{"id":508,"date":"2006-08-26T15:23:50","date_gmt":"2006-08-26T23:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/08\/26\/chile-day-one\/"},"modified":"2006-08-26T15:36:04","modified_gmt":"2006-08-26T23:36:04","slug":"chile-day-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/08\/26\/chile-day-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Chile-Day One"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings from 9,450 feet.<\/p>\n

We kept passing this posse of slackers outside the elevator.\u00c2\u00a0 You see we’re on the sixth floor, but the lift only goes to the fifth.\u00c2\u00a0 So, you’ve got to traverse a small lobby to a staircase in the far corner, to ascend to the sixth floor.\u00c2\u00a0 And needing to go up and down to eat lunch, to deposit our skis and boots in the basement, we had to walk around these stretched out thirtysomethings again and again.\u00c2\u00a0 The kind of people who steal music and keep jam bands alive but Armani-suited execs are wary of.\u00c2\u00a0 And about the fourth time through, the head slacker had his battery removed from his iBook, checking to see if it had been recalled.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s when I weighed in.\u00c2\u00a0 Delineating the models that needed to be exchanged as the elevator attendant closed the gate.\u00c2\u00a0 And having broken the ice on the previous ride, the next time through I struck up a conversation, I asked the assembled multitude whether they were coming or going.<\/p>\n

And the head slacker brightened right up.\u00c2\u00a0 They were there for the "Ski With The Superstars"<\/a> week.\u00c2\u00a0 But, what I wasn’t prepared for, in this Mac convention, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAD A MAC LAPTOP, was that these WERE the superstars.<\/p>\n

It was kind of like Bono, Keith Richards and Patti Smith all in the same room.<\/p>\n

The head slacker was Chris Davenport.\u00c2\u00a0 Former U.S. ski team member and now legendary big mountain skier.\u00c2\u00a0 His run at the 1996 World Extreme Skiing Championships is the most acclaimed in the history of the sport.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than checking himself, making small turns, he took the whole course in a matter of a few arcs, going about as straight as is humanly possible.<\/p>\n

Next to Chris was Shane McConkey.\u00c2\u00a0 Just a little bit crazy, he’s the guy who does all the daredevil stunts you see in mainstream media that you just can’t believe.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Check out this photo of Shane<\/a> skiBASE jumping.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If only our rockers were as crazy and carefree as Shane!<\/p>\n

As for Wendy Fisher…former U.S. Ski Team member, three time World Extreme Skiing Champion…\u00c2\u00a0 She’s the best female freeskier in the States.<\/p>\n

But she’s here in Portillo.<\/p>\n

I’d like to tell you we’re in heaven, reveling in the atmosphere.\u00c2\u00a0 But that would be lying.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s positively SCARY HERE!<\/p>\n

Getting to Chile wasn’t that bad.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, we had to avoid some weather on the way from Dallas to Santiago, but we only landed an hour late.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that I knew we were going to land.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly the wheels were on the tarmac.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve seen thicker fog, but Felice was convinced in America they would have closed the airport.<\/p>\n

And it’s two and a half hours from Santiago to Portillo.\u00c2\u00a0 Through landscape that looks just a little bit different from anything you come across in the States.\u00c2\u00a0 Vineyards, peach trees and bicyclists on the freeway.<\/p>\n

I was getting nervous.\u00c2\u00a0 It was in the forties, and snow was nowhere to be seen.\u00c2\u00a0 And then we entered the tunnel.\u00c2\u00a0 A positively third world hole.\u00c2\u00a0 With uneven walls, uneven lights in the ceiling, rough pavement and no ventilation.\u00c2\u00a0 And after escaping to the other side we were confronted with SWITZERLAND!\u00c2\u00a0 Mountain peaks off in the distance so spectacular that even one who’s been to the Rockies and the Tetons found his jaw dropping.<\/p>\n

And then, as we started ascending, the houses looked like shacks.\u00c2\u00a0 There were rope bridges over the river from the abodes to the road.\u00c2\u00a0 There were cliffs that made me glad we weren’t driving, and then we hit the switchbacks.\u00c2\u00a0 Thirty turns going up THOUSANDS of vertical feet with a road that looked like it hadn’t been repaired since the seventies <\/p>\n

\n

The road to Portillo<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Utterly, positively, frightening.\u00c2\u00a0 Where were we GOING?<\/p>\n

And then, to our left, we saw a chairlift, going over the road.\u00c2\u00a0 We were HERE!\u00c2\u00a0 Well, not quite.\u00c2\u00a0 A few more switchbacks through tunnels and THEN we were at this lone hotel on the roof of the world.\u00c2\u00a0 The lobby of which was so small and was squashed by such a low ceiling that both Felice and I had the urge to bolt.\u00c2\u00a0 THIS WAS THE PLACE?<\/p>\n

I didn’t picture Portillo being on the road to Argentina.\u00c2\u00a0 Straddling and encompassing the switchbacks.\u00c2\u00a0 And the wind was blowing and snow was spitting from the sky and…let’s just say the place wasn’t inviting.<\/p>\n

And because of the altitude, I felt like shit.<\/p>\n

We thought about skiing, but the slopes were frozen, since it had been close to sixty degrees the day before.\u00c2\u00a0 And that usually wouldn’t keep me from going out, it’s just that to this very minute, I feel like the world is moving, like I’m still on the plane.<\/p>\n

The rooms are basic.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t even have TVs.\u00c2\u00a0 And two people can’t pass by each other at once.\u00c2\u00a0 But then we went to lunch…<\/p>\n

There was a maitre’d in a tux.\u00c2\u00a0 The room was filled with people I can only describe as skiers.\u00c2\u00a0 We were not alone, we were not the only ones who’d heard the call.\u00c2\u00a0 Here in the middle of nowhere, was a mecca, where all the true snow believers had congregated.<\/p>\n

The meal had the feel of Europe.<\/p>\n

And, after researching the hotel like Eloise, we stumbled upon Chris, Shane and Wendy.\u00c2\u00a0 They waxed rhapsodic about the skiing.\u00c2\u00a0 How there were no lines.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was perfect corn.\u00c2\u00a0 And suddenly, Felice and I knew we were in the right place.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings from 9,450 feet. We kept passing this posse of slackers outside the elevator.\u00c2\u00a0 You see we’re on the sixth floor, but the lift only goes to the fifth.\u00c2\u00a0 So, you’ve got to traverse a small lobby to a staircase in the far corner, to ascend to the sixth floor.\u00c2\u00a0 And needing to go up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-8c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}