Trip Report: Yeseras, Adrenalina with Zach Paley

This trip report, written by Zach Paley for his blog, describes a trip to ski Adrenalina on Cerro Yeseras a couple weeks ago. This same excursion was captured in video form in this post last week, but Zach’s report has some great photos and writing, and is well worth checking out.

Yeseras, Adrenalina

My fifth day back on skis. Nothing like an early wakeup and over 1800 meters of climbing to get back up to speed. Well, at least I get to ski down all that…hopefully.

I woke to the howling of the wind at 4:45. With a long day in the office to look forward to, a delicious, traditional Argentine breakfast was prepared: cheap hot dogs, scrambled eggs, stale toast.

Scope shot through the clouds. Our line was straight down the gut.

Ready to go, we ran into a slight delay: the ski room was locked. We got lucky here. Despite both doors being locked, the window was left wide open. Only in South America. A quick climb through it to pass gear out, and the technical crux of the day was over. We woke Matthias and were walking out of town before the sun rose.

Lee and Matthias climb with Cerro Lenas in the background

Things went about as smoothly as they could for the next six hours or so. There was some boot packing over scree, light winds, great views, and of course a little getting lost.

Got wind?

Lee hiking far ahead, as usual

Sastrugi supplied some sketchy skinning

Finally at the top, we took in the view, transitioned, and got to go skiing. Cartón, powder, corn, it was a long ski down that had it all. As fun as the steeps are, I was glad our line was more flat, and provided a nice, long ski out. After hiking all morning, it was great to link together so many turns. We Canadiened after the first pitch and were walking home by four.