The snow grinds at Cathedral Hill
Spring light is illuminating Argentina’s oldest ski resort Cerro Catedral (‘Cathedral Hill’) in San Carlos de Bariloche, Patagonia. Days are long, skies blue, and the snow is holding after an almighty storm on the 1st September covered the hill in three metres of snow.
Powder prayers answered at last after the resort had the worst start to a season for ten years. Thanks to these late, great conditions the snow lifestyle that visitors and locals long for is finally in full swing and the resort is alive with activity.
Each day at the road side scores of skiers line up to hitch a ride to the mountain, eager to ascend one of 29 chair lifts and experience the surrounding views that belong in ones wildest imagination. The view is of curving blue lakes that lap against the Andes in dramatic contrast to the snow capped mountain range that tower above them.
The resort appears to be situated on a mountainous island reaching up 2072m, and a spire shaped rock ‘Conodor’, seems to reach right into heaven.
Such a dreamlike setting has produced outstanding skiers and snowboarders who have clearly inherited the element of magic found in their home environment. Local professional skiers Mauricio Cambilla, Jose Gutierrez Arana and snowboarder Santiago Gamen’s abilities can only be described as super natural.
They casually performed epic front flips and 720 spins off huge kickers after the long awaited opening of the resorts terrain park last weekend. Josh Lempart of ‘Snow Grinds’ master minded the terrain park, the completion of this project was the last piece in the muddled jigsaw puzzle of Cerro Cathedrals 2008 season.
The picture is now perfect and the atmosphere festive. The terrain park filled with snowboarders and skiers, inspired by music blasting from their MP3 players, flying over the park’s epic jumps. Cerros Catedral’s skiing community have gathered to watch and enjoy the show. Mauricio Cambilla regularly delights onlookers as he spins through the air and grabs his skis to create the apt icon for the occasion – a cross.
Such scenes are far from those of two months ago when Cerro Cathedral was plagued by rain and hidden in grey clouds, now blown away to reveal underneath them a resort which is out of this world, dazzling in spring sunshine and welcoming all lucky enough to adventure into an Argentine snow nirvana.
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