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El Team Peru como siempre bien equipado....con las chelas bien helenas antes de entrar al backcountry
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Sorry it took so long to bring the Pucon - Chile story to Peruboarding. I hope you find it was worth the wait!
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Friday August 3rd:
We started the day hella early, took a the plane in Lima at 2:00 am, another plane in Santiago at 8:00 a.m. arriving in Temuco at 10:30. I was going
to do an official visit to the new CCU brewery in Temuco which by the way was pretty neat. With me were Williams "Guti" Landazuri and Jorge "Doc" Garcia. We chartered a van in Temuco at 6:00 pm after spending the
whole day in the brewery, bought a couple six packs of Bud and headed towards Pucon. We arrived there at 8:00 pm and after checking in at the Gran Hotel Pucon we proceeded to investigate the Pucon night life, which
unfortunately was pretty crappy. "El bar del Pelao" was all right though and Guti tried to pick up a "gordita" without too much luck.
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Saturday 4th:
We woke up a little hangover but all excited 'cause it was going to be our first day of snow! We took all our gear and went to take the van
that transports the riders up to the mountain every morning. But when we got there they told us that the resort was closed due to "el viento Puelche puh!" (the "Puelche" wind). This fricken wind comes
from Argentina and hits the slopes so hard that the ski resort has to shut everything off cause it gets too dangerous. We spent the day mountain biking around town, drinking tons of beer and ended up at
el bar del Pelao again, which pretty much sucked..
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Sunday 5th:
Hangover again we all woke up around 8:00 a.m., a quick look thru the window showed some wind and lots of clouds. We were almost sure the
volcano was going to be closed again, but to our surprise it wasn't! Just two sucky beginner chairs though, still we kinda loosened the muscles that day and got all wet cause it was snowing and raining. We also met
Martin and Guadalupe, brother and sista from Argentina and big time mate drinkers. They became our boarding buddies after that day.
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Monday 6th:
Jorge woke up first cause he had to fly back to Argentina. I felt sorry for him cause the day looked perfect, with no clouds in the ski. When we got to the
mountain we knew we were right: perfect powder, virgin snow and no people! We headed towards the upper tow bar (#4) on the right side of the volcano. We were among the first to get there and we even hiked quite a
bit to get one of the best lines of the day, super steep and 1 foot of fresh pow. The snow was unbelievable, the backcountry was even better but somewhat dangerous. Lots of huge cliffs and bowls make going out of
the marked zones a little tricky. While riding very fast on the backcountry I suddenly "lost the floor" and fell 10 feet into a flat zone, not expecting it at
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all! I hurt a little but it was no biggie so we kept riding. One of the best moments of the day were the 15 foot cliffs to the left of T-bar # 1. We jumped those a couple times, the
landing was a little sketchy but not that bad either. We didn't see anybody else try them and for the mark in the snow we know nobody did them during the whole week. We ended the day with mate and
Budwesier and happy as hell for one fricken good day of snow.
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Tuesday 7th:
Ahhh, did we run the marathon yesterday? Sure feels like it, every little fricken muscle in my body hurts like a bitch! We headed towards the mountain
anyway only to find that the cold night had frozen all the powder and made it very crusty. It was still good but not like the day before. We still rode most of the day, specially the backcountry. Unfortunately we
didn't take any pictures. I know, we suck big time, but when you're having fun riding you kinda forget about the pics..... The night was something similar tho. We went to the hotel bar and had a few brews. Guti was
hurting so he went to bed. I knew the snow wasn't going to be that great tomorrow so I stayed. To my defense all I can say is that after 2 six packs of bud the two gorditas from Puerto Montt looked passable.
gessssssssh.....
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El Volcan Pucon visto desde la silla. En un dia bueno todo es powder y sin gente, de la PM!
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Wednesday 8th:
Woke up only to think: Where the hell am I? Well, at least not too far away from my hotel room. Still hella drunk I walked to my room and got ready for another day
of snow. Actually I spent most of the day passed out in a chair at the Pucon lodge. I later joined Guti, Martin and Guada who had been riding the whole day. The night was pretty quiet, we walked around
town and met two chilean cuties whose names are Soledad (Sole) and Paulina.
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Thursday/Friday 9th and 10th
More snow, more beer and lots of fun. On Friday they opened T-bar # 6 which heads to an awesome and steep chute with a huge
mile long quarterpipe on the left side. We spent several hours there riding with the crew of Japanese/Brazilians in some untouched powder. Everything else in the resort was on the slushy side. We ended
the day taking pictures at a decent
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tabletop close to the lodge, thats were most of the pics that you're seeing were taken at. The night was sick with some crazy partying going on, ended up at bar del Pelao and danced to the sound of
"Mayonesa", what a trip!
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Guti en un 360 rompe-espaldas
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Saturday 11th , last day
Well, I basically didn't sleep at all, went straight from the bar to the slopes again and then after the last two hours of riding
we headed back home. We stayed one more night in Santiago which was all right, the trip at the end was memorable. Pucon is an awesome place to visit and relatively cheap. If you're
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lucky and get good snow you could spend some of the best snowboarding days of your life!
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Gutilio en una buena encogida - Pucon Trip 2001, Chile
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Vertical Drop: 670m/2,198'
Top Elevation: 2,080m/6,822'
Lifts: 7
Season: July - November
Information:www.pucon.com
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