CHILE: Schuss in the Andes

Along the sunny slopes of the world’s second highest mountain range,*lucky latinos with time & money were hard at work at winter sports. Chilean students and bank clerks by the hundreds dashed off in buses and open trucks for Sundays at Farellones, a village of ski-club huts within sight of Santiago. Argentines rode the ski tow to the top of Vermont-like foothills around the lake town of Bariloche. Luckiest of all were those who bucked the drifts to Portillo, 9,300 feet high and right in the ribs of the Andes.

This year for the first time all the rooms in the Government’s $540,000 Portillo Hotel were ready for skiers. Cost per person: $9 a day with meals. (Idaho’s Sun Valley Lodge costs $22 a day without meals.) Argentines and Americans, as well as Chileans, took the sun on Portillo’s terraces, drank pisco sours†and watched the condors circle high above the glacial Lake of the Incas. Almost everybody turned in at 10 so as to be bright and early for the morning’s fresh snow and perhaps a lesson from French ex-World Ski Champion Emile Allais.

Novices rode a ski tow to take their first headers on a broad, snow-padded slope within easy stretcher-bearing distance of the hotel. But Kanonen (experts), led by Skimaster Allais, climbed by ski to the Christ of the Andes for a Schuss of six glorious miles tc Portillo. Or they took a thundering trail three precipitous miles to Juncal where railway handcars pumped them back to Portillo.

This week Allais’ racers trained for the season’s first tournament at Portillo. They took the slopes the French way—keeping skis always close together, swinging weight to turn. Such teachings are heresy in the U.S., where Hannes Schneider’s Alberg school has ruled for years, and uncounted thousands have angled their skis in stem and snowplow turns. But to a man, the Portillo pupils raved about Allais. His theories, the Americans predicted, would soon sweep the U.S. Chile’s Government, eager to foster Andean sport and latch on to a few badly needed tourist dollars, hopes to sign Allais to a five-year contract that will keep him teaching his tricks at Portillo.

*Highest: the Himalaya.

† Made of lime, sugar and pisco (a white grape brandy); sometimes a bit of beaten egg white goes on top.