“40 years ago I flew down to Argentina in my summer for downhill training in the Andes. I was then racing on the World Cup circuit and so having 4 weeks on snow in summer was really useful training.
I fell in love with Bariloche and returned the next year again. Sadly this was the last time I made to South America and then, when skiing in Iceland, I bumped into a friend of our guide, John Falkiner. We shared a few beers waiting for our airplane to fly home and John explained that his friend, Jorge, was a guide down in Argentina and that helped in Bariloche.
Immediately I got his details as I sensed this could be my ticket to return to the one place in the world that I really wanted to go back to. Fortunately the opportunity arose sooner than I ever expected as a couple of friends and I headed down last November for a trip that Jorge could arrange for us to grab some ski touring so late on in the Andes season. It was a magical 8 day trip and the Andes and Bariloche lived up and even exceed my high expectations.”
Konrad Bartelski is a former British alpine ski racer who produced the best result by a Briton on the Alpine Skiing World Cup circuit in 1981 by coming within 0.11 seconds of winning a World Cup downhill race at Val Gardena”
Konrad Bartelski
In Tronador in 2015