Patagonia Report: 5 Inches, 4 Wet Slides, & 1 Drone Crash

Report from September 22, 2026

After 5 days stuck in the house due to bad weather and rain, we were finally let loose again yesterday.

We drove around with no plan, looking for a smart move.

Mellow Pow Day Stats:

• 2,996 vertical feet
• 3.84 miles round trip
• 2 hours and 7 minutes to the top of run #1 (1,599 vertical feet at that point)
• 5 hours and 17 minutes round trip

It clearly hadn’t snowed much, only 2″ on the road.

The rain had done its damage, though.

All the good, steep terrain we could see had slid.

Ugly, wet slides that were generally full path.

We parked next to some cool local cats and chatted them up a touch.

They were good-hearted souls and one of them, Hector, was a ski patroller at a local community ski hill.

We followed them up, then took turns putting in the booter to access the upper mountain.

The snow on top was wet and the entire snowpack underneath was isothermic.

Tough booting…

Once on skins, life was better.

We never saw more than 5″ of snow anywhere.

As we climbed up in a drizzling fog, the sun shone through now and again.

Enough at times to send down point-release wet loose avalanches across the valley off the rocks of an east face.

2 of them in quick succession.

Very slow moving.

We gained the ridgeline quickly, rested, and watched the weather.

It was improving, just as the forecast had suggested, and we continued up.

On the next flat spot in the ridgeline we stopped again.

I didn’t wanna go further.

I tested the slope we were on.

It felt good, and going higher just raised the x-factor.

We talked about the slope and came to the consensus that it was 4″ of wet, unconsolidated snow.

The sun was actively consolidating it, but the sun wasn’t strong and was in and out.

We decided that if something broke, it would break at your feet, not above you (that’s more of a hard-slab thing), and that it would likely be a slow-moving, point-release, wet-loose avalanche, as we had seen.

I dropped first and the skiing and visibility were pretty damn good.

I was happy.

Skip got a great shot of me and then crashed the drone immediately, ha!

The drone has cameras and isn’t supposed to be able to crash, but in that kinda flat light, it can’t see.

Skip couldn’t see either as he flew.

Tough light, but felt good as the skier.

Hector came next and he loved it.

Hector’s buddy came next and he did trigger a slow-moving wet loose slide that came down way after he arrived at the bottom.

Hector’s next buddy did the same.

Both avalanches were size 1 or smaller and both were point-release (off one turn) wet loose slides.

Skip came down last with no issues.

I then went on a solo hunt for the drone.

Straight up the avalanche path, heart rate 145 bpm, trying to find it before the battery died.

If you get close before the battery dies, you can trigger the drone to beep and flash, which can be a big help.

It took me a bit of up-and-down and zigging and zagging, but I found Zelda the drone, and she was fine.

For run #2, we climbed a touch higher and left Hector and crew to repeat the first zone.

Skip dropped first and was in heaven.

Finally, some easy, happy, straightforward powder skiing.

I dropped last and swooned in the speed and ease.

We contemplated a third lap, knowing the weather was to be bad the next day, but decided against it.

It was 4:30 pm.

Time to go home.

We drove home happy.

Gracias, Chile!