The secret to being prepared for ski season – and earning ultimate bragging rights
It’s a form of pre-season training, I suppose. A crafty way to warm up in advance of the European winter and bag a ski trip before your mates have even got their boots out of the loft. As the British summer exhaled its last watery breaths, I headed south in search of snow; far south, in fact, all the way to the Andes.
After a 14-hour flight to Chile’s capital city, Santiago, and a 90-minute drive up a snaking mountain road, I eventually arrived at one of South America’s largest ski resorts: Valle Nevado, or “snowy valley” in English. And it really was surprisingly snowy, given this was late September, the end of the Andean winter.
Travelling halfway across the world might seem extreme to many British skiers, for whom the Alps are ample. But as I’ve grown older, and my joints have lost their elasticity, I’ve realised the value of proper preparation before the northern hemisphere ski season starts. I’ve seen too many middle-aged men injure themselves after heading to the Alps in December without a thought for physical or technical preparation. My creaking knees hurt just thinking about it.
But is it worth the expense of flying all the way to South America during our summer to take advantage of their winter? Flights from Britain to Santiago require an entire day of travel and often a stopover in Spain or the United States, with prices in excess of £1,000. Cheaper and closer, it’s possible to snatch a couple of days on the higher Alpine glaciers, at Tignes, Les Deux Alpes, Zermatt or Hintertux, for example.
Global warming, however, is making European glacier skiing less feasible, and this summer saw all glaciers struggle to remain open during record temperatures. Even on the highest ice fields in favourable conditions, in summer you’d be lucky to get more than a few hours of decent snow, and then only in the early morning. For the full winter sports experience, you need to fly to the southern hemisphere.
Valle Nevado is a small, 1980s purpose-built village of high-rise buildings on a flat mountain top, 3,025m above sea level. With no trees at this altitude, it was apparent just how elevated I was. The Andes comprise the highest mountain range outside of Asia. Standing to the north of Valle Nevado is the 5,430m peak of Cerro El Plomo, a mountain used aeons ago by the Incas as a ceremonial site. Beyond this, to the east, is the border with Argentina.
By Alpine standards, the facilities at Valle Nevado are limited, but were more than adequate for my purpose; 42km of pistes across 2,400 acres of skiable terrain, served by 14 chairlifts and one gondola. Most pistes are short reds or blacks, but a handful of long, flowing runs lead down to the lower levels. Lift passes are offered free as part of accommodation packages, and there’s also heliskiing available for the more adventurous visitor.
At times, those slopes were deserted, as by late September most Santiaguinos had pushed winter from their minds. I glided across each run without worrying about other skiers, and I slid straight onto every lift I chose without waiting more than a few seconds. With so few skiers and snowboarders, I was able to concentrate on my technique, preparing myself for the European ski season waiting for me once I had returned home.
Aiding my mission for pre-season perfection further was a small device on the back of my boots – the trailblazing invention of British wearable technology company Carv. Carv 2 is an ingenious system that wirelessly links a motion sensor clipped to each ski boot to a mobile phone app and headphones. Using gyroscopes, accelerometers and artificial intelligence, it analyses the angle and movements of your skis, as well as the snow type, before offering verbal coaching advice as you descend the pistes. The whole system was developed by British duo Jamie Grant and Pruthvikar Reddy, with the help of professional ski coaches.
Detecting the angle of my skis and the tilt of my body, Carv 2 awarded me points as I made turns down the hill – what it called my “ski IQ”. A voice in my headphones encouraged me to carve out my turns more aggressively by lifting my edges, keeping my skis parallel, and leaning my upper body away from the turn. I found it strangely addictive as my ski IQ slowly nudged upward as the week progressed.
Attempting to sharpen my technique, I was in good company in Valle Nevado. Many of the other piste-users were professional ski teams. I saw plenty of junior USA skiers practising slalom on the steeper slopes in their skin-tight race suits. Elsewhere, members of an Austrian adult team were training with Teutonic earnestness. Like me, they were all benefiting from pre-season training. Unlike me, they were executing perfect technique as they sped down the hill.
I bumped into several fellow long-distance travellers who had migrated for the week. Aside from the northern hemisphere teams, there was a young American couple from Georgia who had come on their honeymoon, an Australian family who had flown 12 hours from Sydney across the Pacific, and plenty of Brazilians.
After four days of perfect weather and near-empty slopes, I had warmed up my ski legs and had improved my turn technique, thanks in no small part to the coaching advice from my Carv 2 device. I was ready to embark on the upcoming European ski season with renewed confidence and muscles already flushed of excess lactic acid.
Once home, the only bad news was the jet lag. On the plus side, though, I could now boast that I’d carved out fresh tracks a good two months before just about any other British skier – a bragging right worth the long journey.
Essentials
British Airways, Iberia and Latam offer flights from London to Santiago, starting from £900. A week at Hotel Tres Puntas in Valle Nevado (vallenevado.com) costs from $2,814, including lift pass, booked direct. Carv 2 is part of an annual Carv membership, currently £159 per year (getcarv.com).
