Hut Trip
As soon as I posted I was headed to Bariloche, everyone told me I had to go the Frey Hut. After looking at a few pictures of the place, i knew I had to make it there. After skiing the resort a couple days, my sponsors marketing guy, Matt McDonald happened to be flying down to ski too. I met up with him and the first day we skied the resort and I asked if he wanted to go on the hut trip with me. He was in.
The next day, along with a girl we met at the hostel, Jess Silverman, caught the bus up to the resort to where the 4 hour hike to the hut starts.
We made it to the base of the resort and it had been pouring down rain all morning. We decided to wait it out for awhile in a cafe hoping for it to break. Two hours later it was still raining, so we decided to go anyway. We bought some plastic bags from the store and made waterproof covers for ourselves and packs and headed up the trail.
I was pretty happy to be on snow, skinning rather than carrying our skis and boots. It was only another hour to the hut!
We started up the muddy trail in the rain. It was about 6 miles to the hut through mud and puddles. It actually wasn’t too bad because the temps kept it cool. After three hours of dirt and jungle looking bushes we made it to the rest hut where we went inside to dry off and transition to skinning.
The Frey Hut
We finally made it! We were completely soaked, but our bags stayed dry and we were met in the hut by Santiago, who had hot tea ready for us. We settled in and waited patiently for dinner.
The next morning we set out under blue sky to find some fun skiing. Santiago said he would show us a couple good spots.
I got this shot of Matt skinning up above the hut, about halfway up our intended run, it was looking good!
We made it up to the top and the snow was looking awesome!
The snow was a little tough to ski after being blasted from the wind the night before, but it sure felt good to get some powder turns in. We made it to the bottom and headed up for another.
Matt and I headed back up to ski one more couloir and found some nice soft snow at the top, and re-frozen wet slide debris at the bottom.
After a great day, another hot meal and a really small bathroom door, we made plans for the next day. Our plan was to ski one more couloir and then skin back to the resort so we didn’t have to hike down the muddy trail.
Santiago told us that the couloir went, so we booted up and around the back of it to drop in from the top. Although we could see down it and weren’t 100% sure it went through.
It was a beautiful sunrise and another bluebird day. We were both excited to go and try to ski the Y Couloir. We packed up and headed out.
This little guy waited for use to leave so he could search for any crumbs left behind.
We made it to the top of the couloir and it looked pretty good! I skied down first to see if it went, but I could see the snow shooting down the couloir and off a cliff. I couldn’t tell how big it was though. I slowly skied down to the air and it was manageable so Matt came down too.
Matt and I both made it through and got some decent turns in too!
Matt McDonald
The Couloir we skied!
We ate some lunch, grabbed the rest of our gear from the hut and started our skin back to Cerro Catedral resort.
Matt and I made it back to town and went out for my last dinner. We went to the best steakhouse in Bariloche. For About $30 each we had steak, potatoes and a bottle of wine
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