SAMAYA x PIERRE HOURTICQ
STEEP SLOPE SKIING IN PATAGONIA
Pierre Hourticq and Julián Cazanova, seasoned guides and skiers, accompanied by professional snowboarder Camille Armand and videographer and director Yannick Boissenot, spent the month of September 2023 traveling the length of Patagonia in search of the best steep slopes. For Samaya, they look back on their adventure.
Pierre Hourticq: We left for the whole month of September until the beginning of October for Patagonia, spending part of our time at Julián’s place. We are both guides with the Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix and he is from there originally. We’ve been skiing together for a long time and the idea of a steep slope skiing mission in that area had been on our minds for a good while.
There were 3 of us skiing, Julián and me, accompanied by Camille Armand, a Freeride World Tour snowboarder. Yannick Boissenot followed us throughout the expedition to capture all our footage and make a film. We were a very small team, which allowed us to be super mobile.
We first arrived in Buenos Aires, which we immediately left to head to the village where Julián grew up, in the far north of Argentina. From San Martín de los Andes, we began a long 2,000-kilometer road trip in a 4x4, covering kilometers and kilometers of asphalt on those long, monotonous roads until we reached El Chaltén.
Throughout the journey, we had set ourselves stops and goals in remote areas between Chile and Argentina for skiing. We made stops in pristine places that have remained very wild. Some areas had almost never been reached by civilization, or at least not on skis.
Julián Cazanova: We had to face some ups and downs; not everything always went as we had hoped. The weather conditions were mild, but the amounts of snow were impressive! Usually, at this time of year, we don’t find that much. It was quite extraordinary. The first trip we took welcomed us with a lot of snow. Surely a bit too much!
Halfway through our road trip toward El Chaltén, we went to a very remote mountain, a bit lost in the middle of nowhere. It was a place I had spotted a long time ago. Upon arriving, we realized right away that there was an enormous amount of snow. That held us back a lot. It was at the very beginning of the trip; we had already spent two days getting there in a 4x4, then we had to take a boat, and then do a day of hiking: we were very isolated. Down there, if you have a problem, there is no helicopter to come and get you.
Pierre Hourticq : After that difficult start, we let the snowpack settle and our luck turned around. From then on, we only had superb experiences. I am thinking in particular of an extraordinary descent in an area Julián had scouted near El Chaltén. Since 2003, Julián has spent time in this place that he knows by heart and where he practices mountaineering, even though the area is only documented in a few climbing guides. He had always imagined skiing there.
Julián Cazanova : The access was very long. We had to hike 30 kilometers on flat ground just to reach the foot of the Aiguille Dumbo. We were hiking without really knowing what would happen next. We were full of doubts. It was a west face, exposed to the wind. We were climbing without even seeing the mountain, until the very end! We finally started the ascent, and our excitement grew along with it: we knew it was going to be magnificent to descend. We finally reached the summit, covered in rime ice mushrooms. You don’t imagine putting your skis on up here! Yet we put our skis on and started the descent, leaving us with unforgettable images and thrills.
We continued on our way, happy to realize that a fairly significant weather window was opening up. It was actually quite unusual. That window allowed us to complete 10 descents over the whole trip, including 4 outings in El Chaltén and several first descents of beautiful lines.
Pierre Hourticq : In El Chaltén, our organization was always more or less the same: for an outing, we would leave for at least 2 days, the time to complete the approach, bivouac in the snowy woods, reach our objective, and return. To maximize our chances of success, we combined our objectives and always tried to find 2 feasible options. That’s how it is when you go to Patagonia; you have to be very open and have several plans, because if you focus your attention on a single goal that ends up being undoable due to bad weather, you end up having done nothing.
We were very lucky with the snow conditions. Usually, the snow is not of excellent quality, and is frequently wind-blown and hard. This year, we found a lot of powder.
Julián Cazanova : When the weather window closed, we wondered whether we should stay in El Chaltén to wait for the next one. In the end, we headed back north to explore my region on the Chilean side and ski those beautiful mountains and volcanoes.
Spring was gradually arriving, the snow conditions were transforming, but the terrain remained safe, which was the essential thing for us.
Pierre Hourticq : We skied on all types of skiable terrain in Patagonia: more accessible areas that were less technically difficult, small couloirs in resorts, and very alpine, technical faces like the ones we find here in the Alps. It was great to be able to try a bit of everything in a new environment.
An important dimension of our trip was meeting the locals and Julián’s friends. We shared a lot of time together, especially in the north, where we were able to meet mountain herdsmen who never cross paths with tourists and who were very surprised by our arrival and our idea of going skiing on the slopes of their beautiful mountains.
Those are the moments that make this expedition all the more memorable.
