Termas De Chillan!!!

So after Portillo I was not sure what to do, because my ski partners had to bail. I thought about going to Las Lenas anyways, but there was not lodging for me. My friend Claire Smallwood is working in Termas De Chillan a very cute small resort in southern Chile.Thanks Claire for everything!!! I had never heard of the place, but now I am stoked that I decided to give it a try! I hopped on a bus and went about 6 hours south of Santiago. I definitely need to brush up on my Spanish because I was the only American on the bus and had a horrible time trying to communicate. My wine also spilled in my backpack and started dripping on the Chileans, needless to say I was not a real popular person on the bus. I am a red head (so I get weird looks anyway), a wino and do not speak Spanish. I was the last person on the bus and they dropped me off at a nice little hostel called Chil'in. I was able to communicate to get a room and have been here the last four days. It is perfect spring skiing here, which is awesome! Any kind of skiing is fun this time of year.
Termas has one main lift and it takes 22 minutes to get to the top. Long runs, but wow is it a long chairlift ride when you are by yourself. I decided to do some touring, because the options are endless. The first day I skinned to the top of a volcano and it was such an eery feeling with it steaming all around me. Awesome corn skiing down with some really steep pitches one after another. Yesterday I saw an amazing face that looked like it was only an hour away as I started skinning I realized that it was a few canyons away! It took me two hours to get to the first sub peak and I decided that would be a good stopping point! I had a great adventure skiing down not knowing exactly where I was going. That was the story of my entire trip here just exploring and seeing new things and meeting some great people that I could not communicate with. I had some good alone time and skied some great snow! tomorrow I go to Santiago and then to Mendoza and then home!!! I am excited to get home and get back to work!

Portillo and Super-C!!!!!!!!

My first couple days in Portillo did not start out like I wanted, I got some type of food poisoning or a flu. I was stuck in bed for 2 days, but the last two days have been so much fun that it has made up for the horrible days in bed! Yesterday Johnathan (selkophoto.com) and I went out and made some really amazing photos with not great snow conditions, but the scenery here is breathtaking so that definitely helps and of course my amazing Arcteryx colors also did their job! I also have met some great new people and five of us today decided to ski the Super- C Couloir, I had not heard much about this except that Chris Davenport has said that Is one of the best in the world! Coming from a person like Dav that goes a very long way so I was stoked. We started hiking around 10 am because it was definitely a little cloudy and snowy. My hiking and skiing partners include my friend Joni from SLC, my new friends Tucker and Axle from California and Gabe from Canada! We had a nurse, a ski patrol, a medical tech and a geologist on board and oh me a personal trainer/waitress/river guide/skier whatever I am. (ha ha). It was a pretty steep hike and I believe we all made it to the top in about 2 hours, we topped out at 13,100 and probably hiked about 2500 vertical feet. When we got to the top it was beautiful, even though we could not see much I knew we were surround by huge mountains. On a clear day you can see Aconcagua (22,841). I looked down and I could not wait to ski! The top part was probably about 50-55 degrees and some dust on crust. I made the first turns and totally fell in love with this couloir, because it was steep and just kept going and going! Huge beautiful volcanic walls on either side. The couloir I believe was about 3,500 vertical feet! We even got some amazing deep pow turns! In the last year I have skied some pretty amazing couloirs from the Tetons, to La Grave and Chamonix and this one definitely is very high on my list!!! I just love all couloirs!!! Can't wait to ski more!!!

Second Place!!! Las Lenas Argentina!!!

I woke up this morning pretty nervous about competing! I knew my line, but only skiing two day before a comp had my nerves a title higher than normal. There was not a lot to my line, besides a technical straitline about halfway down that had an ice bulge in the middle. I was excited to ski it, I knew it would get my blood pumping! There is not a lot of snow in Lenas so there were not a lot of opportunities for air.
I was happy with the line I chose and felt really strong the entire way down the venue. Because of the lack of snow we were only going to have a one run competition, which is really tough especially when there was not a lot on this venue to separate ourselves from anyone else. I skied and then watched the rest of the girls also ski very strong, there were only 12 women competing, but it was a pretty stacked field. I ended up second by .20 behind friend and competitor Angel Collinson, I could not believe how close we were. Overall I was very happy with my results and am glad to have the comp behind me. Las Lenas did a wonderful job with awards and had a great band for us to follow. It was a lot of fun to see all my competition friends after not seeing them for about 4 months, it is like a second family and it was fun to watch all the guys ski super strong. Now I am headed to Portillo, Chile to shoot photos with my friend Johnathan Selkowitz!

Las Lenas comp one run tomorrow!!!!

So the comp was postponed until tomorrow, which was good and bad, a part of me was ready to compete today so we could have a full comp, but another part of me needed a little more time to ski to feel more physically and mentally prepared. I am excited about the venue because it is steep and long. There are not a lot of airs because Las Lenas does not have a lot of snow and the takeoffs are receded. I am just hoping the line I have chosen is strong enough. I do not really have a lot of features just some technical skiing. It is hard when it is only a one run comp because it is anyones game! I went and skied a long run that involved a 20 minute hike which was really fun and it was good to know that my body still remembers how to ski. I feel pretty strong thanks to Rob and Mountain Athlete! Hopefully the sun will shine for us tomorrow and the comp will be a great success! This is the first time that any of us have competed in Las Lenas! Also the first time there has been a comp since 1994! The terrain here looks endless when they have snow. I hope to be able to come back and ski. I am posting a photo of the venue and the surrounding areas. We have to walk down on dirt to get to the entrance, pretty crazy. Mt Eduardo here we come manana!!!

South America!!! Finally after crazy summer!

I have finally arrived in Mendoza Argentina after flying for about 24 hours. I am waiting to catch a 2 am bus to Las Lenas and then will be competing on Thursday. I know I am pushing it a bit, but I was not able to get out of work any earlier and I really wanted to do my annual girls pack trip!! Cramming everything in at the last minute, but I am not regretting doing any of it. I arrived in Mendoza today around 100 pm. I am staying at a really hip hostel downtown called Damajuana. So far I love Argentina and the food. Mendoza is a great running city and I went for run around a large park. I probably saw about 100 runners in my 30 minute run. It is definitely a night area! All the bars are just starting to open and it is 9 pm, I am trying to go to sleep so I can wake up and catch a bus to Lenas at 2 am and ski all day tomorrow. I am really excited, I have never been here and I am already enjoying the culture and the food!! Here are a few photos of Mendoza, I will keep you updated with the competition, because it will be live webcasted.

Skiing in Alaska on Summer Solstice!

I decided to do a spur of the moment to Alaska to see my good friends Brooke and Mike! I had no expectations, so it turned into one of the most amazing trips. On summer solstice a friend Jake and I decided to hike up a mountain behind cooper landing, it still had a nice strip of snow the entire way down. I borrowed Brooke's telemark setup, which was quite interesting because I am not a tele skier. I had her little race skis so just arced some alpine turns tried to drop a knee, but was not totally successful. Hiking up we had amazing views of Kenai Lake and the Kenai river. Mountains just went for days as far as the eye could see. Alaska is really beautiful in the summer time very green, but not super warm, which made for great skiing. On the way up we saw some pretty large grizzly bear tracks, which made me a little nervous. I was also informed that there was a bear kill in the drainage that we had to walk out, but it was a few weeks old. As we walked down the drainage we started to see pieces of a moose, this was not a small moose either. There was definitely not much left to him besides legs and bones. We made is safely past the kill and onto the road for the walk out! It was perfect spring skiing and made for a great summer solstice day. Nothing beats being in AK for the longest day of the year. It never really got dark that night, we ended the day with some fishing!!!

Life is to short

A week ago a friend and fellow competitor Arne Backstrom Died while skiing in Peru. This has hit our small close knit ski community very hard. I was not really close to Arne, but got to know him over the last two seasons of skiing on the freeskiing circuit and he had a great impact on me as a skier and a friend. The first time I met him, he skied up behind me and asked me my advice about a line. I was shocked because one of the best male skiers in the country was asking my advice. (ha ha) He was always soft spoken and very modest about his skiing, he also had more passion for skiing then anyone I had ever met. Last year after I won the Freeskiing World Tour he congratulated me and I told him next year you should win this thing. He gave a smug smile and said that would be his dream and that was what he was going to work toward the following season. This past season I watched him ski so well on the tour and barely win the tour by a point. That was the last time I saw him and he was so happy to have won the overall tour! I will always remember the big smile on his face after he accomplished the feat of winning the Freeskiing World Tour.
Some of my best friends I have met through the freeskiing tour and after just one season of us skiing together we become very close. It is hard to explain, but when you are competing in a sport that involves high level of adrenaline and risk you gain a connection with people. There is also so much support between the men and the women which I have never seen in any other sport. The women support other women and the men and men support us as well. I will never forget all the people I have met over the last four years of competing. I hope to continue to build more memories skiing with these friends. We have had a lot of deaths to the community over the last couple years, but it never makes me regret what I do. It just makes me realize how short life is and how I want to always enjoy it and continue to ski the way I love to ski!