Build My Own FeedBD athlete Chris Erickson checks in from Argentina
Black Diamond athlete Chris Erickson sent us the following report and photos from his trip down to Argentina in August. Chris is back Stateside now and is busy editing together a video from his month-long trip for us, but we decided to share his initial report with you now.
After leaving Haines this past spring, my friend Will Cardamone and I had an idea of heading to South America for a month of skiing and filming with Sweetgrass Productions. Sweetgrass was planning on doing their next film project in South America, and we had been invited to come down and ski big lines in Las Lenas. We decided it would be an awesome opportunity to ski down south and experience some great food in Argentina.
We arrived in Argentina on the 5th of August and spent a few nights in Buenos Aires, partying and seeing old friends—and of course eating the great beef. After a few days in BA, we hopped a few buses, a taxi, and finally landed ourselves in Las Lenas. We were all pretty psyched to be there, and stoked to see what the mountains had to offer.
The Sweetgrass crew had rented a cabin in a little town outside of Lenas, called Los Molles. It was a sweet place to chill out when we weren't skiing. It had a rustic old Argentine style to it. The cabin was built out of old logs and stones from around the property, which made it perfect for the crew.
We ripped around Lenas for a few days, but unfortunately the snowpack was really shallow. However, there was still some amazing skiing to be had. We were able to tour up into the Triangles zone and scored some great snow on Cerro Martin, Entre Rios, and Torrecillas.
We did a short camping trip on our third day there. We got to ski Entre Rios, which was ok snow and then toured out to Torrecillas, where we set up camp to try and get the early morning light on the spires out there.
Our adventure was great, but the snow just wasn't there, it was bulletproof. We were bummed, but what can you do? We waited a few more days for a storm to come in, which produced a couple of inches. It wasn't amazing but surprisingly helped the snowpack a lot. We got an early cat ride up and cruised up to Cerro Martin right away to get some shots in the cool light. It was a great time there hitting some airs, and doing some lines through the spires. I then went over to Entre Rios, to try and get it good, in this beautiful light that was hitting it. I hiked up with BD sales rep Craig Hatton and the snow was deep, so we knew it was going to be good. Unfortunately we lost the light when we got to the top, so we weren't able to get the shot, but the skiing was awesome, perfect creamy snow all the way to the bottom.
After that day, there was no snow in the forecast, and further south was supposed to get over a meter, so we headed south to Bariloche.
We are here now at a small hostel in town, and skiing cerro cathedral, for the duration of the trip. They got a ton of snow down here and they are expected to get more. We already had one good day on the hill, with great snow, and good shooting in the trees. This place is pretty cool because the trees are still covered in moss, and there are a ton of bamboo bushes, which is just weird for the area. It’s like skiing in Japan. We’re stoked, though, because Saturday and Sunday are looking good for weather and hopefully we can get into some good terrain.
Only time will tell, video will be posted soon... pray for snow everyone, and I’ll talk to you later!!
— Chris Erickson
United States / English 
21 Jun 2012, 4:35PM
yea my patagonia rock...!!!
Black Diamond Equipment it´s the best.
Shame that it's too expensive here y my country.
Come back to Argentina Chris there are too much place to explore.
Good luck