I hopped out of the bus at the end of the line before Chile, and looked around in awe of where they'd just dropped me. A small relic of a town sat behind me and vast snowy plateaus stretched as far as I could see in front of me, perched above a horseshoe lake in the foreground. While I stood dazed in the parking lot wondering how to meet my friends, the other skier I met on the bus offered me a lift to the nearby refugio/hostel. The 'other skier' on the bus was non-other-than World Freeski Champion Manu Gaidet, so I figured I'd come to the right place. Turned out we were both staying in the same refugio, and my 3 week ski trip in Argentina had begun...

Jump back a few weeks to summer in Canada, where mixed reports of the 'winter-that-never-was' were streaming in from South America. There had been some good storms, but the whole continent was too warm for many resorts to keep a good base for very long. That's why my plans to meet Mark Lasseter in Argentina remained in limbo until I hopped on a plane to Nequen where I hoped I might find a bus to my destination - Caviahue Ski Resort. Word on the street was that Caviahue had scored more snow than everyone else, so we made it our first stop on the tour.

On our first day skiing I started to wonder what all the 'no-snow' threats were about. Mark Lasseter, Vince Boleama, Rachel and I scored bluebird skies, and skied fresh powder pretty much all day long. After some mellow pow turns in the morning, it was time to sample Caviahue's real goods. The resort itself is small with easy terrain, but it backs right against the 2965m Volcan Copahue, where some sweet skiing awaits.

There's no lifts to the top but for about $35 CAD you can get a guided cat ride to the top, where a patroller will lead you to the mouth of the crater for a killer view of the emerald green crater lake. It's a pretty bizarre sight for the top of a ski resort, and with the planned expansion there will be chairlifts taking you there in minutes.

After shredding some wind-buffed powder from the crater, we left the ski boundary and traversed a high ridge on a mission to find a rumored hot spring. When we hit the spot, it was like scene from a creepy WWII movie. The ruins of an old two-story brick building backed right against a bubbling, murky pond about 100 feet in diameter, pumping out almost enough sulfur steam to mask the whole building. Ignoring the Spanish danger signs, we stripped into boxers and tempted fate in the boiling cauldron, which sucked us in for a lengthy bath.

When we finally mustered the courage to get changed in the freezing cold, it was almost dark and we had to get our lazy butts back to town. We skied down through a surreal forest of loosely spaced monkey-puzzle trees, before skinning back out the same eerie forest by moonlight back to the car. Not bad for 1 day at an obscure little ski resort in Argentina.

On day two the snowgods gave us a taste of the warm winter everyone had warned about: it started raining to the top. But with nothing else to do, we Mark, Vince and I threw on the skins and climbed the 'Pyramid' on the other side of town. In howling winds and a mix of slush and rain, we dropped into the couloir we'd been eyeing from town, and made the best of a couple thousand feet of slush carving back to town.

So after bagging abandoned hotsprings, a volcanic crater, cat skiing, moonlight monkey-tree hiking, and rainy backcountry couloir skiing in just 2 days at Caviahue, our curiosity turned to what else we might find in this unpredictable country. So we hopped in a car and pointed it to Bariloche.

DETAILS

For more information on Caviahue, visit http://www.caviahue.com/. It's all in Spanish, but hey, you have to start practicing sometime.

The resort is open roughly from early June to the end of September or early October, with the best powder months in July-August. We found powder on a terrible snow year for South America, but apparently the snow in town is often enough to bury the gas station.

For cheap accommodation check out El Refugio de Caniche at http://www.cajongrande.com/caviahue/. It's a mellow place run by super friendly guys who know the area well. There's also plenty of small hotels in the town if you'd prefer something nicer.