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Chris Hopkins

@whoischop

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As a complement to @sean.toms very descriptive post on our Cerro Mesón Alto project, I’d like to share some of my thoughts on this trip!🌸

Skiing this line had more cruxes than anything I have ever skied before; both on the line itself but even more during the 1,5 weeks leading up to dropping into the line. During the huge storm cycle we were ported from going back up in the mountain village where we have been staying after doing groceries in the closest town. It took us two days and lots of tries to get back up to Baños Morales which was a unexpected challenge. During this time me and Sean made friends with Max and Chris whom just arrived to Chile with big inspiring ski dreams.

Once we were back at our hostel we were unsure if it would even be possible to ski something safely with all of the fresh snow that had hit the mountains over the past few days. After letting the new snow settle for a bit, we saw a weather window coming up and decided to pack up our gear and supplies to stay for a week in the high in the mountains.

From here both me and Chris caught the flu. Chris felt sick already on day one and went back to the Hostería to recover, meanwhile I got sick later and decided to try to recover in the tent. Luckily enough both of us recovered well and as we moved our camp higher to about 3900 meter we were all together, feeling pretty much recovered, again!

On Thursday morning 2am we set off for climbing and skiing the SE face of Cerro Mesón alto. Lots of deep bootpacking and navigation in the dark. At around 9pm we started skiing, with the first pitch being measured to over 60* slope angle. I was intimidated to drop in as I never skied this steep before, but seeing @max.kilcoyne and @whoischop dropping in before me making beautiful, confident jump turns I felt inspired that I could do the same.

I’m happy we all made it back to camp safely, with only some frost bite on my left big toe. This adventure would never have been possible without @sean.toms, @max.kilcoyne and @whoischop who all been showing extraordinary strength, skills and willingness to ski through all of this! 🙌🏻🌟

Our backpacks were heavy; we never got the chance to weight them but the

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Cerro Mesón Alto SE face 🇨🇱 with @astridaventyr @max.kilcoyne @whoischop.

This line is a combined vision quest that @astridaventyr and I spotted from our first day up Loma Larga, 2 days later we were stuck in San Jose at a road closure due to 1.5m of snow when @max.kilcoyne and @whoischop picked us up and shortly after asked me if I have any photos of Meson Alto SE face, the next step was clear, to join forces and go for it 4 man 6 day seige style, Almost immediately after setting out Chris became sick and turned around, the next morning we had planned to ski El Morado as a warmup when Astrid caught the same flu, me and max pushed on but shortly ran into nipple deep boot packing (with plates) and turned around. The next day we continued our journey up the valley and camped at the base of Meson Alto. After a day of rest, and a chance for Chris to catch up we set out at 2am to sneak under the huge and active seracs to get on this line, with the sun rising as we crossed the 3 stacked berg schrunds we were feeling hopeful. The bootpack got continuously steeper up the South facing panel before the spine of the face, to where I measured it at 60*, I am certain if got steeper but I was far too gripped to get my phone back out. Once we reached the corniced spine we thought the travel would get easier to the summit, but once it became increasingly apparent that the splitter forcast was not materialising, the snow became all too familiar nipple-deep-with-plates, Astrid and I were showing signs of frost bite, and Chris was still feeling the symptoms of the flu, we decided it was time to turn around, after a side step down the ridge we faced the 60*+ exposed panel back down, at the time I didn’t even know it was possible to ski that steep but at 5000m with a deteriorating forecast it seemed time to find out. @max.kilcoyne made light work of it dropping in first and thanks to the incredible sticky snow of the Andes it made for good skiing, after the sun finally showed its self we had an enjoyable if slightly ass clenching ski out, and back under the seracs lower on the face. We slept one more night at the base before hightailing it out the next morning with 60-80 kph wind

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Home-turf Dawgin’

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I heart fall and it’s colours🧡

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Our favorite tags from August, the high of summer. A month of effort, salty belts, and muddied vests. From summits to finish lines, you made good use the long days and short nights. Onwards to Fall.

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Let the annual “I didn’t take advantage of summer enough” dread begin

#trailrunning #alpinerunning #colorado #14ers

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So long summer hello injury recovery 🪂

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Idk y’all I think @mathiasgruber_ killed it with these photos for the @arcteryxrockies group alpine run, what’dya think?

#trailrunning #alpinerunning #colorado #mountains

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A little bit of Za Winta with some of the coolest people ever

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all good !!

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been workin up an appetite

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