So – since last update
- Les and I got a ride with Lucino out of San Rafael to Las Lenas
- Get there to find out that my apartment isn’t ready. Spend a night in Les’ place, and now camping out in Jose’s place while I wait.
- Las Lenas is still officially closed – but opening this weekend.
- Snow snow everywhere
- Very weird to be right smack back in the middle of winter. Wearing layers non-stop, ice covered roads / walkways. Cold. Cold. Cold.
- Yesterday Les and I opened the Las Lenas backcountry.
- Las Lenas is in a valley – one side of the valley is the ski resort, the other is military lands (backcountry). Ohmygod was it tough for me. Two months of not doing very much exercise, plus the alititde, plus Les – who is training to be a guide and so spends ALL his time hiking/climbing/skiing. Les broke trail pretty much the entire way and I was still about ready to throw in the towel half way up.
I fell over at one point and lay there for 45 seconds just trying to summon the energy to brush the snow off my face.
- Ski-forded my first stream on the way up – balancing skis across the tops of rocks and stepping very very carefully (bases!)
- On the way back down we were almost there and so instead applied the brute force method and walked straight through it (we ended up at a different place at the river- couldn’t have skied across it). My liners are now absolutely soaked. Trying to dry them.
- But the scenery. This place is nuts on the scenery department. Just endless folds of mountains. You could ski a different line each day you are here and still not do half of them.
- It’s overwhelming, actually. The space, the mountains, the blue ski, the whiteness, the emptiness, the coldness, the sun.
Luckily human beings are good at adapting!