I have been wanting to ski Portillo since the early ages of social media, when I started following all this skiing pages where Portillo just kept showing and showing.
So I decided to pull the trigger and plan the trip. Also a couple of my best friends currently live in Santiago and it has been quite some time since I last saw them, so it was another force adding to the reasons why I should plan that trip asap.
I looked into Portillo first to see how everything worked around it, since as you can see in the pictures there’s only one building in the resort and nothing around it. So it’s around a 3 hours drive from Santiago, so it’s not THAT far away, but once you get there there’s nothing around you…. Only the hotel/hostal and a bar outside the hotel – that’s it. The hotel lets you book either from Saturday to Saturday or from Wednesday to Saturday, so you gotta plan your trip around those days.
Since I’ve been obsessed with the backcountry lately, I decided to only booked the wed-sat option in Portillo and decided to look around for another adventure the days prior to Portillo. That’s when I came across skiing the volcanos in Pucon (I had heard about Pucon in my early Triathlete days, since there is a very famous early season half Ironman 70.3 in Pucon, Chile) – for the next couple years I am planning to also ski down in Chalten, Patagonia and go out with the snowmobiles around the Santiago area before hitting Portillo, I truly want to make Portillo a yearly tradition.
This is when I found out about Mawid Adventures. Based in Pucon downtown, Rodrigo is the owner/guide/director of both the adventure tourism company and hotel “aldea naukana” – let me tell
You something, if adventure and comfort is what you are looking for, this is the place to go! The hotels has everything you would ever want and need plus more. And it’s just less than a couple hours drive away from most of the volcanos.
The whole itinerary was tight… very tight:
- Saturday: flight to Santiago (Caracas – Panama – Santiago)
- Sunday: flight to Valdivia + 3 hours drive to Pucon.
- Monday: climb + ski villarica
- Tuesday: climb + ski Quetrupillan + catch the 9pm Bus direction to Santiago.
- Wednesday: shuttle to Portillo and ski some laps at 1-2pm.
- Thursday – Friday: Resort skiing.
- Saturday: shuttle back to Santiago + Trail run in the nearby city mountains + dinner with friends + catch a plane back to Caracas at Midnight.
- Sunday: landed in Caracas at 2pm.
Skiing the volcanos was a surreal experience, very different from anything I’ve Been use to. Even though I did climb and ski Mt. Baker, which technically is an Alive volcano, but the shape of Villarica mountain makes you feel like you are really in a volcano, unlike baker. You can actually ski into the crater of Quetrupillan, since it’s not an active Volcano, but once we got to the top a storm was coming in pretty quickly, so we decided not to force it and skied back down to the car.
During both days we ran into a group of 4 Spaniards, which made the climbs really diverse and interesting conversation we had on the way up, as per usual in this kind of adventures. “The Clitoris” group we named them, since every time we took a picture instead of saying “cheeesseeee” the said “clitorisss” and it was impossible not to laugh.
Elevation gain of both days was in between 1400 and 1900 meters, so anywhere between 5 and 7 hours for our uphills. Quetrupillan wins the decision of which uphill was better, but Villarica was more fun as for our descends. None was amazing skiing, but both were pretty decent corn skiing. We had tons of fun and the group was truly top notch. Not to mention that once we got back to the hotel, a hot tub with a beer awaits for you with a direct view of the Volcano you had just skied minutes ago.
First couple days the food was just Ok. Since it was just so average I decided to check out the best rated restaurant in town the day prior to my last day and it was a Hit. Senzo was the name of it, Italian place, and the bartender was even Venezuelan. Food was great and wine selection even better. As for the last day before getting in the 12 hours bus ride, I told Rodrigo to recommend a sushi place, and again it did not disappoint. So if you look ahead and do a little research food can be pretty descent.
I got in the bus at around 8 or 9 pm and got to Santiago at around 6:00am. Oscar (one of my best friends from kindergarten) was waiting for me in Santiago. We had a great breakfast at their place in Santiago and then we headed to catch the shuttle which was gonna take us to Portillo.
The Shuttle takes around 3 hours, depending on traffic. It is quite a pretty drive, and if you are lucky as we were, and no trucks are crossing the border between Chile and Argentina shuttle can be done in less than the 3 hours. We were sharing the shuttle with a couple more Americans and as per usual Oscar started to know everyone on board. Once we got to Portillo we noticed that the snow quality was far from desirable, but still the place is truly breathtaking.
The hotel has a particular system, where you can only check in on Saturdays or on Wednesdays, so it is either a full week or 3 days of skiing. They also have an Hostel option if you are running tight on budget, but you still get to enjoy the pool and hot tubs from the hotel. Meals are all included and you are supposed to have the same table for the length of your stay, so you have this familiarity feel every time you go to eat. Its a very family feel hotel.
The hotel is very old, but very well maintained. You feel like you are in some kind of medieval times when you go to the bar. It truly is an amazing ski and logging experience. The food is pretty much Ok. Nothing to die for, but pretty descent. Then you also have Uncle Bobs to stop by for Apres or very good burgers. It sits in top of one of the two lifts in the mountain with surreal views to the lake and hotel.
On our second day we got some snow. Enough to have fun skiing and not survival skiing. Keep in mind that it is a very small mountain as for groomed and lift access terrain, so if you are used to skiing in big mountains and are not willing to adventure a little going some side country or even backcountry skiing I would say that If the snow quality is not great, that you will be over the mountain in a couple days.
It was Oscar’s first time touring, so we hired a guide (much cheaper than in the US) and went out for a tour. It took Oscar a while to get a hold of it, and since we has on split boards it was a learning experience for the guide, myself and Oscar. We didn’t even manage to do one run during the couple hours of guiding we had, but he felt comfortable enough to then try it a second time with me where he actually got to tour some more, and actually was able to ski a line.
Overall, if you are a skier you HAVE to come to Chile to do some skiing. From what I’ve been researching there are tons of options, wether it is resort skiing or backcountry skiing. As for myself, next year I want to visit the Chalten area, along with finishing again with some Portillo skiing, although this time I plan to wait until they get some really good snow in before buying and planning the trip. Even though we did get a couple good snowing days, what the Chile winter brought in after I left was one for the books.
We ended up the trip running in some local trails around Santiago and then having dinner at a typical pizza place in Santiago with some brothers from life.
MiBiCi Adventures 