ARTICLES

August 17, 2012

Matt, Randy, and Mitch Evans Check in from Chile

On top of McConkey's Face at La Parva, Chile.

Just 11 days ago Mitch Evans arrived in Chile with two of his sons, Randy and Matt.  If you were with us at the end of last ski season, you know Randy and Matt throw down (Check our write-up of the FWTQ at Moonlight Basin and the Junior Event at Taos). They were just lucky enough to be able to scratch that winter itch this summer down in South America that we are all getting now.  Randy and Matt updated us on how the trip has gone so far:

“Preparation for our trip to Chile was brief.  We bought the plane tickets 3 weeks before our August 6th departure, and scrambled together a reservation for our rental van.

The Rock & Roll Hippie Camper Van.

After a 9 hour plane ride we arrived in Santiago, Chile, and to our dismay, the weather resembled early fall at best.  The guy from the rental company, Pablo, arrived in true Crested Butte fashion, 45 minutes after he was supposed to.  He escorted us to a supermarket in the middle of town, and with little instruction, left us to find our way to the mountains.   Shortly after being turned loose, we found that the obnoxious “Rock n’ Roll/Hippie Love” decals on our van were not favored by local people.

37 switchbacks later, we found our way to Valle Nevado for a half-day of skiing.  We found more rock than snow, making it easy to become familiar with the unfamiliar Andean terrain.  Still it was much better than a campfire-less summer in the Butte, we rallied the same run 4 or 5 times, and had an adequately righteous afternoon.

Aiming down La Chiminea after your dad is probably a pretty cool feeling. Photo: Matt Evans

The next morning was a similar experience at La Parva, snow was sparce, and barely skiable aside from a few south facing aspects.  We got word that the best turns on the mountain were to be had on McConkey’s face, and after a round about bootpack-ski-bootpack route up to the headwall, we payed our respects to Shane (by taking a piss while yodeling at the top of La Chiminea) and had an awesome ski down.

We hiked out of there around 5:30, and bound for Chillan, headed south down highway 5 in search of better snow.”

 

We can’t wait for the next update! Stay tuned for skiing at Chillan, Chile, and Bariloche, Argentina.  And more Righteousness.  



About the Author

2. Will Dujardin
Will Dujardin is our content editor at West Elk Project. He competes in big mountain competitions and coaches the Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team. Skiing is his life and he likes to mix it with other fun things like DH mountain biking and traveling.




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