September 11, 2007 Caviahue, Argentina

It took us about one and a half days to drive from Las Lenas to Caviahue. Although many maps indicate the road is paved, don’t count on it. From Malargue to about 13 km north of Barrancas the fine print on our map from the Argentine auto club indicates “pavimento deteriorado”. That’s a fairly accurate description as we encountered small patches of pavement with potholes along a primarily gravel surface. The beautiful scenery offset the misery of the road. We ski toured at Caviahue back in 2005 when the ski area was closed, and on this trip we wanted to ride the lifts and see more of the terrain. The ski area is off the beaten path so you really have to want to ski there. The ski area is in a beautiful setting where you can tour up to Volcan Copahue, soak in the thermals and ski among the monkey puzzle trees.

Once you drive up to the plateau you see the ski area below the volcano, a large reservoir/lake, steam spewing from a geyser and monkey puzzle trees along ski trails. The ski village is quite new and there are new chalets being built everywhere. From the town, it is about 1km up to the base area. That 1km drive goes from pavement to mud, and on this spring day the mud road was rutted and trenched. As you drive in the mud trenches you never slow down or you’re stuck. Once in the small parking lot it’s a mud hole. We bought our senior half day tickets for $25 each. There are 3 doubles, a fixed quad, a t-bar and a couple of pomas. The snow pack was much better in Caviahue even though we were 2000’ lower than at Las Lenas. Although it was midday the sun never softened the slopes completely so the off piste skiing was a mix of firm surfaces with corn patches. We had planned to tour up to the volcano but the conditions were not tour friendly. We traversed out to view the geyser and skied around a few monkey puzzle trees. We cruised until the lifts closed and decided to head south. Caviahue is a small area and you could spend a day riding the lifts and another day touring outside the lifts