La Parva, Chile Conditions Report: After 51″ of New Snow

editor’s note:  La Parva, Chile received 51″ of snow in 48 hours as of August 7th, 2015

 – words and photos by Casey Earle –

No new snow since the light snowfall yesterday, but the high clouds broke early, the sun finally came out, and the low clouds hovered menacingly at about the altitude of Farellones. All lifts opened except Nevada (broke motor), with Las Aguilas being the last to open due to avalanche control.

The packed base is between 70cm and 120cm, and is fairly evenly distributed. Seems there were high winds and a couple of warm spells during the last couple days. The runs are now being groomed progressively.

Where the powder had not been skied yesterday, as on many upper pitches and out of the way places, it was untracked bliss. Except for some windpack and crusty spots on the upper third, there was about 20cm of light powder, right to the bottom. Few rocks, but they are still lurking in places, and we found a couple.

Although the ski area posted warnings of high avalanche danger, the blasting on the Las Aguilas ridge only produced a couple of cornice slides in the typical places.

At 1:30pm, just when we went in for lunch, the clouds moved up, and it whited out.  With about 4,000 (13,000 ft) vertical meters of untracked powder under our belts, we called it a day!  As of 6 pm it is snowing nicely.