Portillo

Portillo is Chile‘s original resort and important in world skiing, hosting numerous international events including the 1966 World Championships. People began skiing from the Argentina-Chile railway line in 1890. Virtually all of the resort’s accommodation and activities concentrated in the huge hotel complex. Today there’s one employee for every guest resulting in high service standards. The resort offers easy and intermediate groomed slopes plus some of the toughest skiing in the southern hemisphere, with heliskiing an option, giving views of the Western Hemisphere’s highest mountain – Aconcagua.

Like so many great resorts, Portillo has its good snow days and its bad snow days, but looking at the southern hemisphere, Chile does seem to get more good powder snow than the other major ski nations although I’m sure that fans of Argentinian and Kiwi ski areas would argue with that.

The average annual snowfall at Portillo ski resort is 7.4 metres (about 25 feet) and snow storms are typically short and sharp bringing big volumes of snow very quickly.