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Thread: Ski Chile 2018
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05-22-2018, 02:23 PM #1
Ski Chile 2018
If you are looking for general data on ski areas, maps, travel tips, etc please go to http://bit.ly/Chileskiguide, this thread is for 2018 conditions, trip reports etc.
Keeping with the abnormal is the new normal gist of things, this year is looking like no exception. I had been holding off starting this years thread until some snow was falling, but will hold out no longer.
"Normally" it would have started to rain around Santiago by mid May, and snow in the mountains. But no, it hasn´t as yet, and we are enjoying a 100% deficit to date this year for the central zone. Got our own indian summer going down here, sunny, nice temps and so on. While there are some isolated patches of snow up high, things are looking dire indeed.
A bit further south, there is more snow, but still only near the summits. Planchon - Peteroa volcanic monitoring webcam a bit south of Santiago -
Chillan, with a volcanic alert level of "Orange", is looking pretty bare at the top, with just some wisps of smoke to show for it´s risk level 5.
Meanwhile, south of Chillan, it has rained a lot since March, after a bone dry summer. Temuco to Osorno has a 10-20% surplus of rainfall to date (322mm to 525mm). Alas, only recently did this start to fall as snow below the summits. However, that amounts to something, as can be seen from the Villarrica volcanic monitoring webcam -
What does the Chilean weather service have to say about the prospects for this austral winter? In a nutshell, "neutral". That is, no El Niño, no La Niña, rather what we have is "La Nada". This should mean the odds are that Santiago gets about 330mm of rain from now until about October, which is the average from the last 30 years.
On the other hand, some other phenomena have been influencing the rainfall this year. This includes the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and the Antarctic Oscillation. These are shorter term fluctuations which, for example, helped southern Chile get loads of rain in March and April. I won´t go into more boring detail on these, but they may influence things going forward.
Overall, the current prediction is drier than normal for the central zone, and near normal for the south:
Not much other news for now, but when I find the time, I will inform lift ticket prices and other info to get things in gear.Last edited by Casey E; 05-28-2018 at 07:49 AM.
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05-23-2018, 02:32 AM #2Mike Pow
- Join Date
- Apr 2005
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- Between a rock and a soft place. Aberdare and The Brecon Beacons, Wales
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Awesome info as always.
Settling in
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05-23-2018, 09:30 AM #3Registered User
- Join Date
- Jan 2016
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- 5
I'm arriving to Santiago in a week or so. Then going to decide where to go…plan had originally been Nevados, but not sure whether it's as good an idea with the volcano.
Shame about the weather so far, I was hoping we'd be seeing a similar season to the one we had in France.
Will hopefully have a better idea of where to go once I'm there!
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05-24-2018, 12:45 PM #4
It would seem my prayers for snow to Ullr (Nordic), Chione (Greek), Khuno (Inca) and Josh (Selknam) may be answered. Oh, perhaps you haven´t met any Selknam from Tierra del Fuego, you can´t miss them, they look like this:
But I digress. Here is the forecast, for what it is worth....
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05-29-2018, 06:45 AM #5
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05-29-2018, 08:57 AM #6
Corralco well on its way
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05-30-2018, 08:10 AM #7
20 to 30 cm finally fell yesterday, without too much wind. The Alfa chair in La Parva (2,800m) -
Valle Nevado (3.000m), higher and with a bit more snow -
Nowhere near enough to get the season going, as this fell on bare ground, and no more is out there on the horizon, so keep your skis in their quiver for now...
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05-30-2018, 09:29 PM #8
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05-31-2018, 09:44 PM #9
This is looking sweet
Check out the panoramic vid from today
https://web.facebook.com/antillancac...8984128212595/
It helps that this is a volcanic wasteland of sand and grit, a smooth chain of craters flanked by two other volcanic chains.
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06-01-2018, 02:33 PM #10
Planchon Peteroa appears improved from a week ago (see opening post)
And Volcan Villarrica is certainly draped
Last edited by Casey E; 06-01-2018 at 05:14 PM.
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06-01-2018, 09:44 PM #11
Ski Chile 2018
Once again, Slava gets first tracks of the season, at El Colorado.
Ever the clown, with rock skis
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06-03-2018, 09:52 PM #12
casey e. bringing the fucking noise. again. i'll be down, possibly this season. righteous.
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06-05-2018, 10:39 AM #13
Goodness, my plegarias to I'm-not-sure which dios are being answered, as in :
(remember to divide by 2)
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06-05-2018, 11:25 AM #14
That would be an amazing start to the season!
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06-06-2018, 10:56 AM #15
Yesterdays snowfall was pretty skimpy, this is how La Parva looks today
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06-06-2018, 11:01 AM #16
Corralco says they open June 15, see the webcam here https://corralco.com/webcam
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06-07-2018, 06:57 PM #17
Time for a lesson on the Chilean Meteorological website. Lots of different evolving angles on things, reading them all helps as a counterweight to other forecasting services out there.
You can´t avoid being smitten with this when the website opens:
With that in mind, you can then look at the mountain 5 day forecast for each region of Chile, along some 4,200km of the Andes.
Heading south, here is Atacama to Valparaiso (and Portillo/Arpa). "Moderate rain or snow" in Atacama is maybe 3mm total. Oodles of wind, expect avalanches along the road to Portillo, depending on temps up high, and yup they are in for a thumping....
Visual format aside, that is a fairly good forecast for something that is, by nature, unpredictable. Now for Santiago (metro region, up to Argentina) to Maule. Loads of places to ski in the two regions south of Santiago, each watershed has its own cordillera (and volcano).
Up next is a stretch with most of the southern ski areas of interest. Bio-Bio region is where Nevados de Chillan is. Araucanía hosts Corralco, Villarrica and Las Araucarias. Los Rios has Antillanca at its southern end.
This last of which will be churning the lifts for the first time on Fathers day weekend. Nice of ém, eh?
Last edited by Casey E; 06-08-2018 at 07:42 AM.
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06-07-2018, 07:18 PM #18
Drilling yet deeper, a "Frontier Pass" forecast is very useful for the few regions with a road open to Argentina in the winter, which sounds good but there isn't one along the 800km between Portillo and Corralco. Now, there is still a Maule forecast, which has a paved road all the way to Argentina, they just have a very hard time keeping the road plowed, apparently up to 6 meters deep around the Laguna del Maule caldera, and they basically gave up now. It doesn't help that the Argentine side is not paved and mostly impassable as well as desolate.
Not until the Araucanía region are there passable passes again, and bang, there´s 3, due to the lower altitude.
The first two passes are joined by a dirt road on the Chilean side of the Batea Mahuida ancient caldera which blew its lid, and runs from the Pino Hachado ("Hacked Pine") pass 30 km south to the Icalma. There is small ski area on the Argentinean south side.
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06-07-2018, 07:35 PM #19Registered User
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
- Location
- North Bend, WA
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- 682
Nice stuff! Makes me really want to go south in the northern summer instead of taking a trip to the alps or japan in the winter.
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06-08-2018, 08:24 PM #20glocal
- Join Date
- May 2002
- Posts
- 33,440
Damn.....this is motivating.
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06-09-2018, 03:31 PM #21
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06-09-2018, 04:52 PM #22
Ski Chile 2018
Here is one of the few towns in Chile that has snowplows and uses them, Lonquimay. Courtesy of our friends at Hostal Rustiko bar and restaurant -
Looks like they will be skiing soon...
https://www.facebook.com/rustikolonq...3788074667362/Last edited by Casey E; 06-09-2018 at 10:11 PM.
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06-10-2018, 06:39 AM #23
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06-10-2018, 06:39 AM #24
So far some 50cm fell last night, down to about 1,000 meters. The first front is now gone, but another, weaker one is expected later today, which will probably bring snow the eastern parts of urban Santiago. A high of 6 is expected, which is very low for Santiago.
Valle Nevado before and after this first front:
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06-10-2018, 11:25 AM #25
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