Farellones | |
---|---|
Location | Lo Barnechea, Chile |
Nearest major city | Santiago, Chile |
Coordinates | 33°21′3″S70°18′50″W / 33.35083°S 70.31389°W |
Top elevation | 3333m |
Base elevation | 2430m |
Skiable area | 13.3 km2 |
Trails | 22 |
Lift system | gondola lift chairlifts 5 ski lifts |
Website |
Farellones is a village and ski resort located 36 km from Santiago, Chile. It was founded during the 1930s, nestled in a small valley in the Andes mountains close to other ski areas such as Valle Nevado, La Parva, and El Colorado.
Located in the commune of Lo Barnechea, 36 km from Santiago at an altitude of 2,340 meters above sea level (7,874 feet), Farellones has a health centre, a school, and about 200 houses. The houses and cabins are made of wood, giving the village its characteristic look.
Skiers began visiting the Farellones area in the 1930s and in 1937, landowner Von Kiesling decided to sell the land off as plots to form a village. Not long after this, Antonio Padrós opened one of Farellones’ first hotels, the Posada de Farellones.
Farellones currently has only a few ski runs but its cable car system provides access to El Colorado, located only five kilometres up the hill of the same name. They are often considered as one joint ski area with a total of 62 runs including 11 for beginners, 6 for intermediates, 33 for advanced skiers, and 12 for experts. They have a maximum altitude of 3,333 meters above sea level, a vertical descent of 906 metres, and an average of 5 meters of snowfall in an average year. [1] They are popular with beginners and families. [2]
Skiing began in Farellones in the early 1930s, when ski gear came to Chile for the first time from Switzerland and Norway, consisting of wooden skis, leather boots coated in colourless grease to keep out the wet, with basic and dangerous bindings that remained fixed to the feet even during a fall.
The village grew up around the new sport and in 1937, the Hotel Posada de Farellones was constructed. Some years later the hotel received a royal visit from the English Duchess of Kent and served a formal luncheon. The first ski lift was built in the 1950s in La Gran Bajada (the great descent) in the area that would become later El Colorado, where the boldest skiers could leap over the roof of the Hotel Posada de Farellones at the end of the run. [3]
The developments continued up the mountain with La Parva [4] and finally Valle Nevado. [5]
Long time before the birth of Farellones village, the place was visited by arrieros (wranglers) with their livestock and adventurers searching for old Inca treasure, as it was common to find Pucarás (fortifications) and other remains of Inca settlements.
On February 1, 1954, the arrieros Luis Ríos Barrueto, Guillermo Chacón Carrasco,and Jaime Ríos Abarca found the Plomo Mummy (also known as the Boy of El Plomo or La Momia del Cerro El Plomo in Spanish) on Cerro El Plomo. The mummy is a well preserved Inca girl [6] and was the first discovery of a frozen, high-altitude human sacrifice made by the Incas. [7]
At one side of the road to Valle Nevado is the Casa de Piedra de Farellones (Farellones Stone House), a stone structure that is believed to have been built by the Aconcagua people (late neolithic). It is thought to have been used as a temporary refuge [8] in expeditions to gather the special kind of stone needed for making tools hunting Guanacos.
Corral Quemado, 28.75 km east of Santiago and 14.5 miles from Lo Barnechea, formed part of the Inca road system. It was the road from the copper mines, today known as "Disputada de las Condes", to the Mapocho River. The Inca road system was the spine of the Inca state, essential to administrate and control their vast territory.
The Spanish chronicles say that the Inca Road ran from the other side of the Andes, in Cuyo Province, Argentina, through Chilean valleys of Huechuraba and Colina and continued to the valley of what is now Santiago.
The Hotel Posada de Farellones is made from a mix of wood and stone in the Swiss style and was built in the late 1930s by Antonio Padrós. Its location allowed easy access to the three main ski resorts in Chile, which together form the biggest ski area of South America and the southern hemisphere: La Parva, El Colorado-Farellones and Valle Nevado.
There is only one road giving access to the village through the winding canyons of the Mapocho River, Molina River and Estero Yerba Loca river. From Corral Quemado onwards, the road has more than 40 hairpin turns and requires a vehicle equipped with snow chains in snowy conditions. The road only permits ascent between the hours of 8:30 and 13:30 and descent from 15:30 to 20:00 during peak ski season days.
A new road was scheduled to be built in 2014. [9] The road would run for 29 kilometers from Las Condes Avenue in Santiago, and would also see the construction of new real estate and a cable cart from Yerba Loca Nature Sanctuary to Farellones village.
Yerba Loca Nature Sanctuary (Spanish: "Santuario Natural Yerba Loca") is a protected area that extends from the top of La Paloma Hill (Spanish: "Cerro La Paloma") to the top of Cerro El Plomo, dividing the valleys of the Blanco River and Olivares River.
The area contains temperate coniferous forest, picnic and camping facilities, and the starting point for five trails, one of which ends at the hanging glaciers of Cerro La Paloma and Cerro El Altar.
On July 14, 2016, Matilda Rapaport, a Swedish professional extreme skier, was buried in an avalanche. She died on July 18, 2016, in a hospital in Santiago after suffering oxygen deprivation and brain damage. [10] [11]
The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is 8,900 km (5,530 mi) long, 200 to 700 km wide, and has an average height of about 4,000 m (13,123 ft). The Andes extend from north to south through seven South American countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.
Santiago, also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, which has a population of 7 million, representing 40% of Chile's total population. Most of the city is situated between 500–650 m (1,640–2,133 ft) above sea level.
The River Mapocho is a river in Chile. It flows from its source in the Andes mountains onto the west and divides Chile's capital Santiago in two.
Lo Barnechea is a commune located in the northeastern sector of the province of Santiago and its area corresponds to 48% of this province. Its urban boundaries are: to the north with Los Andes of the Valparaíso region, to the west with Colina, to the southwest with Vitacura and Huechuraba, to the south with Las Condes and to the east with San José de Maipo. It developed around the old rural town of Lo Barnechea. Its population is heterogeneous, as it is inhabited by high- and medium-high-income families in sectors such as La Dehesa, Los Trapenses and El Arrayán, and also by medium-low- and low-income families, mainly in the towns of Lo Barnechea, Población La Ermita and Cerro Dieciocho.
Santiago Province is one of the six provinces of the Santiago Metropolitan Region (RM) of central Chile. It encompasses the majority of the population of that region, including 31 of the 36 communities of Greater Santiago. The province spans 2,030.30 km (1,262 mi).
The protected areas of Chile are areas that have natural beauty or significant historical value protected by the government of Chile. These protected areas cover over 140,000 km2 (54,054 sq mi), which is 19% of the territory of Chile. The National System of Protected Wild Areas is regulated by law #18,362 passed in 1984, and administered by the National Forest Corporation (CONAF).
Valle Nevado is a ski resort located on the El Plomo foothills in the Andes Mountains, at 46 km to the east of Santiago, the capital of Chile. Founded in 1988 by French entrepreneurs, it includes housing facilities along with around 900 hectares of skiing area.
Cerro El Plomo is a mountain in the Andes near Santiago, Chile. With an elevation of 5,434 m (17,783 ft), it is the largest peak visible from Santiago on clear days. The adequate season to climb this mountain is between November and March. In spring, soil conditions have abundant snow on the approach. The best time is in January and March, where the approach is snow free, except for some specific areas, and the climate is more stable. The Incas climbed to its summit periodically in the 15th century. The first European ascent of the mountain was by Gustav Brandt and Rudolph Lucke in 1896.
The Atacama people, also called Atacameño, are an Indigenous people from the Atacama Desert and altiplano region in the north of Chile and Argentina and southern Bolivia, mainly the Antofagasta Region.
Marco Antonio Arriagada Quinchel is a Chilean professional racing cyclist. He is the brother of cyclist Marcelo Arriagada. He carried the flag for his native country at the opening ceremony of the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After a very successful opening to his 2011 season, which saw him take victories in Argentina, Chile and the Dominican Republic, Arriagada tested positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol during the Vuelta de Chile. He later received a four-year ban.
La Parva is a town and ski resort located about 50 km (31 mi) northeast of the Chilean capital of Santiago. It is in the middle ridge of the "3 Valleys" resorts that also includes El Colorado and Valle Nevado.
Since the mid-1990s, tourism in Chile has become one of the main sources of income for the country, especially in its most extreme areas. In 2005, this sector grew by 13.6%, generating more than US$500 million, equivalent to 1.33% of the national GDP.
The Plomo Mummy is the well preserved remains of an Incan child found on Cerro El Plomo near Santiago, Chile in 1954. It was discovered by Guillermo Chacón Carrasco, Jaime Ríos Abarca, and Luis Gerardo Ríos Barrueto. The mummy was brought to the attention of Grete Mostny at the Chilean National Museum of Natural History; she later proved instrumental in the museum's acquisition of the specimen. The Plomo Mummy was the first notable frozen mummy discovery of high-altitude Capacocha human sacrifice by the Incas, a practice called qhapaq hucha.
The Southern Andean steppe is a montane grasslands and shrublands ecoregion occurring along the border of Chile and Argentina in the high elevations of the southern Andes mountain range.
Apoquindo is the name of a river and pre-Columbian settlement located east of the city of Santiago de Chile, at the foot of the foothills, in the present town of Las Condes. This settlement later became known as the Pueblo de Indios in place names Apoquindo and transferred to an estate, the Mount Apoquindo, the Apoquindo Waterfall, the Apoquindo Avenue, to the district San Carlos de Apoquindo, the Apoquindo College and other geographical landmarks and urban community.
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Pueblo Nuevo is a quarter of the City of Temuco, Chile. It is located in the northeast of the city, and corresponds to a residential area, with fragments used as warehouses, workshops, and electrical and transportation infrastructure. Its population was established there in the 1950s, but only in 2000 it was officially defined by the Municipality of Temuco in its Plan de desarrollo comunal. Then, in 2010, in its Diagnóstico sistémico territorial, the Municipality of Temuco modified its limits, transferring part of the territory of the Downtown and Costanera del Cautín Macrosectors, in addition to Ñielol Hill southeastern slopes. A new Territorial Diagnosis returned, in 2014, its original borders, being its current bordering macrosectors Ñielol (west), Costanera del Cautín and Downtown,.
The first frozen high mountain Inca human sacrifice was found atop a peak in Chile in 1954.
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(help)33°21′3″S70°18′50″W / 33.35083°S 70.31389°W