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TexT: Blair HaBenicHtPHOTOS: Scott Sullivan

In Search of ChileA Crash Course in Successful Failure

chile is tall and skinny, much like sammy leubke. chile’s economy is on the rise, much like sammy leubke’s snowboarding. chile is raw, much like sammy leubke’s style. no wonder these two made such a beautiful photo. they have so much in common.

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innovative and technical, Manuel is ripely poised to break out of his role as chile’s number-one rider and onto snowboarding’s world stage, as evidenced by standout parts in chilean and northwest videos. Manuel spends a few months every northern Hemi winter in Washington, and podium finishes in almost any contest he enters.

i spent months dialing in snowmobiles, places to stay in the high-priced andes pueblos on a dog-style budget, lift tickets, all based around a timeframe most likely to yield good conditions. By the time my gringo cohorts (photographer Scott Sullivan and ripper/classic-rock enthusiast Sammy luebke) arrived in Santiago, the conditions were wind-bent and scoured across the whole range.

already beachside to avoid the ice cap, with no snow in the forecast and Scott’s snowboard bag failing to arrive, i rallied Scott and Manuel’s spirits for thumping overhead point surf. We met on the coast northeast of concepción, an area heavily rocked by the February 27, 2010 earthquake and following tsunami. after two days of pisco and grit relays from breakfast to blackout, while Scott, Manuel, and i got shacked, Sammy was over his beach buzz, “…came on a snowboard trip man, wanna ride some pow,” mumbled in between pulls. everyone anticipating the main objective of our travels, we headed for el colorado ski resort.

every summer, the chilean andes are infiltrated by gringos, teams of gringos, trips set to fulfill the promotional needs of north american companies who primarily market in the northern Hemisphere. local riders are usually overlooked by the traveling lenses of international photographers and movie productions, largely due to the small surface presence of talent on the level of their northern equivalents. chile is raw, recently charging its way out of lingering repression and a divided financial landscape to become one of the most stable developing countries in the world. With a growing middle class the mountains are accessible to more chileans than ever before. i had come to South america with the intention to pay homage to a building and progressive underground shred culture; the first crew of chileans to push snowboarding as a way of life. at the head of this charge is the anomaly that is Manuel Diaz.

the three amigos.

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It’s a Baglost in translation, the airlines sent Scott’s bag to

chillán, fi ve hours south. i had hope the bag also contained Scott’s stoke to snowboard, which he bluntly communicated was also lost in transcontinental descent. Manuel had been anticipating the delivery so we could jet to a snowmobile zone he couldn’t stop talking about: cajón del Maipo, which was rumored to have received a sneak overnight reset. the added delay snaps his patience for our clusterfuck, and i understood.

“it’s like i have a chili in my asshole, man.” Manuel pauses, “You know, i’m indecisivo, you know? What’s that word?” He searches his living room for translation.

“indecisive,” offers Manuel’s brother, chopo, chile’s number-one ranked freeskier.

“Yeah man, like a chili in my asshole. indecisive.”Manuel took off for cajón del Maipo the next morning

before any of us woke up. Seems he couldn’t shake the family tradition to escape, even if only burdened with tolerating the politics of a snowboard crew with the intention to showcase his riding to a broader audience.

Manuel Scott suited in borrowed yellow plaid pants and rental

boots, we scope the options and make a road run with Manuel that yields a few sensations of powder under a punchy multi-layered crust. Sick terrain, but the snow is just not there. regardless, Manuel points out what would have been good if we had arrived three weeks ago.

Manuel’s father took to skis and mountaineering in his youth, inspired by stories Manuel’s grandfather and great uncle told about escaping a fascist italy by climbing through the alps. the home that Manuel’s father built in Farellones, the village below the base of el colorado, echoes mountain escapism; an out from the repressive politics and instability that marked chile through the seventies and eighties. it also allowed him the time necessary to stage out many fi rst descents through the shark-laden chutes and panels off the sidelines of el colorado, a zone where Manuel and his brother continue to pioneer new stylings.

The home that Manuel’s father built in Farellones, the village below the base of El Colorado, echoes mountain escapism

diaz de manuel es chile la mayorÍa de los ropa de playa renombrados y es puesto a estallar en norteamÉrica. lo Único tiene contra Él siempre se queJa de un chili en su extremo. got that? manuel diaz does.

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chile leads latin american nations in human development, competitiveness, quality of life, political stability, income per capita, globalization, and economic freedom. it also ranks high regionally in freedom of the press and democratic development. not as high as snowboarder press associate blair habenicht’s method, though.

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While Manuel was scoring, Sammy and i rode as many ice groomers at el colorado as we could to kill time waiting for the bag; zero for me, three for Sammy. all the while hearing the helicopter of a Gringo Super-Shred film crew, no doubt above the crust layer and ripping into wind-filled powder pockets. When no heli bump is coming your way, the sound of the blades just pisses you off. Scott finally in his own black pants and boots, we pulled it together for a sunset session. the colors over the valley which suffocates Santiago gave the most romantic reaction to severe air pollution i have ever witnessed.

Cajón del MaipoHints of a warming trend, i sense that if we do not get

out to cajón del Maipo within twenty-four hours, we may not have any photographic evidence that Manuel ever even existed in this story; that we were in chile to be anything more than gringos on the summer gringo circuit, there for alpaca hats and pisco hangovers. We set in motion a plan to get to the zone with the help of nico Saric and ariel cifuentes, owners of chile’s only core snowboard shop, Beta.

nico Saric and cristian Wehrhahn were the first

snowboarders to import mountain-grade snowmobiles into chile with the intentions of exploring the andes backcountry. Soon after, their amigos Spiro razis, Juan Pablo audisio, Manuel, among a short list of others, followed suit. an isolated group of friends exploring the complete unknown of the andes—terrain never previously ridden, never snowmobiled, never seen.

tripling on nico’s sled with Sammy, Scott doubling with a chilean filmer, we spy Manuel and his crew in the flats leading into cajón del Maipo, rocky peaks slicing into the thin air. the extra snowmobiles i had organized to rent from cristian had been sidelined and were no longer available, so i switch over to audisio’s sled and we double in a train to higher elevations. Manuel and his crew go to work popping off anything natural they can find, attuned to their terrain with modern and collected style. the zone is huge, three valleys we ride into show no tracks but theirs from the day before, and no other tracks will be laid, because no one else in chile has snowmobiles and the mindset to go so far outside the boundries. Yet.

on the way back from cajón with nico that night, tired, yet relieved that we had bagged at least one day with Manuel, it becomes very apparent to me that with warming temps and no snow in the forecast for the central zone of el colorado or cajón del Maipo, we need to get out of town before Scott goes wandering Santiago for wine bars and art shows. Before Sammy goes skateboarding, and i go back to the beach. it’s not in our budget, but we need a stoker. We need a fucking truck.

The StokerBoxed in by traffic and a red light, Scott’s unsolicited

fucking with and simultaneous filming of the deterioration of my patience collapses the last mindful space that lived between us, from the steering wheel i hone to his opposing back seat. all that makes sense is to rip the camera out of his hand and slam it through his face. Subdued by my safety belt and Scott’s thrashing boots, horns release all around and i lend an eye to the traffic

Terrain never previously ridden, never snowmobiled, never seen

like sammy needs another drug rug...

sammy and blair express their “true artist.”

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light, kicked back into the drivers seat. there is no where to go but forward on a street no one is familiar with, including our GPS, who has an affi nity for leading us to the wrong end of one-way passages in a lost district of Santiago, on the search for a surfboard that Scott would ultimately break.

On the CircuitWe headed southbound with crossed fi ngers that a

predicted storm calling for minimal precipitation would turn into a dump. ariel had given our crew the key to his family home in las trancas (the town closest to ski resort nevados de chillán) for a week, allowing us for the fi rst time to let our bags fall to the ground with no thought of repacking. Washington lurker Forrest Burki, who i had traveled to chile with the previous summer, was already at ariel’s house, wood stove cranking. throw in another gringo.

Manuel had planned to meet us in las trancas, but would be a day behind. He wanted to tow his snowmobile. Maybe two snowmobiles. i suspected the chili in his ass was raging when he didn’t show after

three days.nevados de chillán has the most varied terrain of any

resort in chile, boasting trees on the lower mountain and an upper alpine zone fi lled with playful steep pitches and windlips. only four or so inches to work with, but the best resort conditions thus far on our trip. Sammy, one of the more versatile snowboarders in the profession, unzipped his bag with some of the smoothest front threes i have witnessed.

the bar at nevados de chillán Hotel plays a rotation of twenty-second clips of the eighties’ top hits, followed by the same formula to represent the nineties. able to ride to the back door, it served as the spot to slide back a few pisco sours and avoid traffi c on the road back to las trancas. there we ran into the Gringo Super-Shreds, Scott procuring an invite for all of us to eat and drink wine on their tab. unfortunately, a heli bump was not on the buffet table.

Sammy decided to have a go at the casino next to the bar, convinced he would be able to cover his portion of the rental truck with a few good hands. three hours later, his jacket under one table, his sweatshirt under another,

“Like a rat-hamster?” I ponder, unsure of the creature.“Yeah man, you’ll see it. It’s craazzzy!”

it’s probably chilly in chile when you’re not wearing a shirt. sammy doesn’t care.

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the blackjack dealer and pit boss thankfully had no translation of the venom Sammy spat when i came to pull him away. When you’re twenty-one and living loose, you can lose a lot of money.

Hungover and reasonably pissed off, resources on the mountain exhausted (unless you have a heli posted in a vacant las trancas field), Sammy had no problem jumping in the truck and heading to the coast again to resume day drinking.

The Rat-Hamsterafter three days on the beach, Scott had creased two

surfboards, and i snapped in half a board borrowed from the owner of the cabana we rented. Surfboards–the same as snowboards–are expensive and somewhat limited in chile. Feeling shitty, i offered the cabana owner, cuye, a new lib tech i had back in las trancas.

cuye’s name is actually cristóbal. i met at least seven cristobals, all of whom know each other, so they each have their own specialized moniker. cuye is one of the dirtiest dudes you will ever meet, his nickname a representation of his lifestyle, bestowed on him by his friends.

“it’s like a mix between a rat, and like, you know, something similar, with ears,”

cuye tried to explain.“like a rat-hamster?” i ponder, unsure of the creature.“Yeah man, you’ll see it. it’s craazzzy!”cuye is a master of disguise. However obvious it is (by

the beachside lot he owns and its assembly of cabanas) that cuye must be somewhat loaded, the holes in the soles of his moon boots, ripping nylon rain pants, and cackling ludicrous laugh make you feel that he must just be a struggling caretaker, or maybe a squatter. He kept asking me if i wanted to sell my shoes, knowing they were a size too small for him and that i only had one pair...

Failing to start his truck with the requisite screwdriver and pliers, cuye came with us back to las trancas. the plan had been to give him my spare board and shred a day or two, but like a true rat-hamster, cuye burrowed into our plan and started dropping little pieces of shit everywhere.

Sighting burnout, Scott took a bus back to Santiago. a grand master of his trade, it was unfortunate to see him exit, but if Scott was leaving early we knew we’d landed a few good ones. Photographer down, we took a stab and drove further south to explore Pucón in the araucania region, where tons of snow was reported, although the locals warned that resorts were inconsistent at best due to storms that last until the spring in September.

in the car, i picked up on cuye’s habit of cracking a beer for breakfast then switching over to whiskey at 3pm. and you know, a drunk rat-hamster is even more fucking messy, spilling beer all over the rental truck, pounding chips and peanuts into the floor panel and chocolate candy into the seat.

no trees in the ski area, the lifts never opened due to

northwest nomad forrest burki. this trick is awesome. and switch.

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a snowstorm moving up the coast. instead, we soaked in pisco sours and hot springs, outfi tted ourselves in souvenirs; alpaca hats and ponchos. at least we had cuye to keep it real…wasted.

Clusterfuck Yeah!chileans in general do not drive effi ciently in the snow,

regardless of four-wheel drive and unwarranted chain usage. the typical scenario is to come around a blind corner and almost smash into a car, with chains, four people watching as the driver spins deeper into the rut they have created. no one pushing, no one looking for oncoming traffi c. More likely the passengers and driver abandon the vehicle on the blind corner and start constructing snowballs. lift lines are minimal for hours in the morning, especially if there is any new snow, as most everyone wakes up at 10am and then gets stuck on the road.

the storm from the south made its way over nevados de chillán. two days before our departure, it was nuking. Sammy and i spotted Manuel and his crew after a morning in the lower trees, top chair closed by the heavy snowfall. they had all towed down their sleds in anticipation for the next day, forecasted blue. However indecisive he is about riding shitty snow to get a photo, if the snow is deep, Manuel is on it. that, to me, is leading chile’s snowboard culture down a path of truth and longevity.

Full sun and two feet of fresh, Sammy and i pillaged the resort while the majority of people were stuck on the

road until noon. Finally, a clusterfuck we could be stoked on! From nine until fi ve it was an almost constant white room, left only to straighten out and blast off a windlip or cornice. So many good moments were stored in the mind-cam that when the Gringo Super heli fl apped over an adjoining ridge off the right side of nevados, i held no anxiety over what they’d gotten into. We watched dog-tired as they made their way back inbounds and into the parking lot. turned out to be their only run of the day.

Mi Casa es su Casanico—from airport pick-up to drop-off, thank you

for everything; i thought your new dining-room table really tied the room together. ariel—without you, so many things would not have been possible; muchas gracias to you and your family. rodrigo vega, Sol, and everyone else at el colorado—the hospitality was much appreciated, and we are stoked on your work trying to make snowboarding more accessible to the people. ruben and robby at roca negra lodge—that was the best dinner i had in chile. Gato cosmico—just for having a cool name, you are in. Poroto—thanks for the ride. Gonzalo navarrete at nevados de chillán—gracias for the lift tickets. cristian, audisio, and Spiro—thank you for the doubles. cuye—i’ll remember another pair of shoes next time. Manuel—keep that fi re in your ass for the good powder. to all in the chilean snowboard community that helped us along the way, muchas gracias, amigos. Manuel owes you a beer. ■

looks like blair’s back binding got hung up in customs.

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