads of nice long runs.
Well groomed.
Forests!!
Cheap.
Good, modern lifts.
Argentinian ladies....oh my. |
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| Hot Spots |
| Los Italianos - ledges, jumps, trees, nice. |
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| Weaknesses |
Lifts were busy around 2-2.30 when all the classes seem to hit the lifts at the same time.
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
Cerro Catedral, Bariloche, Argentina
Valle Nevado, Chile
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