Report from September 16, 2026
The day started 1.5 hours before sunrise with no electricity.
Headlamps and smoke in the house.
Ski mountaineering day #16 of the past 19 days.
The biggest day of the trip so far.
Up, down, up, down, up, down, home.
Chilean Patagonia 2026 So Far:
- 16 ski days
- 45,678 vertical feet
- 64.51 miles
Pico Filoso:
- 4,637 vertical feet
- 9.03 miles
- 3 hours & 53 minutes to the top
- 6 hours & 32 minutes round trip
We started at 8:30 am, 30 minutes after sunrise.
The goal was to be skiing around 1 pm.
The first steep traverse sucks.
We ground through it and hit the drainage bottom after 1 hour of travel.
Too cold to break, we stopped, chugged water, housed Chilean gummy bears, and kept moving.
The shade, wind, and cold air pool we were swimming through kept us moving at full pace.
Skip was damn near running.
The cold was pounding my chest and burning my fingertips.
I had to stop and put on bigger gloves.
We splashed into the sunlight 30 minutes later and began to climb.
Temps rose, the wind died, clothing came off.
The grade was gradual enough that I simply cranked my heel risers to their max and climbed straight uphill, no switchbacks.
Our goal was to hit the saddle 2 hours and 30 minutes into the day.
We hit it at the 2 hour and 18 minute mark.
Timing was huge on this day as the chute we were off to ski, Pico Filoso (Spiky Peak), loses light starting at 1 pm.
Skiing in the light is always nice, but on this occasion we desperately needed the sun’s 93 million-mile-long beam to soften the snow in the chute.
Without it, that entire eastern face of the mountain would remain an ice cube.
The saddle held wind and wind-blasted snow.
Again, we skipped a proper break.
We scratched and scraped across sastrugi and windboard down to the col between ridgelines.
The wind was ripping through this gap, blasting through our thin clothes.
No break again.
Quick PBJ, water, go.
It felt like a foregone conclusion.
The snow was gonna be shit…
The ridgeline we ascended was exposed to the wind and we suffered.
Soon, we found ourselves contouring onto the backside of Pico Filoso where the wind was blocked.
The temps skyrocketed and the snow softened to a perfect, corny softness.
The corn delivered a comfy plan B.
Skip was tempted and argued hard for smiley corn happiness.
I was lured, but held fast to the goal for the time being, at least.
When the mountain steepened past skinning, we booted straight up to the summit in soft, shallow, perfect-for-booting corn.
Summit at the 3 hour and 53 minute mark – time: 12:24 pm.
Somehow, we nailed it.
We were gonna be skiing before 1 pm.
Skip pushed for Corn Valhalla and I resisted.
I knew the snow couldn’t be any worse than the previous day in Viento Rojo and at this point in the trip, I was used to bad snow.
We’ve been here for 19 days now in the heart of winter and only gotten 1 powder day…
I transitioned quickly and dropped first.
The initial turns were rough, similar to the previous day in Viento Rojo. Wind-blasted, frozen windboard snow.
I scraped down a large wind roll before committing to the steep face above the choke.
The snow wasn’t great, but it wasn’t breakable crust so I kept my rhythm.
My sluff started to gather some steam and charge down the chute.
I stayed wide right of the choke in the sun and felt the snow soften a touch.
The cliffs below forced me back into the chute and into the shade and into my sluff.
Crossing the sluff through the choke in bulletproof snow was spicy – crossing the sluff again back into the sunshine was pure relief.
Right away, I sensed that the drop in elevation and sun had done their work.
It wasn’t corn, but it wasn’t firm.
A zipper crust on developing corn broke away and shot down the chute with every turn.
The angle of the mountain eased, my speed increased, the corner of my mouth rose.
I’d made it to the apron where the snow was re-exposed to the wind and went back to windboard.
I skied up and over the big wind lip at the bottom of the chute where the snow instantly turned back into the sastrugi we found in the big col.
A feeling of gratitude filled my chest.
It had taken a lot of planning and 2 attempts to ski this mountain and despite no new snow in weeks, the damn thing skied pretty damn good.
I called Skip on the radio and told him he should go for it, that the snow was soft enough, and that it was rewarding and fun.
Skip was smarter than me as per usual and chose a line more exposed to the sun with a touch of north aspect in it.
A steep, tight, rocky side chute on the mountain and he skied it well.
At the bottom we postulated on how much more full-on Pico Filoso had been than expected.
We rejoiced, hugged, storytold, and hit the road.
We had to climb back to the first saddle before we could glide home easy.
Fortunately, that final climb was easy travel in the wind and less steep than feared.
I walked straight up it again with no switchbacks.
We chilled on top for a while, ate candy, finished our water, and got ready for our third and final descent of the day.
The upper slopes were corny and fun and we arched huge lazy turns down to the big valley.
The valley was still cold and firm, which helped us across the arduous traverse back to the car.
6 hours and 32 minutes of nearly non-stop movement had us back in the warm car, ready to cruise home happy.
Gracias, Chile!
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