The Las Ardillas Expedition: David Marchi and Co. Tackle the Cerro Castillo Mountains of Patagonia (Hardwear Sessions)

By David Marchi

Visit Flickr to see David's photographs of Santiago and Patagonia.

September 10, 2007 (Santiago)

After a day tour of Santiago we headed to Valle Nevado to do some resort skiing to refresh our minds and legs to skiing again after a long summer. As we would have suspected it was corn snow and warm temperatures but was great to get familiar with our equipment again. The remainder of the day we tried to rest on the super windy road back to Santiago.

We made it into Patagonia yesterday via Balmaceda into the town of Villa Cerro Castillo, nestled at the base of the Cerro Castillo Massif and surrounding mountains. Today was a logistics day preparing food, equipment and transportation into the mountains. Due to the unknown terrain we will be facing, we came up with a game plan to utilize horses to access basecamp. With the heavy vegetation down low, it will relieve a lot of time using the horse services. Our local team member Rodolfo has never seen this much snow in the area, which will help once we get off horseback and onto skis.

The mountain range is much more impressive than we could have imagined from pictures and maps that we have viewed in the past. There are hundreds of first ascent and descent opportunities and we are all drooling from the possibilities! It is such a climactic moment to come to an new area and finally see what is available, especially when its much MORE than we could have suspected. We need to keep our fingers crossed because the weather broke upon arriving in the area and it looks like we will have a high pressure system for a little while. However, we know that Patagonia is much like Alaska, where the weather is very fickle and can change at any time. But things look good and we are ready to move into the mountains tomorrow morning! Oh the possibilities!

This will probably be the last blog for the next two weeks until we return from the mountains, but we will have a day by day account accompanied by some killer photos.

September 7, 2007 (Santiago)

The name of our expedition is the Las Ardillas Expediiton, which represents the lodge in which we will be based during the trip into the Cerro Castillo Mountains.

After a fury of packing gear, finalizing travel plans, and soaking in the last minute warmth of San Diego, Petit Pinson, Forrest Coots and David Marchi have converged in Santiago, Chile for the first stretch of the expedition. With a fat snow year and a promising spring snowpack, we are heading down south to the Cerro Castillo mountains of Patagonia. Basing ourselves out of the Las Ardillas fishing lodge, owned by Rodolfo Quiros, our intentions are to extensively ski and explore these mountains for future trips.

In the last minute details we collected our new, stylish Mountain Hardwear gear including some sweet snow shelters and some warmer clothing for the journey to southern Patagonia. Again, thanks to Chris Strasser for making this happen and outfitting the crew.

Like most journeys to different countries there are a bit of butterflies and anxiety when the plane first touches down. Like all mountain expeditions, the anxiety comes from the lack of knowledge of weather patterns and snow conditions, and the butterflies come from the sheer splendor and excitement of being in a different culture. Although Santiago is only a stopover on our final destination of Balmeceda and further south, we hope to catch a glimpse of some classic Chilean culture as well as travel up to Valle Nevado to get our ski legs back after the summer. So much enthusiasm comes naturally from being on snow again, not the alpine neve of summer, but the potential for powder and some classic Chilean corn.

The Cerro Castillo mountains have been the subject of many mountaineering efforts but little has been explored due to its remoteness and difficult approaches. Our intentions are to use burros, ski travel and kites according to the conditions given. Once we have established a base camp, we will check all the available peaks and regions that will be suitable for ski mountaineering efforts. The ability to access this remote fishing lodge will give us the ability to scout first descents and unknown peaks in the area.

On September 9th, our ski mountaineering journey will begin in Balmaceda with a food shopping spree and a bumpy dirt road ride to the fishing lodge. After sorting gear and dividing loads we will either use an airplane gear drop or the classic schlog to get our gear to our established base camp. From there, we will ski whatever is in sight and really get into the sanctity of the mountains! Like all classic backcountry expeditions in foreign countries, there is always an element of mystery in the planning and processing, but isn't that what we all are searching for?

Today was spent checking out Santiago, here are some pics of the experience! A very cool city with lots of little back alleys filled with art and culture! The mountains loom in the distance behind a veil of city smog. Tomorrow we will have a clearer view of the mountains that will bring us back to the reality of the expedition as we ski Valle Nevado.