Between weather threatening our flights to Santiago and an epic storm in the Andes, it took patience (to say the least) to make our way to Portillo this year. Luckily the bustling and fascinating city of Santiago is a great place to be "stuck" for 2 1/2 days. Our group enjoyed a downtown tour of all the historic spots, a hike to the top of Cerro San Cristobal, dryland training clinics with Chris and Victor and highly personalized time with boot guru, Jim Schaffner. And we all enjoyed sampling the haute cuisine of Santiago.

The wait in Santiago was well worth it - we've never seen Portillo with so much snow! Conditions were prime, the lake frozen over, and we filled up our days to the limit with endless runs, untouched powder, and smiles on our faces. Old friends united, new friends were made, and a fantastic time was had by all. With the Austrian and US ski teams on the hill training, we had plenty of good visuals during our epic powder clinic. And to top it off we all improved our powder turns in August! If only we could have stayed a few more days.

Once again this magical place affected us to the core. The peaks surrounding us and in our view at every turn touched a place in these skiers souls that you cannot not find every ski day. We have been lucky enough to call Portillo our summer home for 12 years now.

NASTC's Portillo, Chile 2005 Group

With the lake frozen over we were able to go out-of-bounds to the Lake runs. Untracked powder turns awaited us all!

We just knew Ron belonged in Portillo with us.
Long live Ron in Portillo!