Every summer since 1961, skiers and riders from around the globe have found their way to the heavenly Chilean destination Ski Portillo. I would describe this ski area as the ultimate ski festival for enthusiasts from every walk of life. Every afternoon there is teatime where you can find yourself standing next to Mikaela Shiffrin, the best ski racer on the planet, on one side of you, and Big Mountain Legend Chris Davenport on the other side. Across the room could be sitting an Austrian Downhill Champion hanging out with an actress from Brazil. In between, there are kids running around playing as a melody of foreign languages rings out in laughter and delight of ski adventures and tall tales…
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In one of the closing shots of my segment in “Born to Ski”, Kevin and I ski the open powder slopes above the train tracks and leave 75 powder eight turns before jumping the train trestle over the tracks. It was the longest recorded shot in the history of a Warren Miller Film at the time. And if you look closely, you can see another set of tracks next to ours. That set of tracks was made by two skiers who late at night overheard our filming plans for the next day and poached our line before we could organize our camera crew the next morning. Later that day those two skiers stole our thunder at the bar bragging about how they beat the “Warren Miller guys to the best run of the day.” But Ski Portillo is a close-knit crew, so all we could do was buy them a round of drinks and party side by side with the other hotel guests, enjoying the epic lines we all got to ski that day. This is what memories are made of and this is what Ski Portillo brings to life every summer…
Read the whole blog post in the Alps & Meters Journal Article
