The bad news: North American ski season has ended. The good news: in its place, South America’s rough-and-tumble ski scene reemerges... plusher than ever before. Of course, you require proof, along with a game plan with a bunch of new options for 2012. So here goes.
Stunning Andean powder runs with a hard après bent. That’s the MO of this place. And the driving force behind its new mountainside gastropub. You’ll swill Argentine microbrews from an outdoor deck, so come prepared with ski/beer goggles.
There’s a gritty, Spartan quality to skiing Chile. Or at least there used to be, until the country’s first gondola opens for business this season. Meaning now you’ll ride comfortably up Valle Nevado with a mid-mountain stopover at a restaurant along the way. You do your finest brunching above the Andes.
There’s still plenty of uncharted territory at Valle Olimpico. To correct that: Los Pioneros, a surface lift giving you access to 12 new trails and a veritable supply of fresh off-piste opportunities on the mountain’s eastern side. You’ve done all you can on the western side at this point, really.
You’re at the edge of the world, just a few hundred miles from Antarctica. So naturally, you’ll want to take in the view—from the solarium of this new mountain chalet of a restaurant overlooking the white mountains of Ushuaia. Some of which you’ll be able to ski from...
But for the rest of it, you’ll need a helicopter. This new heli-ski operation has the lot of it covered, granting rare ski access to remote parts of Tierra del Fuego (the Land of Fire), commonly known as a South American Alaska, minus the grizzly menace.
