We are making this trip to compete in the South American Freeskiing Championships at La Parva, the first stop on the Freeskiing World Tour. After hectic traveling, we got in to Chile separately, Will arriving Friday morning and Ed arriving Saturday the 29th. Will met his long-time friend Nick Hadsel-Mares in Santiago and we sprinted up to Farellones 5 minutes from La Parva and 15 minutes from Valle Nevado. El Colorado is the third and smallest resort, which is just above Farellones and was a having a 3 for 1 ticket promotion to celebrate its birthday. Nick and Will skied there with their driver from Santiago.
Sixteen bucks to ski after travelling for 36 hours was one of the happiest things. I (being William) took advantage of some small hits and El Colorado’s decent park to get back in the swing of things. It was the first day on the new Fortitude skis called the Yetis and those things are fun as anything I’ve ridden if not the best. Nick Whittemore hand presses them himself in Golden, Colorado and you can check out their website at www.fortitudeskis.com. Back at El Colorado, there was coincidentally a big air comp happening at La Parva. It was pretty cool to watch from the El Colorado lifts seeing tiny little skiers hitting the 75-foot booter with a helicopter filming. Lasse, an 18 year old from Norway won the skiing and BJ from Lake Tahoe won the snowboarding.
As in most places in Latin America, the nightlife can get pretty hectic, even at 2400 meters in Farellones. Pisco is liquor made from grapes and if you come to Chile you need to have a Pisco Sour, which is reminiscent of a margarita but definitely different. It works with coke as well. It also works as a good accessory when working on your two-step in la discoteca (see: Cliff Bennett)
Ed and I are staying in a little place attached to our friend Chopo Diaz’s house. Chopo is probably the best freeskier in Chile and competed with us on the Freeskiing World Tour. We were just joined by a friend of Chopo’s from Argentina, Nicolas who is also competing. We have nicknamed the place the cave, but it’s a fun location. It’s a short 7-minute walk to the Dominica Hostel where Nick H-M is staying. We have been having ham and cheese sandwiches and pasta for a few days now. Asada’s are pretty popular around here for eating BBQ and socializing.
As for the venue at La Parva, it is pretty awesome. It just opened at La Parva and was named McConkey’s, after our fallen hero Shane McConkey. Skier’s left side of the big couloir is the day one venue and right side is day two. They are going to be fast and fun. We’ve inspected a few times at La Parva. Hopefully we will get some snow, 10 cm is forecasted tomorrow and a big storm is supposed to head in during the comp, which can be a good and bad thing. Tomorrow we are going to check out Valle Nevado through El Colorado.
Enjoy the pictures! Check back in, we will probably have another post up Thursday night and then we’ll go daily through the comp.
-Will and Ed, September 1, 2009

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 10:15 am and is filed under TwoPlank Blog & News Archive, Blogroll.