Las Lenas , Argentina- Sept 14 to Sept 23

Just a quick report.
We arrived in Las Lenas to disappointing conditions, no new snow for three weeks and frozen hardpack.  To cut a long story short, although the conditions where not good after getting to know the mountain better we skied every type of snow imaginable, corn , frozen penitienites, bullet proof hardpack, wind buff and cold powder! It turned out to be a marvellous trip and the terrain that can be accessed from the Marte lift is unbelievable. It's a real skiers mountain and we skied our brains out. I can only imagine what it is like in good conditions.

Argentina is a place I have wanted to visit my entire life and I was not disappointed. Buenos Aires is very cool and the exchange rate very good. My partners Sidnie and Michael, I think felt the same way.

We met a cool couple of North Americans, Chuck from Alta and Kim from Carson City. Their intimate knowledge of the mountain led us to good skiing despite the dearth of snow.
I will be going again next summer if I can for sure.
As usual, I have no photos but hopefully Michael can post some that will give a feeling of the place.

Here are some pictures, Chris.  What an amaxing mountain. I will definately return.

]

The iconic Marte lift

]

Cat skiing lines and UFO

]

Sidecountry cirque

The last picture shows a bowl that we bootpacked up to below the cliff bands. The top is at about 11,700 ft so the bootpack was strenuous. There where 4 people ahead of us while booting up and half -way up the first person launched. She headed straight down the slope at about 50 mph and hucked one of the small cliffs on the right hand side of the photo. After about what seemed a 50ft glide she touched down perfectly and proceeded to the bottom with huge GS turns at mach 2 speed.
After shouting Bravo! I turned to Michael and said "I want to ski like that"( never will but you can dream). Turned out she was a famous" ripper chick" from Jackson! The guy that followed did the same thing but wasn't as good!

Another lesson I learnt was to never poach a run closed by the patrol and never to follow an Austrian in a racing helmet who says, IT VILL BE GOOD SNOW AND FUN, YA.
The font side had been closed all week and opened up for a short time one day and I sat beside this Austrian dude on the lift who said he had skied it twice in nice corn. I agreed to follow him. On reaching the top, patrol had closed the run but he said follow me and we skied down a short ways and bootpacked under the radar over to the run. To cut a long story short, the run had refrozen and I found myself on a 50 deg slope of pure ice with a 2000 ft slope below, more scared than I had ever been on skis before in my life. The Austrian had just skied down the slope carving the most beautiful turns and skiing it like Herman Maier. After calling for my mommy for about 5 minutes I commited to the slope and managed to get down on trembling legs and swore never to poach a line again!

At least the Austrian didn't take you into Sin Salida!

Maryg,
That looks steep and scary.Where is that on the mountain and what's the story.?You need to share, it's cathartic!

Actually there is no story- I don't know who that is in the photo.
When we were in Las Lenas, we saw a guy who had gone into Sin Salida and was trying to back his way out. He was stuck for sure. You can see the run from the Neptuno chair I believe, if you look up and to the right.
Here is a description I found-
"One popular chute off of Marte called Sin Salida is one common mistake that the public skis,it means "without exit" so please do not ski this! You will be forced to hike out a steep run or do a
mandatory air over a possible 40 foot cliff.