To the Snow in Chile: Welcome to Portillo

I probably wouldn’t have noticed that the world-class ski resort of Portillo was such a shit-hole if the snow was decent. On the day of my arrival, there had not been any significant amount of new snow in over a month. Prior to the trip, the image of Portillo that had been stuck in my mind was based on photos taken last year by a group of guys I met at Squaw. Apparently the weather in 2009 was immensely different than in 2010.

This place offers amazing views of the mountains, perched between two giant ridges overlooking a lake and situated just 1.5 km from the border with Argentina. I can only imagine what it’s like to experience a powder-filled season up here. However, this year was not my year.

There are only three main chair lifts worth utilizing (excluding the beginner slope), and the rest of the runs are accessed by tow-ropes that ascend narrow pistes. Scary on a snowboard! Worse, the snow was so hard packed that it was like a sheet of scuffed ice. To catch an edge, you had to wait until after 10am until the sun softened the “snow”.

Sure, it’s great to be able to get your snowboard legs back in the middle of a North American summer. But really, I was looking for some POWDER!

While I whine about the crap snow in Portillo, which is the most important thing I consider on a snowboarding trip, I’ll also pass a note about the accommodations here. Since the resort is about 3 hours from Santiago, you basically need to use their lodging facilities. You will read that it’s a top-notch resort, but my impression is that it’s a Chilean resort at North American prices. Seriously, you can get more bang for your buck down south in Pucón or Térmas de Chillán (from what I’ve read). Yes, while I stayed at the crappy little Inca Lodge, which is basically a bunker of closets filled with bunk beds for USD $100 / night, guests have access to the entire facilities of the main hotel as well. It seemed that everything here was broken in some way: windows didn’t close all the way, doors didn’t latch properly, the cleaning ladies sprayed strange slippery oils on floor-boards that were separating at the seams. As I said, if the snow was amazing, I wouldn’t have noticed or cared about the imperfections of the resort—but it wasn’t.

What was good about Portillo? The views were pretty spectacular. The parties were a lot of fun. (But I live in San Francisco—where the views are spectacular and the parties are amazing).

View of Inca Lake from one of the ski runs at Portillo. There are a few runs down to the lake not accessible by lifts. I watched a few skiers skate across the lake after descending some off-piste runs. I wouldn’t dare try it on a snowboard.

The common area of the hotel is a very social place filled with couches and places to hang out and drink coffee or tea. It offers this great view of the mountains in the background.