Victor de le Rue

Relentless Energy snowboarder Victor De Le Rue has been a busy man this year - read all about it in his blog for us

I've had a great summer paragliding, learning to surf, partying and working up a tan - but I was really pining to get back on the slopes, so a group of us headed across the equator to rediscover South America’s glorious winter.

As usual, the trip was pretty last minute: we booked our tickets on 19 August and jumped on a plane the next day. We planned to go riding in Chile, but on joining our Argentinian filmer Tincho Campi, we changed our route, heading for his own town of Bariloche. Hours of flying and waiting in airports and a hefty 20-hour bus ride proved quite a mission, but as we had time to kill, we bought a bottle of Baileys and shared stories of our summer with photographer Remi "Pute" Petit until we finally arrived. This was our third visit to the area and it felt great to be back.

"The terrain was totally different this winter"

Teaming up with friends from all over

We met up with Spaniards Iker Fernandez and Kike Carcelen and rented a car, taking to the road together for two weeks in search of fresh powder. As we'd been here for two different seasons, we knew a few of the resorts and Cerro Bayo’s sick gap was in the forefront of our minds. You can usually find fresh snow on the south faces, even a couple of days after the snowfall here. Unfortunately the terrain was totally different this winter, as the wind had blown in a different direction and the active volcano Puyehue had been spraying ash all over, so the snow became too compact.

Always look on the bright side

Not to be defeated, we decided to move six hours north to Caviahue. It's a wild place with just a few inhabitants, a lot of half-constructed buildings and these beautiful wild trees that you only find in the Southern Hemisphere. Three days of storms provided a lot of snow, but riding in the resort in these weather conditions was absolutely not possible, so we took to riding street features instead.

"The impact was so violent that I landed on my back a couple of metres away"

Unfortunately I ploughed my knees straight into a metal bar at full speed; the impact was so violent that I landed on my back a couple of metres away. As a sportsman, getting injured is terrible – you feel so depressed, like nothing matters anymore, so as far as I was concerned, the trip was over. Three rest days later, though, and I was back on board with only one big bruise. I was so stoked!

After the storm

A blue bird finally came one morning and it felt so great that we ended up arriving before the lift was even open. The snowstorm had left the new snow super-packed, but we found a sweet small spot and enjoyed our first kicker of the season. A detour on our way back home revealed a valley with a great fresh snow pocket, home to huge cornices and a beautiful waterfall that was pretty magical. We explored this more the next morning, forming a man chain to break the lip of these massive edges, and confident we’d made it far safer, I enjoyed an epic late session on my own in the dying evening light.

Where there’s a will there’s always a way

Our second urban adventure came after discovering a sweet wall ride down in town while getting the groceries. We indulged in a two-hour session after dinner and again the next morning with Kike until the police kicked us off – apparently it is forbidden to be pulled by a car in the village. Too bad we didn’t get time to stomp the tricks we had in mind.

By this point, our Spanish friends had to return home, so we saw them off in style with an asado, the local barbeque, with Fernet Coca, a mix of the local spirit with cola. And on to the next chapter in our road trip. In light of a change in forecast, we scrapped a 20-hour drive in order to stay at Tincho’s, close to the best snow.

Tincho’s parents were awesome and let us live with them for an entire month. They have this incredible place in the resort La Laguna, where a 15-minute hike offers access to a virgin bowl. I found this perfect feature, a downhill, flat-top, granite block, which I prepared for the next morning. Riding sketchy new features is awesome, especially if you’re not certain if it will actually work out. Luckily, we got a productive session in on the two spots the following day, making all the hard work worthwhile.

"Riding sketchy new features is awesome, especially if you’re not certain if it will actually work out"

Counting blessings

Our final days loomed and as always, we checked the forecast, which reported a massive snowfall in the coming days, so we expected our two spots to be sick! We had no choice but to delay our flights in anticipation of an awesome session, but when we got there we found these lines lurking on top of the mountains, which meant it had been raining. We couldn't believe it – even the lifts were closed! The local filmer had proposed driving to see the spots with binoculars and we were gutted to find that the whole face was down from a pretty big avalanche. It was a huge frustration, but seeing sense I realised that I was pretty lucky it had slid by itself and I wasn’t under metres of snow somewhere; a poignant reminder of nature’s power and unpredictability.

Eventually we made it home. What an incredible trip. I can’t wait to go back, live each day according to the forecast and tear up another adventure.