Portillo – Second Time Lucky!
Sunday 14 August 2016
So beyond the wine and food reason for coming to Chile, the other great passion is skiing and about one hours drive from where we were staying is probably the most famous ski resort in all of Chile, called Portillo. It is one of the highest (if not the highest) ski resorts in South America. Last time we were in Chile, in 2012, there was no snow for weeks and then the one day we were going up Portillo, there was a big dump of snow and the road closed (Trevor was very unhappy). So this year, Trevor was very keen to get up there and check it out.
As luck would have it, this time around the road was clear and so we headed up to the mountain that Trevor had been dreaming about for over four years. Although there had been no snow for many weeks, given the altitude of the resort and the fact that it's far enough away from Santiago to avoid day-trippers, the snow conditions were still excellent. The resort is in the high Andes and overlooks the Inca Lake. It's about a kilometre away from the border crossing from Argentina and one of the lifts actually crosses over the main road, making it one of the more unique ski resorts we’ve been to. Despite it being Sunday, most of the runs were sparsely populated. In fact, there were more people tobogganing off the side of the road that had been brought up by the many tour buses catering to the non-skiers looking for some snow play (seems to be a popular past time with people from Santiago).
