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Las Leñas ski resort
Las Lenas, where we spent the main bulk of our skiing time, is one of the best and most popular places to ski in Argentina. We found the resort expensive and the majority of people in Las Lenas were Argentine ‘chetos’, who were there simply to gain the healthy addition of a goggle mark and to party.
If you enjoy skiing off-piste and also like sitting around waiting for it to open then Las Lenas is a cool place to go. We were there for three weeks and it was not enough. The powder was some of the best I have ever skied and after a 3-day wait for the lift to open there was 2 metres of virgin powder ready for fresh tracks.
Off-piste
Off-piste there were very few Argentineans. Most of those we saw did not seem to improve despite their willingness to ski from 8:45 in the morning until the last palmer closed at the base of the mountain at 6:00 in the evening, and as we looked out from our apartment window with a glass of beer in our hand we wondered how they could still be out there.
There are about 25 off-piste runs which you can drop into from the top of the Marte lift at 3,460 metres and with short hour-long hikes or longer touring there are many more runs available. The resort is high so the powder is very light, dry and cold which means that face shots the whole way down runs are common. Having said this if the wind is slightly above a gentle breeze or the snow too cold or there has been a popular DJ in town the night before, the Marte will not open, and when that happens 80% of the advanced ski area is without means of access. There are around 8 off-piste runs along the front face with a variety of couloirs to drop into and cliff drops and wind lips to keep the adventurous happy. Sometimes these descents don’t have much snow and you can end up walking over the rocks on skis to get to the powder so take wax! You won’t find it in the resort. The back face under the lifts has several good runs including two runs directly under the piste which take you straight to the lift and are well worth doing on a powder day to get down the bottom of the lift again. After that all along the south face to the right of the lift as you are riding it there are couloirs, some only 3-4 feet wide, others much wider, most of which should only be done straight after fresh powder.
From palmer lift
To the left of the palmer lift at the top of the mountain there is a piste but it is possible to keep right and hug the mountain and traverse around above the piste to get to some powder bowls on the other side. In this direction there are also some good 1-2 hour hikes and if you are prepared to hike for longer you can get to some even harder stuff. We did a 4-hour hike to a 4,500 metre peak which dropped into a 50 degree pitch before levelling out at around 39-40 degrees – and the driest fluffiest snow I have ever skied.
On a bad weather day there are two areas to ski on the lower mountain for off-piste. The first is Senador, just up to the left of the only 4-man chair on the mountain, is a good shortcut to the Marte lift when the weather begins to clear. The other much bigger area is Volcano situated furthest right on the mountain and you simply drop off the right hand side with the option of traversing to a powder bowl, winding through a set of mini valleys or dropping couloirs and skiing trees. This run can vary between 5 minutes and 20 depending how far out you go and thus how much you have to hike back. Snowboarders beware of the longish flat bit at the bottom. Other than this there is some off-piste to be enjoyed either side of the main pisted runs but no other runs which are anywhere near the level of the Marte runs. Heli-skiing
On one of these days we decided to sell various vital organs and go heli-skiing. This was an exhilarating experience. The mountains are just so big and varied that with a 10-minute heli ride you can be riding powder that has not been skied for months, just four mountains away from the resort. There are faces of 2,000metre elevation which are open and silent just waiting for you to ski them. This was an incredible experience but I would recommend that you do not book in advance because it’s much better to book in situ when you know snow conditions are favourable. The H20 heli-ski company is owned and run by free ride expert Dean Cummings and his team of American guides from Alaska, and they’re reliable. It costs about £250 per person for three heli-rides and ski descents so it’s not cheap but I fully recommend.
Après-ski
Once you’ve spent your day deep in powder the après-ski is as good as Europe but most of the time we were too tired to and too broke to go out. I recommend a minimum of three weeks in Las Lenas if you can spare the time and if you want to go ski touring on skins to explore the backcountry. If you’re skiing off piste then make sure you have transceiver, shovel and probe and bear in mind that you cannot easily buy or rent these in Las Lenas unless skiing with a guide who may lend it to you. As elsewhere a guide in Las Lenas is a good investment and costs around £125 a day, which is cheaper than Europe and North America, and individually inexpensive when the cost is shared between four.
