The Hawaiian Backstroke

Well, we made to Portillo.

In keeping with the Olympic spirit, we`ve got a great new competition. The Hawaiian backstroke. Tim dropped it on us today in the pool. It is awesome. You float on your back with your toes constantly out of the water. Using a modified breast stroke, you propel yourself forward, feet first. Tim took the gold, Paul got the silver, and I got the bronze. Paul and I both almost drowned. It is an extremely difficult stroke as it induces serious laughter.

The ride up was almost as exciting as our first year here, without the snow. Our driver had a little K2 in him as he was Hellbent on getting us to the Hotel Portillo as fast as possible. We were going 3 wide around the corners, with semis coming down the hill in the other direction. If you haven`t been on the road, it`s only 2 lanes wide. The fun starts right off the bat in Chile.

We got a few turns in yesterday, right after Tim found his forgotten helmet, then hit the tub. The new lift, the Caracara, just downhill of the Roca Jack makes for no lines. Today was pretty good. It hasn`t snowed since last week, so we had to do a bit of traversing. We headed down the ridge to the chutes leading into the bottom of the Super C. They were pretty powdery. Lot o laps through there. Some new snow would be nice. The are calling for snow showers tonight into tomorrow. We could use it, as the lake has not froze over. That takes away a lot of really good terrain. If it doesn`t snow, we may have to go for a big hike. We have seen about 8 very large condors flying. Locals say that means snow.

We`ll just have to wait and C.