I’m anxious about going to Chile.<\/p>\n
Felice always believes she’s going to forget how to ski.\u00c2\u00a0 If we don’t go for a couple of months, she gets nervous.\u00c2\u00a0 That all her progress is going to disappear.\u00c2\u00a0 And after lamenting this on the phone between our two trips to Mammoth in June, I opined we could always go to Portillo.\u00c2\u00a0 I meant it as a joke.\u00c2\u00a0 But, without my knowledge, Felice ran with it.\u00c2\u00a0 Called her travel agent.\u00c2\u00a0 And on our drive up to go skiing the last weekend in June confronted me with the e-mail.\u00c2\u00a0 If we booked that afternoon, we’d be guaranteed a room.\u00c2\u00a0 After that…<\/p>\n
And with a sense of urgency goading us on, we committed, just like that.\u00c2\u00a0 And now the time has finally come.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re leaving on Friday.<\/p>\n
Portillo is where they held the World Ski Championships in 1966.\u00c2\u00a0 Where Jean Claude Killy broke through, where he demonstrated his dominance.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s only ninety miles from Santiago, but it takes you two and a half hours to get there.\u00c2\u00a0 For there are enough switchbacks on the road there to give Chuck Yeager motion sickness.\u00c2\u00a0 And when you get there…\u00c2\u00a0 You’re completely above treeline.\u00c2\u00a0 Bunking at 9,200 feet.\u00c2\u00a0 Higher than any lodge in the United States.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re surrounded by jagged peaks.\u00c2\u00a0 And a lake, which hopefully is frozen, so you can ski across it.<\/p>\n
Oh, there’s only one hotel.\u00c2\u00a0 With as many employees as guests, 450.\u00c2\u00a0 And four meals a day.\u00c2\u00a0 And a pool.\u00c2\u00a0 And a disco.\u00c2\u00a0 And in attendance are the greatest skiers in the world, catching their summer turns.<\/p>\n
So, we’ve got to fly to Dallas.<\/p>\n
At first our turnaround was under an hour.\u00c2\u00a0 But I became concerned, and we extended it to eighty minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m not as worried about myself as I am about my equipment.\u00c2\u00a0 End up in Chile without your ski gear and you don’t have many options.\u00c2\u00a0 This isn’t Vail, other than this one hotel and the mountains, there’s NOTHING THERE!\u00c2\u00a0 I’m carrying my ski boots on the plane.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re the one absolutely necessary piece of equipment.<\/p>\n
And from Dallas, we fly nine and a half hours south to Santiago.\u00c2\u00a0 To winter.<\/p>\n
Although it hasn’t completely been winter the past week.\u00c2\u00a0 As a matter of fact, it didn’t even get below freezing today.\u00c2\u00a0 The mercury soared beyond sixty.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ve got no problem with that, I love skiing in the corn\/slush.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that…\u00c2\u00a0 There’s almost nobody there and they groom very little and what’s ungroomed…\u00c2\u00a0 I once spent a week in Jackson Hole in April.\u00c2\u00a0 It snowed for four days, and then the sun came out brightly, the temperatures were akin to those in Portillo, the snow set up, the slopes were almost unskiable.\u00c2\u00a0 You see the mountain is so vast, it never got packed out.\u00c2\u00a0 And Portillo isn’t quite as large a ski area as Jackson, but with so few skiers there, what will the off-piste snow be like?\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they groom the easier stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 But the stuff between the rocks, the couloirs, the open snowfields you go to Portillo for…what will THOSE be like?
And if I’d gone to Portillo when I originally desired, when I was a teenager, I’m sure I would have torn the place apart.\u00c2\u00a0 But older, and not having the luxury of skiing every day, my timing isn’t as razor sharp.\u00c2\u00a0 How many risks do you take?\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t want to be lame, in front of all the experts there.\u00c2\u00a0 And you don’t want to disappoint yourself.<\/p>\n
Then again, it could dump.<\/p>\n
Last year it snowed so hard that guests couldn’t get from Santiago to the resort for three days.\u00c2\u00a0 Nearly a hundred inches fell.<\/p>\n
The weather report doesn’t portend such a storm this year, then again, it is supposed to precipitate the day we arrive, according to accuweather.com.\u00c2\u00a0 Will we be able to get there?\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind get out, after the mandatory week stay.<\/p>\n
And my OCD is raging.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m gonna FORGET something.\u00c2\u00a0 You know how they always say you can buy everything you need on the road?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, not at THIS place.<\/p>\n
Oh, I know how you do this.\u00c2\u00a0 You just hang in there, you put one foot in front of the other, eventually the day comes, you get there.\u00c2\u00a0 Your anxiety reduces.\u00c2\u00a0 You have a great time.<\/p>\n
But for now, I’m here and Portillo’s there.\u00c2\u00a0 In South America.\u00c2\u00a0 A whole continent away.<\/p>\n
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