The Holy Grail of Skiing...

Is on the back bowls of Valle Nevado in Chile at 3670 meters high (12,000 feet) in the Valley of the Incas. There you will find three pomas, vertical drops of 1600+, virgin dry snow and NO ONE. While I rode the poma for an unGodly 10 minute yank up the hill, opal clouds hovered around the sun and the wind blew. When I got to the top, I kicked over the edge into the softest, most heavenly steep making my own tracks and racing as fast as I could to cover the massive mounds of snow without so much as a rock, tree or anything to stop me. Arriving at the bottom, I found a few Chilean snowboarders who summoned me to go ahead onto the poma, but all I could do was stick out my tongue from my panting to let them know I needed a few seconds to recover from all-out barrel down the hill. I went up again and found another run, a bit gentler with even better snow.....4 inches of perfectly dry champagne powder and couldn't contain my joy, whooping at the top of my lungs all the way down. I found another poma, this time, another perfect hill called Cascade with no one in sight. I skied 10 runs up and down those valleys until I couldn't stand up anymore and finally headed to midchalet on the populated front of the mountain. I met a ski patroller from New York, Elk Mountain, who was having as much fun as I was. Great to meet someone with as much passion for ski adventures; he came by his lone self all the way here.

I"m sorry to sound like the valley girl I am, but OH MY GOD.