Explorer: Skiing in September? Head South

Written By Unknown on Senin, 23 Desember 2013 | 17.35

Nils Schlebusch for The New York Times

Skiers at Chile's Valle Nevado.

It felt like a scene from a surrealist film.

Just 24 hours before my first run, I had been staring out the windows of Kennedy Airport on a sultry September day. A small, sullen tornado twirled lazily over Queens. The air shimmered with heat.

The next afternoon, I was skiing nearly 11,000 feet above sea level at the top of Cima Andes, one of the highest peaks in Valle Nevado, South America's most modern ski resort. A glacier towered above, glittering gray and blue. A trio of condors with 16-foot wingspans circled overhead. After a few hours of skiing under a bluebird sky, I descended with friends for a hot tub and pisco sours.

While the North American ski season begins now, fastidious learners should start planning for September, springtime in Chile, a stripling of a country 2,600 miles long and an average of 110 miles wide. By September the Andean snow is still plentiful, the sun illuminates an optic-blue sky and you can go back to school: ski school.

My Chilean odyssey began when my ski buddies in Idaho told me about Bill Skinner, a coach from Park City, Utah, who with his brother Bob and a number of nationally recognized ski coaches has for the last 11 years organized a ski race camp in Valle Nevado. The Skinner brothers' course is open to those who have skied with Bill, people recommended to him as skiers who can navigate a moderately difficult slope or those who can write a charming letter to him.

The Skinner brothers' camp is timed to culminate in an international ski race called the South American Cup, which a year ago September featured masters skiers — racers in categories from age 18 to over 90 — from the United States, Italy, Brazil, Russia, Canada, Switzerland, France and the Czech Republic. So it might be worth it to train just a little. Because where there are ski races there are alpine skiers, and where there are alpine skiers there are parties, and at those parties medals are handed out. For those of us in the over-40 age group, any kind of ceremonial hardware is something to be cherished, a talisman against the dread beast of time, the one that shreds tendons like old lace and gnashes bones into meal.

A competitive spirit pervades the place in September, when, depending on the snow conditions in Chile and elsewhere, the resort becomes a training hub for many national teams and schools. During my 10-day trip, we encountered dozens of schoolchildren as young as 12 from Green Mountain Valley School, a boarding school in Vermont with an intensive ski program; members of the Austrian Olympic development team; and members of the American paralympic team. But the resort was also flooded with tourists from all over the world and Chilean holiday makers; Sept. 21 is Fiestas Patrias, which celebrates the establishment of the country's first government following independence from Spain, and many Chileans take the week off.

Why ski in September? As Ray Zemke, an American skiing enthusiast and wine dealer I met one morning, put it: "It sure beats swatting flies back in Minnesota."

You will not find flies in Valle Nevado. It is wildly popular among international skiers as a traditional ski resort, with all that entails: luxurious accommodations, powder skiing, a spa and gym, babysitting services, great wine and a relentless disco that stays open until 2 a.m., whether anyone is in it or not. Founded in 1988, the resort — along with adjoining mountains El Colorado and La Parva — offers 7,000 acres of terrain on 102 trails and eight lifts, including the much fussed about Andes Express. This lift travels much faster than a fixed-grip chairlift, at a speed that would be too fast for safe loading or unloading, so the cable detaches when passengers get on or off, and the lift slows down considerably. Faster lift, more time to ski, and safer.

Valle Nevado also features a few Poma lifts, which will be new to most American skiers. To ride it, you grab a Frisbee-sized platter attached to a steel rod the girth of a broom handle and stick the whole contraption between your legs, and then hold on for your life as it hauls you up the hill.


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