Cerro Catedral, Argentina

Visitor reviews for Cerro Catedral

• August 16, 2008
  owain price from ARGENTINA
  

  I live here past 5 seasons after skiing all over Sth America past 20 years (plus Australia and New Zealand).
  If you can ski, it is the best all round ski mountain in the Southern Hemisphere.
  If you can only ski only corduroy, you will struggle.
  But if you have forked out the money to get here, spend a bit more on a local to show you round and stay on mountain, not downtown, so you don't get stuck in the morning rush - we almost never wait in line once up on the mountain and usually are the only people skiing where we ski.
  Hey, and as for the guy whinging about an avalanche last week, if 3 American snowboarders are dumb enough to set one off going out when the extreme avalanche danger flag is flying you can't blame the resort - how about thanks for everyone who went to help dig them out after seeing it happen?

• August 11, 2008
  Agustin from ARGENTINA
  

  Good ones: Nice landscape, great people, lots of lifts that make shorter lines.
  Bad ones: Grooming is AWFUL, they don't spend any cent in grooming services (at mid day all runs are full of moguls and very difficult to carve). Short runs and too many names to get in touch with. Lifts close with moderate winds and not strong winds. Snow conditions are wet. 2 straight sunny days and the base snow becomes unskiable. Lift operators are very rude and they know nothing about customer service.

• August 09, 2008
  Agustin from ARGENTINA
  

  I´ve boarded Cerro Catedral in Bariloche for 6 years now. At least 2 weeks every year. I´ve read many comments and not all of them are true. Most of them are though...
  Pros:
  -Great city for cheap lodging and restaurants. Lots of cabins for rent, hostels, five star hotels and much more to fit any budget.
  -In the past 4 years they have added more and newer lifts. Nothing like the kind you´ll find in a big resort in the US but still acceptable.
  -Excellent scenery! Great lake and mountain view...
  -Friendly people and great food (you´ll find this all over Argentina).
  Cons:
  -Employees in general are not service oriented!
  -Very crowded during school winter holidays (2 weeks between late July and early August).
  -Runs are very poorly groomed! Don´t expect Colorado corduroy, just not gonna happen.
  -Too many moguls (sucks if you snowboard)
  -Not high or cold enough for powder conditions to last more than a few days. Bad grooming doesn't help.

  Resuming, Cerro Catedral is a great place to go if you are looking for a reasonable priced vacation (compared to US or Europe) but don´t expect the same quality of snow, lifts or service!
  Other than Cerro Catedral I boarded Chapelco and Las Leñas in Argentina. Also: Heavenly, Sierra, Kirkwood (Lake Tahoe, CA) and Aspen (Colorado, USA).

• August 07, 2008
  Hugo from AFGHANISTAN
  

  I have skied in Catedral since the late 70’s or early 80’s. It is a very nice place with wonderful views and short but excellent runs, at least in comparison with other South American ski resorts. During the last five or six years, a huge investment was added to the mountain. More and newer chairlifts were added to the resort giving us more and better options. Consequently, after years of choosing Las Leñas or Portillo (in Chile), I was delighted to come to Bariloche again.

  Unfortunately, I am currently skiing at Catedral and it seems as if all the worst practices of the 80’s have started again: Poorly groomed runs; closed lifts; boring rows due to slow lifts and lack of personnel are back.

  For example: Nubes, a chairlift that carry skiers to the best runs is not running; an avalanche happened two days ago due to lack of safety measures; etc.

  Hopefully, the management of Alta Patagonia will focus on all these problems. If that’s not the case, unfortunately, I will have to choose other resort, as I did before.

• August 05, 2008
  Patrick from ARGENTINA
  

  Hi everyone... Ay Nicolas , please, Bariloche does have one of the best views in the world, but to say it's one of the best ski centers in the world , ah, funny funny. I've been skiing here for 20 years, here is my description.
  Food great, beautiful and friendly people , great views, good nightlife, regular snow, very, very badly groomed, good but somewhat dangerous off-piste. Only one major problem . It is extremely badly managed by its owners and employees, making it even very, very dangerous place to ski. They are a bunch of very cheap people....., VERGUENZA NACIONAL !!!!!

• August 05, 2008
  Louisa J. from ARGENTINA
  

  I have skied Bariloche for the last 40 years. The mountain is fantastic, with breathtaking views of the lakes. The runs are rather on the short side but challenging and varied. The actual operator, Alta Patagonia, has invested in lifts but all of them are used and old. They keep breaking down and are very hard to fix (or so it seems since it usually takes days and sometimes weeks to have them running again). Runs are scarcely ever groomed and a good snowfall is seldom put to work by means of a good groom which would pack the snow and ready it for the next snowfall and so avoid your skis being hurt by stones. And as I mention this, how about working during the summer to make the pistes more friendly by removing some of the most obvious stones and flattening the parts where queues will form?. Usually they are uphill!! Amazing the things you have to do to reach your chair unhurt... While lift operators are friendly and easygoing, the people employed for selling tickets are not service oriented. Their hours are ridiculously short. The information provided by the mountain information service is usually wrong. And it is very tiresome having to show your ticket every time you take a lift... Locals have very rude manners, they push each other in queues and step on their neighbours skis or snowboards without a second thought. Food is great. Avoid school vacations!!

• July 23, 2008
  Robin from ARGENTINA
  

  You`r right Marco, this is a monopoly, they can do what they want and nobody cares about it.. Today I asked if the ski lift at plaza was open and 4 different employs said yes, also the cashier who charged $155 each said yes it is open, but when we got there (1 hour later as you said) we noticed very surprised that the lift was NOT working. I did put a sign up being conscious that makes no difference for them anyway.. Alta Patagonia did make us waste our time and money. Really bad..
  Also the few lifts they have working stops so many times on one way up that you get bored of skiing, 5 minutes down and waiting for hours to get up again. It`s a shame.
  I also hate to say this but is the very truth.

• July 21, 2008
  Marco from ARGENTINA
  

  Yes Robin, nice amount of snow since Friday. That means 4 days ago now. A pity the "operator" AltaPatagonia still keeps more than half of the mountain closed for skiing, including the "Bosque" and "Liure" runs which have more than enough snow to make runs. Maybe they want to save if for next summer? No off-piste lifts, no terrain park, no natural half pipe... They make people stand in line waiting more than an hour (This is NOT an exaggeration) for the lift tickets, then another hour for the Amancay-cablecar to find out there are no runs open there, still NOBODY puts a sign up! In the afternoon only 2 of the lifts work to discharge all the people from the mountain, although it could easily done with 6. Add another hour or so to descend. That is 155 pesos (50 $US) for skiing from 10:00 - 17:00 minus 3 hours = 4 hours of skiing, or 130 pesos (42 $US) for 13:00 - 17:00 minus 3 hours = 1 hour of skiing if you decide to use a pass for half a day.

  I hate to say this because the mountain is beautiful, but the operator AltaPatagonia makes it a waste of time and money.

• July 19, 2008
  Robin from ARGENTINA
  

  Conditions improved due to new 50cm we received of nice powder yesterday! Now we have more runs and lifts open. Winter is coming..

• July 07, 2008
  Aida from UNITED KINGDOM
  

  Dear people, Unfortunately you are wrong! I live in Bariloche and I've got a season ticket. I wish I were in Cerro Catedral skiing no matter how easy the piste! The few lifts that are open are only for pedestrians; there is
  only one lift open to skiers provided they are beginners and go up with an instructor.
  I sincerely hope we get snow soon. You mention a "Thursday", again. If you are talking about today you're wrong. Blue skies, only a few clouds and warm.
  It is not easy to keep your spirits high, is it?

• June 23, 2008
  Martin from ARGENTINA
  

  Excellent place to ski, probably one of the best in the world!
  I know each ski resort has it's own pros & cons, but in this one, most of them are pros!
  A few bad ones:
  Too many trails and little long runs.
  Chairlifts are slow if you take the beginners lifts (Princesa, Esquiadores), if you take the others (there are like 29 more) you'll be ok.
  Lot's of moguls!

• April 30, 2008
  Kim from UNITED KINGDOM
  

  Living in Bariloche and skiing in Catedral.
  I skied most of the 2007 season. I had a great time but the place is certainly not without problems. Here´s the good and bad of the place.
  GOOD:
  Scenery: Really some of the best scenery in the whole world on a clear day.
  Snow: We had a dump of 2-3ft every 10 days or so. If you stay for 2 weeks you´re almost certain to have a few spectacular days at some point.
  Off-piste skiing: The areas La Laguana and La Palmera offer some pretty challenging options as does the out of bounds section under Nubes. Be careful though. One guy died in an avalanche while I was there.
  Food: Incredible (assuming you´re not vegetarian). Have the 3 course steak meal of your life with views of Chile from the top of Catedral for about a tenner.
  Get good at moguls. They´re everywhere.
  Bariloche morning bus connections are excellent and Bariloche´s a pretty decent place to live with some nice hostels. Getting back you may need to queue a while to get on the bus but there´s plenty of them. Journey time is about 40 mins.

  BAD:
  Random Argentinian factors. Stuff happens in Argentina that you´re not used to if you´re European. A few examples I recall include the resort being closed due to a catering strike, resort closed due to local elections, resort closed due to a gondola falling of the cable, day being ruined by incompetent staff in some unexpected way.
  Grooming: Despite owning many snow-cats, they are rarely used.
  Lifts: Nubes works well and when the queues aren´t long so does sextuple. Many of the other lifts are a complete joke, e.g. Princessa 1,2 and 3, Condor 1,2 and 3 which have been scavenged from US and European resorts and crawl up the mountain at an unacceptable snails pace.
  Cat tracks are everywhere and are a pain if you want to do long continuous wide runs. You can work them to your benefit if you can work out the good points to use them as a jump.

• September 08, 2006
  Marcelo from UNITED STATES
  

  Sometimes it helps to understand the perspective of the writer when reading a review. I’m an intermediate skier – used to skiing blue runs in Colorado resorts like Keystone, Copper & Durango. This was my 2nd trip to Catedral – we were there from 8/9/06 to 8/23/06. The conditions during this period were the best of the 2006 season.
  THE GOOD:
  Lifts – Plenty of them & lines are relatively short (our max wait time was 15 min)
  Scenery - Lakes, mountains & forests. It really is beautiful
  Price – Still a deal in USD. Single day lift tickets run between $20 USD & $40 USD depending on dates
  Ski rental availability – Good equipment & plenty of stores to rent from at the base.
  Snow Tour – free service with guides that take ski groups around the mountain to get to know the runs better.
  THE BAD
  Few “true” runs – There are a total of 35 green, blue & red runs per the snow report on the resort web site. Of those 35, only about 10 are true runs. The rest are trails or short connecting runs.
  Short “true” runs – Condor I,II&III is the only top to bottom combination. Pista 6 & Amancay are 2/3 of the mountain. Other than that, you can expect continuous runs of about 10 minutes before hitting a trail or connecting run.
  Too many crossings of runs – the trails cross many of the runs & makes for too many people going in different directions
  Snow conditions: The combination of humidity, low elevation & relative high temperatures for a ski resort makes for tough snow conditions. We got dumped on when we were there but powder & packed powder conditions lasted only 3 days. In my opinion, you should expect spring skiing conditions as a general rule.
  Grooming – Expect plenty of bumps by mid-morning. They don’t use snow machines to fill up & even out terrain when they groom at night.
  Bottom Line:
  Catedral gets rave reviews for it’s beauty and it having the largest infrastructure in S. America. Unfortunately its weak point is what matters the most to many – the quality of the runs & snow.

• July 15, 2006
  Nicolas from ARGENTINA
  

  It's not real that you have to start most of the time at 1200 mts., last 4 seasons you could start from base, making it perfect for beginners who can learn to ski with a really small pendent and single elevation.
  Bariloche has an international airport, you can fly from the center of Brazil in almost 3 hours and from Europe and North America in 10 hours or less.
  The trip is quite long as we are the southern most country in the world but it's worth it. Argentina's (the country where Bariloche is located, province of Rio Negro) economy has devaluated, it's pesos' value making 1 dollar cost 3 pesos, so if you come with dollars each of them will value 3 times (or probably more) than in any other ski center in the world.
  If you are a pro, Catedral is also prepared for you.
  Chairlifts are great, very well maintained and modern.
  There are nice hostels for 8 or 9 dollars a night (check "Tango Inn" out) and if you like dancing there are 10 dance clubs in Bariloche city, including the famous Pacha.

• July 27, 2005
  Susana from ARGENTINA
  

  Catedral has fantastic views, surrounded by lakes and open views of the Andes and the volcanos of Chile The snow starts most the time at 1200 mts. and the base is at 700 mts. For that reason you must to take a chairlift or gondola to the start of the ski area. The slope are very different and challenging. Plenty of restaurants with good food and friendly people. Best place to stay is the Villa Catedral, in the base of the mountain but Bariloche city is 15 km away and has good hotels, restaurants, shops and all the amenities of a city. It has a train station, but the train is very primitive, and the airport is close to the city anyway.