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The Steepest Terrain on Earth! Here the best ski instructors from around the globe hone their skills in the extreme skiing zone of Portillo, Chile!
Ski Teaching in South America: A Road Less Traveled
To the modern-day ski bum, ski teaching has always been a way to spend a few post-college years before going on to a professional career. Yet, with a few minor inconveniences, some contemporary ski teachers have found a way to make it a nine month career. The trick: crossing the equator and finding winter in the Southern hemisphere during the off-season. These two-season pros endure constant cold, cultural and lingual differences and an income that takes a scroogesque spending penchant to live from. But for the clients of these teachers, the experience and level of professionalism cannot be matched, and for the teachers themselves who choose this road--the path is full of seldom seen rewards and challenges. (From my own experience as a ski teacher, I have met some of the best people who teach skiing in the world).
Summer ski teaching is the validation of professional instruction. It means making a commitment to a "chuck it all" mind set. The desire to create a career in ski teaching means frequent inability to pay bills and long periods of unemployment. Yet, many skiers attempt the task, and for multi-lingual teachers, the southern hemisphere is the best choice. South America requires language skills in both Spanish and English, and in Portillo Ski Resort, in Chile, every year, 35 ski teachers from around the world gather for three months to practice their craft. In Portillo, friendships are forged and instruction is given to some of the most exclusive clients in the world. Portillo is known worldwide as a resort for a family atmosphere. Some guests return year after year booking the popular week long all-inclusive vacation.
The employee view of Portillo is ultimate fun--days are filled with skiing and the nights are filled with dancing and comrodery. Isolated, this 500 person cruise ship anchored in the heart of the Andes mountains gives an "only thing to do" aura which leaves the employees seeking entertainment.
For the ski teachers, working in Portillo is like being a guest--most amenities are accessible--the three bars are a favorite choice. The non-front line workers, mostly Chilean are limited to entertainment found elsewhere. One place, a cramped, smokey 20 by 20 foot room called the Inca bar is where many tip a few to relax. Here a wash basin filled with ice and beer along with the dank smell of yesterday's smoke and spilled alcohol fill the room, and on the wall, a few bottles of cheap rum and pisco sit on a crooked shelf. If you are lucky, you can have an employee take you on a tour and show you where this seedy little bar hides.
The ski teacher's job is to meet and entertain the guests, but the truth is that the teachers know the ins and outs of the hotel so well, that they often have even a better time than the guests. For example, every Sunday a welcome party is given in honor of the guests arrival. Pisco sours, a national drink resembling lime tequila in a five ounce shooter, are brought out for gratis to lighten the mood and start the bonding between the teachers and the guests. The unwritten rule for many of the younger and new teachers is to drink as many piscos in the 15 minute gratis period as possible--the record is rumored to be 10. Of course this is not to say that all teachers drink like this. Some teachers are solidly in relationships or have been in Portillo for so long that they know that drinking too much will only make the next day's skiing a less than perfect experience.
On a side note: In Chile, the wine is rumored to rival the vineyards of California. The wine is about three dollars a bottle and a bottle of Pisco is $7. An interesting point about the wine--it comes in a box or bottle. Milk is the same: buy it in a box and only after opening it does it have to be frigerated. Back to the socializing: of course many employees are more in touch with nature or serenity and simply commune with the beauty that is Portillo. If you want to drink and party, it's available in a big way, and inversely, if you want to just relax and enjoy a healthy and calming environment, it's also available in a world class way!
There are three choices for eating: the Restaurant Principal, the cafeteria or the Posada. The cafeteria is where the employees and guests, who opt for the budget package, take their meals. Here, the teachers are given a meal ticket to eat four times a day. The fare is either pork, chicken and some kind of meat (that many believe to be horse) along with either rice, pasta or potatoes finished with either a piece of fruit, jello or other budget dessert. The only rule: don't lose the meal card, the Chilean workers who punch the cards are meal nazis and often will not let a teacher eat without it--jealousy is rampant among the workers and any chance to usurp power over the privileged is prized. The consensus with the Chilean workers is that the ski teachers, who make four times the normal salary, are pretentious in their ways, and they believe it is unfair that they are restricted to only the catacombs of the hotel where they live in rooms of 12 people. The restaurant principal, a four star, is the only place to get a good meal. Here, the choice is one of two entrees which are usually of decent quality, yet it is probably what American's would call three star.
In the ski teacher apartment building, called Siberia, two people live in a 12 by 14 room sharing a bathroom with one other room. The building is located 100 yards from the hotel across the Pan American Highway that is the access route for bordering Argentina, Brazil and the major cites of Chile. Siberia is a place where the instructors can get away from the guests and just bond. There is always a room where in the evening six or seven people can crowd together drinking, smoking and telling stories of skiing or bragging about how some beautiful guest showed affections in one way or another.
Most male ski teacher are in agreement, the women who visit Portillo are the best looking in the world with their dark hair, trim figures and close attention to beauty. In Argentina, beauty is a high priority. It's rumored that most Argentine women have had some sort of cosmetic surgery in their lives, or it may just be that they are the product of natural selection. They are unbelievably gorgeous.
On the Highway next to Siberia is an authentic South American bar called the Posada. Here, Latin music, cigarette smoke and sticky floors can be found. Although the practice isn't done today, it is said that in the first years of its operation, prostitution used to be one of its charms, and furthermore, in the once a week ski race at Portillo, the prize was a night with one of the girls. Today, it is a place where employees and guests sometimes escape the fish bowl closeness of the hotel. When the national ski teams come to train in Portillo for the summer, they often can be found having dinner in the Posada. The house specialty is the Loma Pobre, a steak with two eggs and French fries (for seven dollars it's very good). Teachers find the proximity to the bunkhouse a plus and on any given night a few teachers will be passing the time with piscolas (coca cola and pisco).
The instructors work load in Portillo is a six day week with two group lessons of one and a half hours each. After that, the teacher can fill up the day with private lessons which pays 50% of the ticket price. All told, the ski teacher is expected to work three hours a day, and after that, all the time can be filled with skiing--and the skiing in Portillo is phenomenal. The steep pitches of the Andes are steep and prone to avalanches, but after they are opened, any expert skier will appreciate the 1200 foot vertical double blacks off the unique Roca Jack Poma. It is a five person Poma that runs like a tram with one Poma going up while the other comes down. Moreover, its rigging of rope and tackle makes one think that quite possibly it was one of the first methods by which skiers ascended the mountains after the horse and buggy days. It is a surface lift that accesses forty degree terrain. Guests find the skiing sometimes easier than riding the 20 mile per hour Poma. Three traditional chairlifts and five Pomas round out the lifts of Portillo.
The resort is positioned in a valley where a small two mile lake looks up at the steep mountains that spill avalanches into the water. On a calm day the mountains reflect in the water and it's hard to tell that the reflection is not the actual view of the cliffs. On each side of the resort is the skiing terrain. The plateau chair accesses a large snow field with steep chutes directly under the chair, and it ends in a flat high-altitude plateau. Here, Tio Bobs, a small mid-mountain type restaurant, is open for lunch--the view from here is spectacular. On each side the mountains rise straight up. Often, snow waterfalls can be seen spilling for hours. Inside the restaurant, a roaring fireplace and well stocked B-B-Q offer guests and instructors the best place to have a fast lunch. From the top of the Plateau, the border between Argentina and Chile can be viewed. Here, next to the border crossing, a ghostly figure of the first hotel stands as a reminder of the power of the avalanche. In 1972, 30 people were living in the hotel while working on the resort when a massive avalanche crossed the road during the night and snuffed their lives. Portillo is now a place where avalanches are closely watched and the danger is minimal. The owner, Henry Purcell, always shows the signs of consternation during big storms as his mind is obviously occupied with the safety of his guests. A fulltime avalanche professional is employed, and together with the ski patrol, danger areas are closely monitored. On a final note, and a testament to the areas superiority and attraction to the expert--Warren Miller and the national ski teams of the world don't come to Portillo to train because it's flat.