Bariloche is in the Lake District in Argentina. It is technically just north of Patagonia
but the name Patagonia brings more evocative images for tourism so it is placed in Patagonia! Despite summer being peak tourist time, winter is still a fairly busy time of year here due to the ski areas that neighbour the town. We arrived by bus from Orsorno our nemesis town in Chile. Life was sweet we had finally left Orsorno for good and arrived at the chocolate capital of S. America. We stayed at the Travellers Guesthouse a new, unimaginatively named and fairly random hostel. I like staying at new hostels because lets face it if you don’t get great hospitality then why did they bother opening a hostel! The town certainly has a certain charm to it, but it is quite well hidden among the tourist tour operators and the huge number of low quality tacky chocolate shops. The setting is spectacular the views across the lake are similar to Queenstown in NZ but probably even more spectacular. You have to climb or get a lift up one of the view points along the lake edge to get the full view panoramic experience, the panorama was apparently one of National Geographic’s top 10 views in the world. In town we met up with some old friends who were wintering in Bariloche, over the last few years we seem to be following each other to the best snow spots around the world. After some drinks we headed out for all you can eat pizza, the down side was only one topping was allowed, so quarter can be olive, quarter ham, quarter cheese, quarter onion, but they can’t mix them for you. This bizarre rule applied to quite a few subsequent Argentine pizza places we visited. Luckily there was great local Patagonian beer to wash it down with. The Germans certainly left their mark here! Another odd occurrence in the town was the student spring break groups. There were loads of student groups out on the town, they come for skiing but seem intent on just partying, the odd aspect is they all wore matching jackets. When I say all I mean everyone. The town felt a bit like it was overrun with gangs who felt they had to wear matching outdated ski jackets. A particular favourite gang uniform was the jackets with brown with yellow and orange specks over them, we called them the vomit gang and they looked sick, literally.
After riding in resort we spent a day skinning up the pistes headed for Refugio Frey. Frey is behind the ski area, a long run down a valley then up the other side. We were too tight on money to buy a lift pass for the one trip up to the top of the resort, after three hours sweating in full view of the chairlifts this felt a bit stupid. But as we approached the pinnacles on the ridge we did feel a great sense of achievement. The picture below is us approaching the pinnacles on the first ridge from the resort.
So after a few nights in the hut we had drunk our cheap and disgusting Argentine Fernet, ate Edgar the hut warden’s great pizzas, avoided stomach issues from the dodgey out house and water buckets and best of all had had the perfect weather to explore the area! The hut has its own hydro electric plant and treats its waste so it really is a sustainable spot to enjoy a few days of self propelled snowboarding, we wont forget the area in a hurry and hopefully we will be back to ski some more of the stunning couloirs.The way out took longer than expected you can either skin up to the resort for a run down the piste or ski the footpath until you have to walk out. We took the footpath, it was a long walk with skis on back, it was through stunning forest but we were ready to collapse 3.5 hours later in the resort car park! The bus then whisked us back to town for a well deserved chocolate followed by a hot shower!