Portillo is the place to be this summer. Annual guests include the U.S. Ski Team, the rich, the famous, and the hardest core ski bums. This place is beautiful, a mountain-top resort with ski-in, ski-out lodging, gourmet food (four times a day), spa, gym, bars, and enough skiing to make you easily fall asleep in a cushy bed when the day is done. (Gabe Rogel photo).
It's never too early to start thinking about what happens to disconsolate skiers in North America once the lifts close. Yes, you can go heli-skiing, or head to the arctic, but a far more civilized notion might be a summer trip to Portillo, Chile. "Portillo," reports Post Time News, "is perhaps best-known as the oldest and most exclusive resort in South America and 'combines old-world elegance, breathtaking scenery and epic skiing,' according to the resort. The resort can accommodate but 450 guests a week, offering an exclusive and hassle-free winter vacation. Lift lines and crowds tend toward the minimal, with stretches of untouched terrain and freshly groomed runs to go withan annual average of 450 inches of snowfall and nearly 300 days of sunshine."
Post blogger Vanessa Pierce and her extreme buddies got off the Mystery Bus in Portillo, Chile, and dove immediately into the unknown with Jess McMillan, Lynsey Dyer, and U.S. Ski Team member Kirsten Clark. "Portillo has hundreds of huge lines wrapped around Laguna del Inca, a frozen lake that is the epicenter of the resort," she blogs. "Hotel Portillo, ski lifts and all amenities are located at its base. When the lake is 'open,' skiers can take El Plateau and Condor up the hill and ski Lake Run right down to the ice, skate across it, and enjoy café con leche and cookies at Hotel Portillo if they want. We weren’t so lucky." (Photo by Gabe Rogel)
Posts filed under 'Portillo'
PORTILLO, Chile (Post Time News) – Ski Portillo is ready.
The resort in Chile, ranked one of the top ten ski resorts in the world, announced the 2007 season will run from June 16 – October 6, 2007. Ski weeks begin at US$1,300 a person at Hotel Portillo and include seven nights’ accommodation, seven-day lift tickets, and four meals daily.
Portillo is perhaps best-known as the oldest and most exclusive resort in South America and "combines old-world elegance, breathtaking scenery and epic skiing," according to the resort. The resort can accommodate but 450 guests a week, offering an exclusive and hassle-free winter vacation. Lift lines and crowds tend toward the minimal, with stretches of untouched terrain and freshly groomed runs to go withan annual average of 450 inches of snowfall and nearly 300 days of sunshine.
Continue Reading March 8th, 2007
When imitating great skiers, the challenge is to understand the difference between the word style, and the word technique. Certainly great skiers have great style, but their style emanates from functional technique, not the other way around.
Continue Reading March 1st, 2007
"The best and fastest way to learn a sport," says Jean-Claude Killy, "is to watch, imitatre, and learn from a champion."
In my "Camps With The Champs" on Aspen Mountain, I call it "dancing with gravity."
Great skiers of every persuasion--Stein Eriksen, Jonny Mosely, Andy Mill, Stefan Kaelin, Glen Plake, Kim Reichelm, Bode Miller, and Killy--have much in common.
Continue Reading February 26th, 2007
If Shane McConkey’s mom skied the C Couloir, then we figured we could. We scoped the line to looker’s left of Ojos de Agua peak and decide to take a vote. We heard it’s like skiing Corbet’s Couloir at Jackson Hole, a classic ski line that we were jonesing to get after.
Portillo has hundreds of huge lines wrapped around Laguna del Inca, a frozen lake that is the epicenter of the resort. Hotel Portillo, ski lifts and all amenities are located at its base. When the lake is “open,” skiers can take El Plateau and Condor up the hill and ski Lake Run right down to the ice, skate across it, and enjoy café con leche and cookies at Hotel Portillo if they want. We weren’t so lucky.
Continue Reading September 27th, 2006
Die-hard snow hounds aren’t totally out of luck during the summer months. If summer backcountry and glacier skiing don’t do it for you, get your fix south of the border…way south. Argentina and Chile boast some of the best skiing in the bizzaro world where toilets flush backwards. Put the flip-flops away, slip into your favorite fleece and plant yourself on another continent because down south it’s dumping outside!
Continue Reading August 20th, 2006
Wednesday November 19, 2008
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