Sessions: Chile MegaPost 1

Well I got to finally do some good summer snowboarding this summer. Unlike my usual routine of spending almost everyday in hot weather on a fire line digging all day. Lucky for me I was able to get a little bit of both and cut fire season off a little early and come down here to Chile. Myself (Kyle Miller) and Shane Stalling got down here about 10 days ago and have pretty much loved every minute of it. I flew down here by myself which went pretty well for not speaking much Spanish at all, very shortly after I got down here I met up with Shane and a few other buddies he had came with. We were able to get a pretty good deal on a rental car and headed up to a small town in the mountains called Farellones. The road from Santiago to Farellones is crazy, the gnarliest switchbacks, insane drivers and lots of stray dogs to dodge. Our first day at Valle Navado was insane. We drove up the day before in pretty heavy fog and couldn’t see much at all. The next morning we woke up to blue skies, completely surrounded in snow covered peaks and about 10 inches of fresh at Valle. I was speechless to say the least. We spent our first week in Farellones riding Valle Navado with breaks of near by lines and jumps. I have not done any real international travel so just being in another country like this is a lot of fun. I take pictures constantly. The food here is pretty tasty, it’s not a lot different than food in the states but you’ll find some pretty wild stuff here and there. The first trip to the grocery store was pretty eventful for me. The wine is very cheap in Chile so that has been our primary beverage, that and Emergen-C. We caught some bad weather for a bit after our arrival that brought down a bunch of rain in the lower parts of the mountains. There was so much water running down the mountains a pretty massive landslide let loose. A few houses were hit by it and the report said two people were killed. It took them a few days to get the road all cleared off. Boulders the size of cars were moved from this slide. It was crazy to see the aftermath. We just arrived in a small town outside of Chillan called Las Trancas after spending a few days running around Santiago. Santiago is fun place. I was really stoked on the street venders, bought some neat stuff. Stumbled upon a zoo while skating around the streets, also pretty jazzed about that. We spent our first day up here hiking around the resort of Navado de Chillan doing some little gaps and mini shred features. The mountain has a not so pleasant scent due to the hot springs, but the boarding is good. I think I hear it raining outside now, hope it’s snowing up higher. More Chile boarding adventures coming soon.