TR: Las Lenas 8.13-8.22 (pics, maybe slightly nsfw)

[comish]

I was returning to Argentina after 10 years and extremely stoked. The last hurrah before I return to the working world this Thursday!?!? Returning to my memories of the world's best steak, malbec, dulce de leche, ice cream, awesome slightly crazy people, and extremely hot women. Oh ya, and they have a very large mountain range, the Andes. Having spend about 10 days in Las Lenas with 10 years ago and never getting to sample the delights of Marte I was determined to get sum this year. That year we had over 3 meters of snow in the 10 days with drifts easily 3 times higher. Prolly the most snow I had ever experienced in one storm in my life, including the epic JH winter of '96/'97 or this year in Mammoth.

We are arrive on the overnight coche cama from BA to enormous puddles and rain. Damn I hate that word. The good news was that it seemed like it was prolly snowing not too much higher up the mountain. What is one to do but head to the steak house and order a few bottles of Malbec and a nice bife de lomo followed by the standard panqueque de dulce de leche. YUM. I was going to eat my way through the country regardless of the skiing.

After lunch came the Fashion Show! Unknown to us we had managed to arrive just in time for the yearly fashion show complete with gorgeous latinas in lingerie, bikini's, etc. All this while still stlightly pissing out.


I knew I brought that 300mm lense for some reason!



There are more of these if people want...

Day 2: Backside of Volcano. Damn this was really really fun. Prolly 1200-1500ft shots of boot top pow all smooth as butter. Met up with a great bunch. Tele Mark from Silverthorne, Co., Lindsey from Fernie (friend of Dude_Le's it turns out). Great runs back there with no competition for the freshies. Umm, August pow turns are great!

Day 3: We are skiing into the Volcano lift maze when the liftie says "Amigo, Marte abrio!" Doh! We hightail it over there as quick as possible. We arrive to little lift line as the light was still really low and flat so many gringo's didn't ski this day or went touring. I'm riding up with a friend from school and I mention that this is going to be like the pow day in St. Anton this year, ie. I'm not waiting for your ass Luckily he knows the no friends on a pow day rule. The first down skiers far left of Marte bowl with no tracks and boot top pow was awesome. High speed maching turns. Comish thinking "Legs burning, wow this really fricken long. yeeeee haaaaa." So much fun! But we were happy as pigs in shit. The second run hooked up with Tele Mark and his buddy Julien and we picked our way down rather slowly as the clouds had come in and we couldn't see 10 feet in front of us. Managed 2 amazing runs before they shut it down again.

Then it started to dump and dump and dump.

Day 4: Nothing opened the next day. We got reportedly 1.2 meters of snow up high and about a foot or maybe 2 down low. Unfortunately this evening as the storm was breaking the wind kicked up and one couldn't see 2 feet in front of them. This made it hard to tell the actual snowfall as well so all totals above are guestimates. All the various nokia promotional signs around the village (fairly sold metal with lights inside) were completely destroyed from the wind and the local buses were constantly getting stuck. No one could see anything.

Day 5: Blue bird pow or so we hoped.





Notice the large slide coming down the gully to the left of the upper lift. This lift is Volcano and the slide took out part of the 3rd to last tower. Doh!


Ummm, Eduardo's!!!!!!!!!

Part II coming...

[edg]

Tease!

edg

[H-man]

That's what I'm talkin about! Keep it coming.....

[Z]

cool pics.

what kind of snowpack they have down there? From reading TRs here seems like slides are a pretty big problem...Continental type i would assume....

[Z]

There are more of these if people want......

ummmm. yeah. did you really need to ask that?

[comish]

Day 6: We had heard that Urano would be the first thing to open as they nearly opened it the day before, so we cruised down the road to Aries to get up the mtn that way.



Swiss Ski Team preparing big skis.

Reports were it was going to be at least another day for Marte. As we got up there we couldn't figure out why no one was at least working the lower shack of Volcano and it wasn't till later that we heard the avie fucked the lift. Unfortunately the wind had killed all the pow on the lower mtn. Under Minerva and Urano were just total wind crust. Damn!

We then waited for a while for Caris to open. Finally, but now we were in for a day of lift lines in the 45min - 1hour range. FKNA! It was like Mammoth in the '80's. Cenidor was fun, but not what we were there for. Alternated between boot top heavy pow and nice smooth wind buff. A good day for August, but a bit frustrating after the anticipation of the previous days dumpage. To have Volcano killed was a bummer. You lose the 2nd best lift on the mtn and made the lift lines that much worse.

To make matters worse when I took off my skis I noticed that my Fritschi's had busted on the toe piece mounting plate. Damn. So huge lift lines, pow sitting tantilizing above us, broken binder, and a lot wind made for sorta a bummer day, especially after the promise of much deep pow the day before.

Day 7:

We decided we would just hangout until Marte opened. So a couple quick early Cenidor wind buff laps and we were off to the Marte line. Luckily Phil and Erin, who we met that week were holding a nice spot in the line and we settled in for the long wait. We got there around 11ish and around 2pm and many false starts they fired up Marte!



Yeehaa!

Phil and I split from Erin and my friend Scott heading straight for Eduardo's. We got there to see one other group's tracks down it leaving plenty of virgen fresh for us. Picking our way down the skiers left of Eduardo's, but staying on the skiers right of the various humps and rolls we were able to find some non wind effected pitches. Damn that line is loooong!


Phil ripping it up!

We were super stoked at the bottom. Again, 3 hours of waiting for one epic amazing run. Cutting back across Caris we made it back to Neptuno and back into the Marte lineup which was running about 45minutes to an hour. We get to the top around 4 and the gendarme's had just closed the off-piste. This one dude was losing his shit screaming at them. They were threatening to haul him off to the local police. We had met up with Peter (A brit from Whistler) and his new fiancee Deb, Congrats!!! Peter thought we could sneak into Las Vegas so we took off only to be whistled down by another gendarme. I started to attempt to negotiate with him in Spanish seeing as how it was only 4:08 and they just closed it. I attempted to tell him they don't do anything on time in Argentina so why start now, etc. He smiled, but wouldn't play along. So we went back toward the piste, but managed to bang a hard left a wee bit lower and get into a slightly lower entrance to Las Vegas. Yeah!



It was mostly wind effected although in the chute it got a little softer, but still a great pitch! A good end to a good day even if it basically consisted of 2 runs. Drinks were had on the deck of the Innsbruck with some newly engaged Utards, and our growing crew.

That night we went to La Cima for a little Parrillada. To return we thought it would be fun to sled down.


Now it turns out this piece of laminated cardboard was fricken really fast and we were hauling ass down back to town. It was soo much fun that Erin decided we needed to do it again. As we were hiking back up the local Gendarme's didn't agree with us on the brilliance of this idea. As we came ripping down again they attempted to tackle Phil which was rather funny to watch.

Day 8:
Back up to Marte where Peter decides he needs a little Eduardo's love as well. Another long great shot down Eduardo's and we get back to Marte to find it surprise, surprise, Shut due to wind. They were calling for another storm and had shut the bastard down.

After a 8 days in LL and 4 in BA drinking, eating, skiing, partying, etc I was coming down with something that I now lovingly refer to as the Argentinean plague so called it a day. Didn't want to fight the crowds on Caris, couldn't tour with the now busted binder, not feeling great, and wanting to end the trip on a high note. I'm still fighting the Argie plague now, 10 days later.

We cruised to Mendoza for a bit more steak, Malbec, dulce de leche ice cream and a couple of days of wine tasting before our return to BA.

I will definitely return although hopefully when they figure out how to operate Marte a little more frequently. We were told of a current plan to run a quad up from Santa Fe along the groomer and then a poma up the backside of Marte that they could run in higher wind so at least they know this is a problem.

I had heard the nominations of marte as the best lift in the world and was pretty dubious. I mean it would have to be pretty amazing to top Le Grande Montets, La Grave, Auigille du Midi, JH or Snowbird Tram, etc. Well I have to say its that good. Not sure its the best, but definitely amazing. Long rock lined lines everywhere. All longer and with sustained pitch like nothing else in the lower 48/Canada that I have seen. The amount of terrain accessible is amazing as well.

I guess getting 3 Marte days was pretty good for this year even if they were always just 1 or 2 runs.. The trip was full of good snow, great people, lots of lift lines, waiting around, pow anticipation, and not as much skiing as I would have liked, but still an awesome way to end my student life.

Here are few more picts:



I believe this is Sombrero




More Eduardo's love.

[iskibc]

More fashion show pics please .

[boarderline]

Sooo nice. Sooo jealous. Sooo want winter back.

Beautiful pics.

[KillingCokes]

sweet mountains pics now give me some more luscious latinas please

[P.A.K. MAN]

What a tease, i bet it was loads of fun. I've never been skiing in S. America, been kayaking in Chile and Argentina. How is the terrain compared to Canada?

[Meathelmet]

Day 5: LOOK Mom, that building there is where Meathelmet spent two week´s waiting for Marte to open! That wanker!

Uh, thanks dude.




No seriously, goooood pics (not just the seminekkid ladies) and good writing.
Sitting home, drinking argentinan malbec, wondering when the fuck will the argentinians (the resort people) pull the head of their asses and do something.

[kneedropper]

meat,

Maybe you can broker the sale of the JH Tram to Lenas. It would be the most modern piece of equipment at the resort ... and would kick some serious top to bottom over Eddy's rides.



edit to add pick so small that it cannot be seen.....

[James Carvile]

meat,

Maybe you can broker the sale of the JH Tram to Lenas. It would be the most modern piece of equipment at the resort ... and would kick some serious top to bottom over Eddy's rides.

Go git sum.

I would post pics of last year at this time but the ground would be a little less covered. Glad I was in Ushuaia. However you looks like a fresh powder day.

[Squirrel99]

More fashion show pics please .

pfft. fashion show. And I thought you were hard core
okay, the spring fashion is quite rad


Commish....you sir, are the mang!
Thank you for ensuring my non-productivity at work today!

mmmm. me gusta Eduardo's! Where the heck is Basom hiding these days?

[Free Range Lobster]

More women plz.

[EZB]

[Blurred]

Comish, is tele marks buddy Julien the guy that builds rails for Keystone? Cool stuff.

[Arty50]

Comish para presidente! Viva Comish!!!!

[jonesy]

So many sweet boobie shots. The texture and curves. This 1's the best.

[freeskisquaw]

Hot girls and powder. That is what I think heaven will be like.

[comish]

Comish, is tele marks buddy Julien the guy that builds rails for Keystone? Cool stuff.

Nope, don't think so. Julien lives in BA so I doubt we are talking about the same dude. Nice work EZB on more Fashion show picts.

Now, Squirrel, Foggy, Ty, Arty, Girlski, etc get sum (And I really hope for your sake they dig out Marte!!!!!!!! although I gots to say I'm not overly hopefull. They were only loading every other chair when I was there which on a slow double really helps those 45min lift lines!)

[PacRimRider1]

mmmmm...I miss stretch pants.

[Tresckow]

Comish, I've read a bunch of TR's over the years, but this is the 1st one that gave me the full-on chills. Maybe it's because you tr rocks, or because we leave for Lenas tomorrow, but either way a well deserved

[descender]

I

hate

you


(nice pics)

[Squirrel99]

commish gets my vote for tr of the summer

fresh powder, nice lines, and nice. well you know!!!

I think it's the lighting- great pics- really shows how big these lines are, too.
ahhh, sombrero kicks ass. there is a super tight, burley pucker chute that sneaks through here. Hopefully we'll get a chance to post a TR on it, conditions permitting. FKN, Eh,... more maggots leaving tomorrow for SA. Can't wait!