Wintersports Rediscovered
Llaima ski area in Chile’s Conguillio National Park was evacuated last week as the Llaima Volcano on which the ski area is located spewed out lava flows up to two kilometers long above the ski runs and lifts.
Continue reading ‘Flowing lava disrupts season start at Chillean ski resort’
Chile’s ski areas are hoping to that a record 800,000 visitors by the time the season ends in October and according to reports from the Santiago Times they are off to a good start with around a metre of snow (40 inches) on the slopes.
Termas de Chillán, the most southerly of the country’s major areas, along with Valle Nevado, one of the closest to capital Santiago, both opened last weekend.
Termas de Chillan has several new lifts and new mountain restaurants this winter as part of an investment program aiming to boost skier numbers to an average of 4,000 a day. The resort’s main 400-bed Gran hotel was fully booked for opening weekend.
The picture is currently less inspiring for Australia and New Zealand. Australian resorts opened on time but have been struggling with limited snow to open runs, although there have been recent accumulations of the natural stuff and temperatures low enough to top up with snow making. More snow is forecast for the end of the week. In New Zealand good snowfall at the start of the season has been lost in some cases due to unseasonably warm weather, also too warm for snow making, and several areas have postponed opening. But it’s a mixed picture with Mounts Hutt and Ruapehu opening and reporting good early season conditions, the latter saying their opening is the earliest for 15 years.
Dave Wilson, Mt Hutt Ski Area Manager said the ski area has had a great run up to the start of the season.
Early snowfalls and ideal temperatures for snowmaking means we now have a 50cm snow base which is very good cover for this early in the season,”
he said.
Great news coming from South America. Awesome ski conditions are kickstarting the ski season in Chile by a week with Portillo’s officially cranking up the ski lifts on June 14.
Portillo combines old-world elegance, breathtaking scenery and epic skiing, all in an intimate resort that accommodates only 450 guests a week, offering an exclusive and hassle-free winter vacation.
New this season are weeks when one or two children (depending on the week) ski, eat and stay free. There are also girlfriends weeks when four women ski and stay for the price of three.
www.skiportillo.com.
Ski Portillo in Chile is to offer its first invigorating skiing and restorative yoga week this August.
Professional skiers Kate Olson and Kiffor Berg together with renowned yoga instructor Simon Park will combine their passion and expertise in both skiing and yoga to host this week-long retreat at Ski Portillo.
Over the course of the week, participants will learn new techniques to improve their skiing in the big mountain style terrain with expert coaches, video analysis, and back country awareness. Every morning and evening will begin and end with yoga classes designed to improve the on-mountain experience and cultivate greater body strength and awareness.
The Ski and Yoga Retreat runs from August 23rd to 30th and costs US$2000 per person including three hours of yoga daily and six hours of ski training. A retreat package that also includes seven nights’ accommodation, four meals daily and a seven day lift ticket costs US$4190 per person.
www.skiyoga.com
With the end of March, SportsRebel Media Ventures (SMV) Ltd. is happy to announce that it broke an all time record for monthly unique visitors with a whopping 666.78 % to SkiRebel Magazine in March 2008 to the same period a year earlier. This staggering growth was led with incredible traffic increases of more than 2000 % on March 28th alone.
Continue reading ‘666.78% more visitors come to SkiRebel Magazine in March’
From this summer, skiers can experience the snow at Ski Portillo, Chile then sun and sand at the new Tierra Atacama Adventure Spa in Northern Chile.
Continue reading ‘A New Winter is Upon Us: Portillo Offers Ski and Sun Holidays’
Since the relaunch of the popular skirebel.com portal in February 2007, SkiRebel Magazine has managed to attract more than 22,658 unique visitors with some 67,000 page impressions.
Since migrating the PDF only online ski magazine to a more user friendly online format, magazine management is ecstatic with the initial results. So far 2008, SportsRebel Media Ventures (SMV) Ltd., the main shareholder of the online property is forecasting tripling online visits. So far the first week forecast is blowing that forecast out of the water.
Continue reading ‘SkiRebel Magazine Celebrates 1st Year…’