Amanda and I took a hike up Cajon del Azul to reach Refugio Cajon Azul. We started off from El Bolson and took a taxi to the start of the trail. We went down and past a few farms before really getting into Cajon del Azul. The river was really clear and full of trout, and it was a great hike all the way up to the top. It’s hard to capture in photos but the water was perfectly clear at least 40 feet down in some places, and there were some custom made ladders and stairs near the top. Once arriving we realized we didn’t actually have time to stop in for maté so we turned around and booked it back down to the bottom to meet our ride back to town.

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Santuario el Cañi and Huerquehue in Pucon, Chile

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We mountaineered to the top. We snowboarded down.

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Well, it turns out there was another Tahoe snowboarding to be had after all. Keeping with the weather that we have been getting in all season, it decided to snow over 2 feet throughout the week, and Javier sent me a text, and the trip was on.

The intention was to arrive pretty early, with Javier joining from Sacramento, but for some reason my alarm clock just didn’t go off (I did confirm that it was still on and set to the proper time), so I ended up leaving at 8:30 instead of 6:30, which totally sucked. By the time I got there and started hiking, Javier had already done a lap on Yellow Chair, but I managed to make pretty decent time. There weren’t too many people there, and of those most seemed to be on sleds, but fresh lines were everywhere

We decided to go up the bunny slope past Yellow Chair, then loop around underneath Keyhole and up to the summit through Alpine Bowl. It was definitely slower going for me on the snowshoes than it was for Javier with skins (I dropped off the split a week before assuming winter was over), and I forgot the trekking poles in the car, but who am I to complain? It wasn’t warm, but a tshirt was all that was needed on the way up, but the breeze necessitated a jacket on the way down. I hiked all the way to the peak to jump off the cornice, but the first attempt was really weak as I lost all my speed on the flat section. A little frustrated, I decided to do it again, and this time I really tried to bomb it and hit the cornice earlier to preserve as much speed as possible. It was a lot better, but…. would have been nice to be able to get more distance. The snow was actually pretty awesome, and even though we only ended up doing one run, I was glad I made the trip, despite the late start.

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