Portillo Chile

After a great drive from Maine to DC, I took a pause from Ginger one last time before going home. I’ve now visited 47 states. With Virginia and West Virginia left, I’m on track to drive through all 49 drive-able states.

To celebrate my friend’s Zach engagement and to have one last hurrah with the boys, Zach wanted to ski. The summer is a bad time for skiing in the northern hemisphere, but not in the southern. Matt knew of a resort in Chile for us to visit called Portillo, 100 miles from Santiago on the Argentina border.

The two hour drive from Santiago started in a valley surrounded by mountains and slowly progressed into arid desert-like mountains. The newly repaved four-lane road eventually turned into two-lanes which later on lost the line. We began to see snow covered mountain tops as the cacti disappeared. The steep sharp turns really gave us elevation as we approached the resort. The last few miles were slow as our intrepid driver took his half out of the middle pushing our minivan to the limit. He took turns as fast as possible occasionally passing the semis three wide with other cars.

Starting at 9,000 feet, Portillo is a single lodge mouintain with a reasonably large ski-able area. There are two main parts, the left and the right serviced by several lifts and some

Our room in the employee quarters is dorm style with 4 bunks and less than a bed’s width to the other wall. Our roommate Mike is a firefighter from New York and dedicated skier. He’s definitely in good shape and hiking has been no problem for him. A short walk down the hall yields the bathroom with frigid tiles.

The weather here is rumored to be 80% sunny; we’ll have more data soon. After our first day was very snowy and overcast, we’ve had a couple of clear days and even a snowy one.