Valle Nevado ski resort in Chile is just outside Santiago

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It is a quick 45 minute dash out of Santiago (48km), one minute you are driving through the suburbs and the next you commence the climb, straight up into the Andes to 3,500 meters where you arrive at the base of Valle Nevado ski resort. Actually the drive up is anything but straight, with 58 hairpin turns that grind you up to the base elevation and a maximum gradient of 14.7% on some of the corners. I was hanging on to the seat as our coach driver managed to navigate oncoming traffic and cyclists up the 30kms of switchbacks. The views are amazing as you climb out of the desert valley past cactus and donkeys, above the tree line and ultimately to the snowline.

Valle Nevado loosely translates as snowy valley, which is a good name because this resort gets an average of 7 metres of snow each season, it is also the home of blue bird days because this region boasts 80% sunny days.

Valle Nevado – The elevation at the top of the mountain towering above the resort is 5,400m or 17,815 ft.

The resort was actually built by a french consortium in 1988 and has a group of hotels and restaurants at the base of its 900 hectares of ski terrain and Valle Nevado is not the only mountain in the area with a direct boundary with two other resorts El Colorado (1100 hectares, 18 lifts) and La Parva (400 hectares, 14 lifts) while these are each on seperate tickets are easy to ski across to for a day of variety and back again in the evening and lift ticket prices are very reasonable.

A firm favourite of ski racing teams practicing in during the southern hemisphere winter there is plenty of steep and fast groomed terrain accessible by a variety of lifts including a gondola, 5 quad chairs, 6 surface lifts (Poma/T-bars). The highest lifted point is Tres Puntes accessed by a steep and long Poma Platter at 3,670 meters and the longest run is a leg burner at over 4kms.

There are six restaurants each with a different cuisine to provide options for all tastes and budgets and during the day you will often find a delicsious open brisket BBQ underway.

After the skiing the bars and parties kick on, while the apres ski might be considered mild compared to say Austria, there are cocktail lounge and pub styled bars to keep the drinks flowing and the views as the sun sets over the Andes are quite simply stunning. Try a pisco sour, a fine chilean wine or if you are brave the locals will encourage you to try a Terremoto cocktail (a mix of Pipeño a fermented white wine, Fernet Branca, and Pineapple Sorbet) Terremoto means earthquake in Spanish and this drink will definitely shake you.