Las Lenas, Argentina

Kevin Lee from CANADA writes:

I spent two days skiing Las Leñas and both were good days. We stayed in one of the towns nearby and took the hotel shuttle to the mountain each day. It was much cheaper that way than staying on the mountain. The rental shop at Las Leñas is the best I have ever seen anywhere. They actually have expert gear for rent and to my great surprise they had my exact all mountain/ all terrain free-riding skis so I rented them of course, I was very happy. Regarding the skiing, like most areas of South America the lifts are old and clunky. When I say old I'm talking decades old, 30 or 40 year old technology, fixed grip doubles, poma tows that sort of thing. The famous Marte lift actually services some impressive terrain. I had quite a few long powder runs down the back side. I was eying the run right under the lift, which looked quite awesome, but for some reason was closed. I don't understand that because there was a good base and other runs just as steep were open. On my second day there, the winds were too strong to open the Marte so I had to spend the day down low, which was a bit boring. I explored the entire area and found one small pitch of some interest. It's called Pluton on the map, it's a shoulder off one of the lower lifts, a black run of medium steepness, nice soft pack. There were ski patrollers at the top requiring people to sign out, a bit of a joke, I found a route around them by skiing down the main run about 20 meters then taking a sharp right over the edge onto the run. It was in amazingly good shape, I think because they limit access to it on the premise that it's too scary, I was in my element, I warped that run for hours, Made a lot of serious cuts on it.
All in all, Las Leñas was a memorable experience, I will return there is more terrain up top that needs exploring.

2009-12-21