It’s clear the majority of beginner skiers in El Chaltén aren’t taking on the region’s most intimidating lines. They embrace the process. Surging local interest has led to very affordable beginner and intermediate multiday courses, taught by the next generation of local guides, centered around and urge him to keep the Red Desert wild for future generations.
a new community-funded, sustainable, minimal-impact Refugio constructed below Cerro Creston (the first of its kind built for ski-specific use in southern Patagonia). Perhaps more than anything, it’s this egalitarian focus on fostering the next generation of skiers regardless of skill, age or economic background that continues to grow the community against the odds.
“In Argentina, skiing is a sport of the elite—it’s expensive,” said Laura Iriarte, an English teacher at the local high school. She explained that it would cost more than a month of her salary to take the family skiing with lessons for just two days at the resorts near Bariloche. Her predicament echoes an exclusionary story that reverberates far beyond the Southern Hemisphere. “But that’s not the case here in Chaltén. Anyone can ski. I’ll get old equipment, then I’ll let you borrow it so you can learn. It’s the only place like that in Argentina. Ski touring is free.”
Iriarte grew up outside Argentina’s metropolitan capitol, the daughter of a carpenter and a teacher. Skiing, however, has been a product of Iriarte’s past dozen years in El Chaltén’s backcountry. She’s not alone in that endeavor—Iriarte estimates that more than half the local ski community learned in Chaltén’s backcountry, one hard-earned lap at a time.
“It’s harder [to learn], but it’s happening,” said Santi Guzman. “And if these guys are learning how to ski here at 30 years old, there’s going to be a next generation when their children get skins and stuff—it’s going to evolve and get better, for sure.”
Guzman owns Fresco, a local bar renowned among alpinists in the austral summer. Long after the disappearance of high-season crowds, a distinctly local clientele filters into the small, warm bar, the small ski community’s customary aprés destination. It’s an eclectic group of individuals—kids wait on housemade pizzas, a skier excitedly shows a climber a photo of an ice formation seen from the road, several guides converse about family with a local in paint-stained canvas coveralls. My limited Spanish still picks up a variety of dialects. “Nobody is from here,” the bartender once told me. “Everyone is an immigrant.” He’s not hyperbolising. El Chaltén is Argentina’s youngest town, officially established in 1985. In many ways, it’s still in its adolescence. The population continues to swell rapidly as newcomers seek tourism-fueled economic opportunity, but the municipality is geographically constrained, set between the national park and two braided rivers that border private land. The public-private land distinction prevents El Chaltén’s sprawl as it tries to accommodate increased tourism traffic and a surging local population—an issue that pits maintaining El Chaltén’s rural charm against increased infrastructural needs. The same questions are heating up in insulated mountain towns across the American West.
Aprés ski in El Chaltén: Fresco bar owner Santi Guzman and friends enjoy the slow pace of winter in the village with an early-afternoon IPA. When the days are this short, happy hour shifts up a few hours, accordingly. Argentina. Photo: Matthew Tufts.