The summer months don't exactly scream skiing and mountaineering, but if you head to the Andes Mountains in Chile that's exactly what the summer is all about. Just wait until you get back home and tell all you friends about the world-class ski trip you took over Labor Day Weekend.
ChileMontaña offers a tour of Portillo, El Arpa, La Parva and Valle Nevado over a week. You'll start off in Santiago and you'll return there at the end of your summer/winter vacation. Each ski area offers something different--huge mountain peaks, steep and deep terrain and even a 3,000-foot decent at El Arpa.
The trip offers opportunities for both skiers and snowboarders alike. You'll spend your evenings in high-end accommodations, and cultural interaction and cuisine are also on the agenda. The tour will set you back $2,800 per person, but that price does cover pretty much everything including airport transfers, dinner and lift tickets. All you need to do is get your flight and pack a pair or two of skis.
While we sweat it out here in the States, going to cook outs, forming relationships that won't last past Labor Day and crashing on our friends' couch at their beach house, life in the deep Southern hemisphere is in full-on winter mode. Argentina has been having a moment the last couple years with lots of coverage about super-cool Buenos Aires. But a lesser known feather in the old Argentine cap is the Las Leñas ski area.
Located just 90 minutes by air from Buenos Aires, the Las Leñas Valley is a hot spot for South American ski nuts as well as North Americans looking for the perfect year-round snow buzz. The base area of the resort is pretty much the whole town, where you'll find cheap-to-five-star dining options and lodging, as well as clubs and bars that go off all night.
For people from North America, the mountain definitely has a much different look and feel: This stretch of the Andes has craggy, cathedral-esque formations full of open snowfields and tight, steep chutes. So whether you're headed down to experience a different culture or the rush of your life, Las Leñas has you covered.
Most New Yorkers would probably file indoor ski mountains among "things we never knew we needed." But if developers have their way, the NYC metro area will soon be home to not one, but two of these modern monstrosities.
The revamped New Jersey Meadowlands complex is set to open an indoor slope later this year near Giants Stadium. Now comes word that developers plan to bring another enclosed slope to Long Island.
Skiing might sound like an invigorating winter vacation pastime, but some think it's got a dangerous side. Judging by the photos in a Times report out of the UK over the weekend, it's true. They put together a special about ski breaks of a different sort: those in holidaymakers bones.
As well as showing a neat collection of x-rays, the newspaper drew on the info at a website called ski-injury.com, which collates data about ski accidents in Scotland. What worried us the most was that it's not those risk-taking advanced skiers that are most likely to break a bone--it's beginners.
For skiers, the most common damage to do to yourself is injuring a knee, with the head and shoulders also taking a beating. Snowboarders face different dangers, with 25 percent of their injuries being to wrists.
On an across-the-world basis, winter sport enthusiasts will be happy to hear that skiing and snowboarding are really relatively safe. A skier would have to ride for around 1,000 days--nearly three years non-stop--to guarantee an injury, and snowboarders--depending on whose stats you believe--can go 500 days between incidents. The good news is that whichever stats you manipulate, it sure ain't as dangerous as Mom said, so get out there and hit the slopes.
The International Olympic Committee claims women's ski jumping doesn't merit admission into the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver because the sport wouldn't be competitive enough. That has former Salt Lake City mayor Deedee Corradini protesting the decision, along with her Women's Ski Jumping USA Foundation.
Maybe if more ladies strapped on skis and started jumping, they'd join the cause. The facilities used for the 2002 Olympics are open to the public year-round, and a few local clubs offer lessons and camps to learn the sport.
An all-day personal lesson from Axis Freeride costs $500. Yeah, it sounds steep, but if you want to learn how to rocket down a big icy ramp and fling yourself through the air, you can't skimp. (A half-day intro class will run you $85, but you'll need to bring your own gear.)
By the end of the day, you'll be flying 30 feet off the K10 jump--and if you're especially talented, your instructor might let you try the K20 or K40, which send you soaring up to 100 feet. In addition to ski jumping, you can also learn bobsled, skeleton and luge. Try 'em all before deciding what kind Olympics protest to join.
We really like skiing and boarding. But that doesn't mean we want to spend our whole vacation just getting to the mountain. Our Ski Areas Near Airports Map will help you maximize your time on the slopes.
While the rest of the country slogs its way through a long and merciless winter, Lake Tahoe's ski resorts are getting pounded with near-record snowfall. Weekend storms dumped an extra three feet of fresh powder on top of an already high base level--over 12 feet at some spots!
Spring skiing has always been popular at Tahoe, and every year some lifts stay open until May despite balmy temperatures. With the snowpack at the highest its been in decades and La Nina likely to bring abnormally cooler weather, this year looks to be even better.
The North Lake Tahoe Express will get you from the airport to the slopes in about an hour, so those looking for a quick weekend jaunt need not involve an automobile; it'll keep your carbon footprint small, too. Then again, with snow like this, we 're starting to wonder what the hell Al Gore was so worried about.
The powder paradise of Bridger Bowl Ski Area is but a twenty-minute drive from Bozeman, Montana. Even better, the town's nearest airport, Gallatin Field Airport, is just eight miles away.
Bridger's average annual snowfall of 350 inches buries the area's 71 trails, which are split pretty evenly between beginner, intermediate, advanced and extreme. If you feel like flexing that health insurance, hit up the extreme trails' 8,700-foot elevation, steep chutes and rocky cliffs. Or, if you enjoy skiing on trails that don't require the use of an avalanche transceiver, take one of Bridger's seven lifts to the area's less daunting pistes.
While Bridger can help guests find lodging, it's not the traditional resort. It's a non-profit mountain, so lift tickets are a reasonable $43 for a full day. You can also get in on some package deals. The PowderHound Package includes four days of skiing and four nights at one of the area's vacation rental homes for the price of three.
We had a chance today to get out to the slopes before the Sundance insanity begins in earnest. And though it was pretty damn cold out there, it was an awesome day for riding. With everyone flitting around town making final preps for the film festival, we were still carving corduroy at 11:30.
PCMR started a new thing this year: The resort's divided its massive amount of terrain into "MountainZones," which are manageable chunks that each give a nice mix of beginner to expert slopes. When you've only got a few hours to spend, this is really helpful; you don't get overwhelmed by the size of the place and can focus on enjoying yourself.
We spent most of our day rocking the Bonanza zone, where the lift lines were non-existent and the terrain didn't kill us. We also ducked into the Summit House restaurant (elevation 9,250 feet!) and had a chance to warm up by the roaring fireplace.
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by kjb
