Earlier this year, I decided to plan a ski trip to Argentina to take a break from the hot US summer. I arrived in mid July which is the beginning of mid season. This review is from the perspective of someone who has skied various resorts both the east and west coasts of the US, and major resorts in Canada. Chapelco resides about a 30 minute drive from San Martin, which is a quaint little ski town, filled with nice bars, restaurants, and assortment of ski shops, typical of other ski towns you find in US. The food and drink prices were very reasonable. The people were very nice.

My first impression of Chapelco was the horrible road leading in the last 5 km of the resort, the road was unimproved and pot hole laden making the driving treacherous at times if you didn't watch the road carefully. The parking situation is totally inadequate, if you do not arrive early, the parting lot is filled and you have to part down the road side, I saw people hiking close to a KM to walk back to the resort.

The parking lot, like the entry road was unimproved, filled with mud, ice and large potholes in the ground, I was very disappointed that they don't spend money to fix this situation. It gives people a bad first impression. I saw a woman slip and fall in the mud on the way into the ski area and they were totally covered with wet mud, I couldn't imaging trying to ski that way for the day, I am sure it ruined her day.

Regarding the mountain, I thought the layout of the mountain was fine, there was a good distribution of slopes for all ski levels, the initial ride up the hill was a 6 person Gondola that let you to other transfer points to ski the mountain. One huge issue I had with the lifts was there was no organization, they didn't have lines to safely and efficiently move people through the lines to the lifts, it was one mass congregation of skiers jockeying against each other, often times cutting in front of others, and gliding over over peoples skis. A few times I almost got in a fight with people in line because of this. Why wont management fix this?

On the days I was there we received no new snow, the mountain was poorly groomed, the snow was hard packed and at times impossible to ski on some slopes. You'd think they'd groom the slopes to make it more enjoyable, but they don't.
I'd probably have a differing opinion if there was fresh powder, but the way to judge a resort is by how they maintain the slopes in otherwise less than ideal weather conditions. In this case I give this resort an "F". Too much ice and too much hard packed snow. If you are from the US, save your money, and go to Europe or Canadian Rockies (Banff) if you want to try fine international skiing. Fights are cheaper and move convenient, and hotels are roughly the same price. It's difficult to get here and its not really worth the trip, other than to cross it off a bucket list.
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We visited on a sunny day with fresh snow, and it seemed that everyone had the same idea to visit Chapelco. There was a lot of traffic heading out of San Martin and there were even police at the turn-off to aid with traffic congestion.

The day started out with lots of lift queues. The old egg gondola from the dark ages had queues and only 3 to 4 people could get in the 6-person cabins because the attendants weren’t loading people’s equipment. The queues to the detachable quad were the worst and there was minimal infrastructure or processes to encourage people to merge or to group people into 4s (oh right we’re in Argentina). There was a singles queue but it just took the 4th gate which was a bizarre and inefficient way to have a singles lane. The culture of using elbows and just pushing in isn’t something we’re particularly used to, and the behaviour was often feral and not conducive to a relaxing day in the mountains. It detracted a little from the stunning beauty of the place.

We decided to head to the backcountry (there was also a queue for the Filo poma). The backcountry was magnificent and the snow on the shady aspects absolutely sublime, whilst the frontside was more sun-impacted but the terrain amazing. This made our day.

We had a late lunch at a slopeside food truck and chilled to the music whilst relaxing in deck chairs, taking in the views.

We decided to do a few more in-bounds runs, but the lack of lift line etiquette took away our chilled vibe. When a guy started to walk his skis over the top of my skis and I blocked the ground with my stock to prevent him from finishing the job, I got abused by him and his rant included a “clearly you’re not a local here”. Well if that’s the unwelcoming attitude of the locals, we’re happy to leave the lift lines to you. Thankfully we met some really friendly locals in the backcountry earlier that day.

We’re hopeful that we just struck Chapelco on a particularly busy day due to the amazing weather and that just a small portion of the locals were feeling over-zealous to get freshies.

You can see how we rate Chapelco on a range of categories on our Argentina ski resort ratings.
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Beautiful
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A really nice place for skiing and snowboarding, amazing for kids- it's a beginner-intermediate resort. Very fine views of the Lake Lacar and the volcan Lanin. It's 18km from San Martin de los Andes - a good town to stay.

The employes at chapelco are very helpfull and the lift are ok for a small resort.

The food in town is excellent and they have good wine to share. Near Chapelco you find Las Pendientes a mini resort with 1 lift and cabins to stay.

Pros: the people, the views, riding in the trees, the food, the amazing ski and snowboard teachers.

Cons: the snow - it's not the best.
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Chapelco would be fine as a destination resort for families, beginners and intermediates. We wouldn’t recommend Chapelco as a destination resort in itself for advanced riders, but rather as an adjunct to a ski holiday that includes other Patagonia ski resorts.

We visited in a supposed quiet season (when that darned volcano misbehaved) yet it was still really busy. A few of the intermediate slopes were covered in lots of dudes and lift queues were sometimes a problem. At least Chapelco isn’t as busy as Catedral!

Pros of Chapelco: great family resort; fast quad lift; well developed facilities; and good terrain for beginners and intermediates. The delightful ski town of San Martin is also a huge plus for Chapelco.

Advanced and expert riders have various nooks and crannies to explore but they might find the in-bounds terrain a bit tame in comparison to other Argentina ski resorts. The tree skiing is not steep enough, particularly considering that the powder tends to be heavy. It was impossible to get through the trees even with fat skis. The snow quality in general doesn’t seem to be a strong point of Chapelco.

If the alpine terrain is closed, it really limits the challenging terrain on offer, but you may not know the status of the lifts before you head up the hill. When we reviewed Chapelco, their website hadn’t been updated for a month!

For more detailed ratings of Cerro Chapelco and to see how it compares to other ski resorts in South America, see our powderhounds resort ratings.
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Chapelco is a medium size ski resort but an excellent place for children, the runs goes between the woods getting great views.
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