One of the coolest places we visited in South America last summer was the Cajon del Maipo. The Maipo is a a high valley near Santiago, in the Andes, that holds some incredible skiing. However, it is more well known for summer recreation, and has tons of great hiking and rock climbing. We met Santiago resident Casey Earle while we were down there, and he gave us some great beta about the area. He recently sent some photos from summer hiking in the area. Pretty cool to see the comparison between summer and winter in the area. Check it out:
Cerro Arenas, with the monster couloirs, still holds some snow! Skiable?
Here’s a photo I took from a similar view during September.
Hanging out with Volcan San Jose in the background. That thing is over 5856 m (19200 ft)!
One of my photos from a similar viewpoint.
The area has some cool geological formations. We checked out the nearby hot springs on our trip, but lots of stuff was of course covered by snow. Here are some dinosaur tracks.
Some more interesting rock formations.
Hopefully I’ll be back again someday to see it in winter again. Thanks for the photos Casey!
Read more about our South America skiing travels.
Louie Dawson earned his Bachelor Degree in Industrial Design from Western Washington University in 2014. When he’s not skiing Mount Baker or somewhere equally as snowy, he’s thinking about new products to make ski mountaineering more fun and safe.
