South America
Paolo Ciotti
The range of South American ski resorts is sufficiently large (35 actually) to be able to distinguish the "big", at least a dozen, or places of international importance and quite comparable to our best, the other cataloged as a minor but often in a rather peculiar and unique.
Friday 8 June 2012 6 minutes reading time
And 'in agony unfortunately the Bolivian Chacaltaya, the continent's northernmost ski resort, where now you can not do more skiing summer 2005 (summer in the Southern way!), Except for a few impromptu days (the last in March 2011), but unfortunately the glacier 5.300mt. above sea level which housed a rudimentary ski lift and many diehard fans is the victim of a disturbing retreat.
Going down the chain of the Andes must arrive at Ski Arpa, 110km north of Santiago of Chile, the first to hear about skiing. And you do it in a very particular, it is in fact a skiresort where lifts are the only 2 snowmobiles serving 4,000 skiable acres (not beaten) over 1000 meters in altitude ski area, up to 3.700metri, where you can taste an extraordinary view of "his majesty" Aconcagua (6.965mt). Extremely attractive option for freeriders, a station was born and attended almost exclusively by North American fans.
A 2.600km away there is the southernmost ski resort in the world, the Glacial Martial, simple station on the outskirts of Ushuaia, frequented only by locals. The few kilometers of tracks do not mislead, the latitude is unbeatable adds a breathtaking view over the city, its bay and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans that converge on the Beagle Channel, just below the tips of the skis.
The last Chilean city, Punta Arenas, also on the sea, boasts on its periphery a ski resort is very similar, Cerro Mirador, not so little (11 tracks). Here, as in Martial in Ushuaia, sitting in the chair seems to be an average high-mountain environment and vegetation, but going along the tracks and altimeter landscape remind you to be just above the ocean.
Staying in Chile, in the Central Region, at Chapa Verde, were it not for the Castilian accent, would seem to ski in a typical ski resort in Iceland, though not in Scotland: the planning is, for the Latin continent, really unique, characterized by small multi-colored wooden houses and the pointed roof, while the landscape is a true northern European land, with large snow-covered desert hills and plains.
The Andes of Argentine province of Neuquen welcome instead the first and only ski resort in the world owned and operated by a community of Indians, the Mapuche Puel. Opened in 1999, Batea Mahuida is the result of a government project to give a good perspective to work for no reason that these Indians would be moved from their mountains, even if forced to live in a poor economy of farming and subsistence farming.
To date, we can determine the success of the initiative, the Mapuche assume each role with competence, including ski instructors, and the station is entirely conditioned by their culture and identity, even in the cuisine and architecture. The natural environment is unimaginable in our Alps, between large extinct volcanoes and forests las araucarias, the Andean conifer.
For those who love the world of skiing in the many facets there are certain stimuli to plan a trip with us in the "temporada de esqui 2012" that, for the record, is starting in these days: a current wave of frost and snowfall important are cheering the ski resorts of Chile and Argentina, big or small they are!
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A spasso tra le stazioni sciistiche minori
16 photos, latest added on Friday 8 June 2012Ultimi in Regioni
Chiesa Valmalenco
La Valmalenco offre uno dei comprensori sciistici più panoramici della Valtellina, sviluppato principalmente nella conca dell’Alpe Palù e circondato dalle grandi montagne del gruppo del Bernina. Boschi di conifere, ampi pendii in quota e il lago Palù compongono un ambiente alpino ancora relativamente integro, con vedute che spaziano verso il Pizzo Scalino, il Monte Disgrazia e le cime che separano la valle dall’Engadina.
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