Report from August 7th, 2019

Brought to you by Cerro Catedral

We walked out into the backcountry of Bariloche, Argentina today expecting to mostly find wind-board snow due to the huge winds that blew last night and were still blowing this morning.

Our first ridge walk was insane.

We were walking with our bodies at 20º angles just to stay upright against the wind.

I was blown to my knees once…

It was cold.

I never took off my helmet today, even when skinning up.

Our first run was south facing and truly was wind-board, hard snow until the final turns where there was a bit of loose, windblown snow.

On our second run, we ran up to the spines and were surprised to find them looking supreme.

We dropped in quick between clouds to make sure we got the light.

The spines skied perfectly.

Good snow, not too deep, not too shallow, just right and predictable.

At the bottom, I would have hollered loud – but I lost my voice this morning so just smiled.

Below the spines the convex powder was splendid but The Finger was pretty beat up by the wind.

Our 3rd run gave us firmer, wind-pressed snow into hard, old snow.

Then, I went home to try to get my voice back and Greggy did one more lap on that 3rd run.

An excellent day.

Another day where didn’t expect much, but found white gold.

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