Chilean Patagonia Report: North Face of Cerro Imagen | Mini-Chamonix Mandatory Air in Patagonia

Report from September 5, 2026

This day started as so many of our days here.

Freezing cold house plus frozen water pipes.

This helps us get out the door quicker because there are no hot showers and no stretching on these mornings.

For the past few days, I’d been eyeing a twisted chute on a due north face that I knew could be amazing if the corn was right.

On this day, I figured the temps, the snow, and the weather were just about perfect.

The x-factor was big on this one.

Cerro Imagen Stats:

• 2,314 vertical feet
• 1.81 miles
• 2 hours & 36 mins to top
• 4 hours & 22 mins car to car
• 122 average heart rate

There’s a mandatory air/cliff in the middle of the upper chute and I can’t tell how big it is…

I’d studied it carefully and hoped it was less than 10 feet tall and climbable, but I couldn’t be sure.

From my perspective, this chute was gonna be rad even if we dropped in at the cliff.

If the cliff goes, then we can ski the upper chute and the shoulder of this beast right off the summit.

I talked Skip into it and we started hiking at about 10:30 am.

We skinned a very short distance before switching to boot crampons.

The run is remarkably, consistently steep from top to bottom.

We booted up the apron in frozen corn snow that was perfect for cramponing before entering the labyrinth zone.

We knew to stay climber’s left of the red rock.

That threw us onto a short, breathtaking knife-edge ridge.

A steep traverse put us into the funnel that pushed our noses right into our cliff.

It was a go.

Only about 5 feet tall, but man, it really had almost no footholds.

Skip found one foothold and one handhold and that was enough.

I threw my pack, poles, and skis atop the cliff and made the one big move up through the crumbling rock.

The rock quality was a total disaster…

Skip followed me up and was pretty spooked.

Above the cliff were 2 sickly thin, anemically skinny chokes in the chute above us.

He started naming the dangers we were stacking on top of each other, and I listened.

I let him know that I understood, recognized the dangers as well, and that I thought they were manageable.

I reminded myself and him that all of this would feel so much less steep with skis on.

He took a few breaths and decided he was ok to continue.

The upper chute went quick, then the final ramp to the summit went slow…

The snow was glopping onto my crampons like crazy.

I shoulda just taken the damn things off.

Another 30 minutes of slogging put us on top 2 hours and 36 minutes after our first step onto the mountain.

We took a long break on top and even hiked to the summit ridge to have a look into the western abyss.

The 13,300′ San Valentín volcano blows our minds every time we set eyes on it…

I dropped first and the snow was just right.

The steep, scary upper chute wasn’t bad with skis on and I easily skied right to the edge of the cliff band.

An amazing thing happened as I skied the upper chute.

An enormous, adult Andean Condor was soaring above me as I skied and his shadow crossed my body as I mashed down the chute.

You can see the Condor and it’s shadow crossing me in the drone video above.

Whoa…

I waited there for Skip and I was ready to jump the thing when I peered over the edge and remembered the rock sticking out directly in the landing.

Skip also reminded me just how thin the snowpack was in that landing.

The entire snowpack on this north-facing side of the mountain seemed to average only around 6″.

We were hitting it just before it completely melted out.

We each jumped down the cliff with skis off.

Some more graceful than others…

At that point, I could feel the fear melt off Skip and slide into the shallow snowpack underfoot.

He dropped first and charged.

Big turns down the funnel, no hesitation through the narrow choke, slashing turns on the labyrinth wall, then a beeline right through the final narrows on the rocky apron.

He called back on the radio with glee and it was my turn.

I found the skiing delectable, convoluted, and fun.

I was feeling the flow right into the lower apron where I clubbed a rock, nearly did the splits, and stopped.

From there I picked my way slowly through the landmines and shrubs back to the safety of the flatlands.

I was very pleased with the day, our performance, our decision-making, the cliff size, and the snow quality.

The mountain had treated us kindly, and I was grateful.

Gracias, Chile!

Photos