Las Lenas has been struggling a bit this season in terms of snow. Like most of the northern resorts in Chile/Argentina, they didn’t pick up the early season snowfall that resorts in the south got. Thus, they don’t have as deep and settled of a base going into the middle part of their winter.
That said, it was still pretty phenomenal yesterday in Las Lenas. It snowed up to a meter on the upper mountain and probably about 50cm toward the base. Marte, the only lift accessing the upper mountain and the really good skiing, has been fickle. It’s been open a few hours here, and a few hours there. Basically, you just have to keep an eye on it and split right for it when it opens.
The snowpack on the south and southwest facing aspects seems to be the deepest and the driest, with the sun getting to the more easterly facing slopes. But still, in areas that look like you can charge it’s necessary to ski cautiously. It seems just as you get into a groove you’ll find a shark just under the surface of the snow.
Just as things seem to be turning around, there’s some other bad news worth mentioning: it didn’t freeze last night in the valley and freezing levels are supposed to rise to above 3000m this afternoon. This could make things pretty interesting. More to come on rising temps and the light snow forecasted in the next couple days.
