Portillo is one of those ski resorts that should be in your bucket list. That is why I am putting together this Must-Read Guide to Portillo, Chile. Nested in the High Andes of Chile, in the border with Argentina, this boutique-ski resort is a little jewel. With a maximum 450 guests, and a 1-2-1 ratio of personnel, you will feel super pampered.
Located at 2,880 m (9,450 ft) over see level and extending to 3,322 m altitude (10,900 ft), Portillo offers 762 m of vertical drop (2,500 ft) lift served and1,235 acres. You have 35 runs including wide bowls and endless off-piste terrain accessible by traverses and short hikes. There is also heli-skiing, which is pretty affordable, comparing to prices abroad, giving you endless options.
The land of sun and snow, Portillo gets 80% sunny days, and usually storms last many days but are not that many in the season. Each storm can bring a big snowfall, which usually remains very dry and crisp thanks to Portillo’s altitude.
Ski season goes from late June to early October (check each year as opening and closing is mainly depending on snow conditions). They do have snowmaking to help with natural snow conditions if needed!
Not sure if folklore or not, but something I did for many years- the best time to go skiing is in August, (July is the school holidays), but if not, in September, as at the end of August, there is always a big snowstorm called Santa Rosa (Santa Rosa is on 31st August), that brings lots of fluffy snow. In September rates decrease as it is a lower season than August… But beware, as Portillo gets reserved from year -on-year for the 7th September is the Brazilian independence day, so Brazilians fill up the hotel, and on 18th September is the Chilean Independence…so those two weeks is difficult to get lodging! If you want to get a spot, reserve a year earlier!
How to get to Portillo. The Must-Read Guide to Portillo, Chile.
You need to fly into Santiago de Chile to get to Portillo (unless you are coming from Mendoza, in Argentina, where you would drive across the Cristo Redentor tunnel, and you are just after a couple of curves in Portillo. (3 miles from the border) (*)
After arriving in Santiago, you get a quick transfer, and you can be in Portillo in a little bit over two hours.
Portillo is 102 miles from Santiago. The two-hour drive from Santiago is very scenic offering views of Mount Aconcagua, the tallest peak of the Americas (note that the Aconcagua is in Argentina, but the Aconcagua Valley is in Chile!)
When arriving at the Santiago airport, note that if coming from Australia and Mexico, you will be charged a reciprocity tax – that needs to be paid prior to passing passport control. Payment is in cash with USD or with credit cards.
The value of the fee as of May 2024 is – for Australia USD 117, and for Mexico, USD 23.
Other countries do not need to have a visa to come to Mexico. Citizens of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay can only show their identity card to travel.
(*) Note that if there is a big snowfall, the tunnel entrance could be closed, and you will have to wait until it is cleaned and re-opened. The road through the tunnel is a major lorry road used for commerce between the two countries, therefore, it is cleaned as a priority.
Staying in Santiago when you arrive could be a good idea to acclimatise to altitude. Santiago is at 560 meters and has a lovely dry climate. It does suffer from smock, as the city is boxed between mountains, but the days when you have nice visibility, you can see the impressive Andes Mountains on the background. Santiago has very nice restaurants and shops and for me, it looks like if you are in a US city.
I would recommend staying at the Mandarin Oriental in Las Condes or the Ritz Carlton Santiago.
You will not use a car if you stay in Portillo, so it is easier to get your transfer with Portillo Tours & Travel to go to Portillo. Moreover, if the road is closed (as it can be for heavy snowstorms), the people of Portillo Tours & Travel have the convenience that they know the road guards and are the first ones to pass up to the Caracoles, which are the hairpin turns you must take to reach the resort.
A typical ski week in Portillo. The Must-Read Guide to Portillo, Chile.
You can book Portillo to go from Saturday to Saturday, and in some lower season weeks, from Wednesday to Saturday or Saturday to Wednesday.
All ski weeks come with lodging, four meals a day (breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner), lift tickets (the 8th day lift ticket is free if you check out prior to 10 AM**), use of the outdoors heated pool, jacuzzi, sauna, fitness room, gymnasium, aerobics and yoga classes, cinema, game room with rock climbing wall, children activities, disco, piano bar, ski and snowboard storage and timed race courses. There is free day care available for children from 4 to 7 years old, and a nursery for younger kids that has an extra charge,
What is not included in your stay are the drinks in your meals and in the bar, telephone usage, rentals, transport, heli-skiing, tips, trip insurance, massages, use of the beauty salon, and baby-sitting services.
What you expect of a day in Portillo. The Must-Read Guide to Portillo, Chile.
This holiday is for you to disconnect. And not to take things too fast. You go to Portillo, and if you stay in the main Hotel Portillo, you feel you go back in time, to an old hotel that looks like a grand cruise, where everything happens in the common areas. Room do not have TV, to allow you to disconnect and, if you want to see any sporting events or news on TV, you can go to the cinema or discotheque to watch it with others.
People gather in the comfortable sofas of the living rooms to share what they have done during the day. Now wi-fi is available throughout the hotel. In my days we did not have that, so it was great to really, really disconnect!
The living room and dining room have these enormous windows, and there is a nice deck outside with. The views of the Tres Hermanos peaks, and the Laguna del Inca… The view makes your jaw drop in awe to such beauty!
You go to have breakfast, you are surrounded by many waiters that offer you all kind of treats for the morning (toast, fruit all come to the table, and you can require eggs), and then you just go downstairs to the ski storage to get your skis and boots and just step outside the hotel and ski from there. Same if you are snowboarder!
You ski the morning, you stop for lunch, you have a lovely full lunch, and if you can move after eating this much, you can go back to do some more turns in the afternoon. When you come back, tea time is waiting for you with cakes, muffins and biscuits and coffee and tea in the restaurant again! And then you just roll down to the pool to see the magnificent sunset over the Tres Hermanos peaks and the Laguna del Inca, while you are bathing outdoors and feeling what a splendid day you have had!
After a shower, you go to the bar for a Pisco Sour, the national aperitivo in Chile (be careful, that at altitude, alcohol tends to go faster to your head!), and then you go for a full dinner at the restaurant. If you are young and like to party, there are nights at the discothèque, or back to the bar, before tumbling down to your room.
Included in your ski week is the option to have a one-day lunch at Tio Bob’s- the on-mountain restaurant with amazing views of the Laguna del Inca and the surrounding mountains. Tio Bob’s serves grilled specialties.
This year, as it is the 75th anniversary of Ski Portillo there will be weekly Tio Bob’s Dinners. You will walk with ski poles to take the Juncalillo lift to the top, and from there you walk a short flat piste to get to Tio Bob’s. You will be able to see the amazing sky in Portillo at night while enjoying a Chilean gourmet dinner and drink Chilean wines. Then you walk back to the lift, take the chairlift down and walk back the steps to the hotel.
Also, as part of the celebration of the 75th anniversary, when it is not snowing, star-gazing experiences will be offered, to enjoy the clearest skies around.
Portillo for families. The Must-Read Guide to Portillo, Chile.
I cannot stress enough how good is Portillo for families. As I was growing up and skiing mostly in Las Leñas, I have friends from school that were always going to Portillo – each year on the same week. And this is because it is so easy, as Portillo caters everyone in the family!
I started going to Portillo in my late 20’s, so it was me as a singleton going partying. For that it is great! As there are not too many guests, if you want to see someone again, you do see them!
I’ve returned as a mum of two youngsters- one of four months, and one short of 2 years old.
There is this nursery that is free for 4-7 years old, but for babies and kids up to 3, you have to pay – not much though! One of the ski instructors of the ski school (Maria Eugenia) gave lessons to my eldest and told me to bring him with a dummy. My eldest, that was a super clingy baby, had a blast. He stayed his one hour every day super happy to let me go and getting up and down the magic carpet and touching the different cartoon figures in the learning field by the hotel!
My youngest stayed happy for some hours in the nursery, and then we took turns with my husband to go skiing a bit, and looking after the boys. That worked very well.
And when we were having lunch or dinner, as soon as the boys were finished, the personnel were happy to entertain the boys in the living room so we can have a meal in peace.
Plus, the hotel is so safe, that my eldest was running around and trying to say hello to all the groups of people assembling in the living room. And the personnel was checking that he did not go to the staircases!
For older kids, the gym offer a shuffleboard, table football and climbing wall, plus the football five is great to keep them entertained. There is also a cinema, and they can go up and down the building that is super safe! You can also organise for kids to have meals in the cafeteria in a group. For them is fun and gives you some extra time to yourself.
The Mountain. The Must-Read Guide to Portillo, Chile.
Portillo is a small ski resort with a big mountain skiing experience. It has 35 runs, including wide bowls and endless off-piste terrain accessible by traverses and short hikes.
There are 14 lifts: 3 quad chairs, 1 triple chair, 1 double chair, 4 famous Va et Vient slingshot lifts (**), and 5 poma lifts.
(**) The Va et Vient is a crazy type of lift that I’ve only seen in Portillo. It consists of a line that has a bar, with four or five baby button surface lifts. So, four or five skiers or riders get in position, with ski tips or board looking up, button lift between the legs, grabbing the bar with one hand, and ski poles with the other (in case of skiers), and the va et vient is set off. It goes like the clappers in really steep terrain…. And it stops, with your back towards the valley, in still really steep terrain! The way to get off the lift is letting off the button lift from between your legs and going down the mountain (back first) and do a sharp turn to the side and perform a hockey stop! The last person to leave the baby button must throw the bar to the side, and then the bar gets ready to go back again to pick up other riders!
It is not for the faint-hearted, but after all, the terrain you access is steep and deep! There are many couloirs accessible from these four va-et-vients that Portillo has.
The jewel in Portillo is the Lake Run, that opens when the lake freezes, and you come back to the hotel skating on the lake!
For intermediate skiers, the mountain is not that big, but the trails are so nice, that I don’t mind repeating them over and over again. People tend to do the Juncalillo sector in the morning and the Plateau in the afternoon. Maybe a couple of Roca Jack to keep your heart pumping in the middle….
The longest run has 1.52 miles (2,456 meters). The ski area goes below the hotel, in the Juncalillo sector. When you ride the chairlift back to the hotel from below, you go over the famous Caracoles (hairpin turns of the route that takes you to Portillo).
The snow in Portillo is very light and incredible. It has, as everywhere in the world, good and bad seasons, but you usually are for a treat there. With only 450 guests skiing, and many of them relaxing and eating, it is like skiing in your private ski resort!
Where to Stay in Portillo. The Must-Read Guide to Portillo, Chile.
Lodging in Portillo comprises the main hotel: Hotel Portillo, with 123 rooms, 2 hotel annexes (the Octagon Lodge and the Inca Lodge) and 8 chalets overlooking the Laguna del Inca.
If you can, stay at the hotel Portillo and pay for the lake view- it is a bit pricier, but the view is amazing, totally worth it.
The hotel rooms have not changed too much over the years, but they did update a bit the face of the rooms with newer bed quilts and decor, and there are minibars in the rooms. It is comfortable, which is the best, and the employees of Ski Portillo are lovely. They have been there forever, and they do not change. That talks well about the family feeling of all the Portillo employees, under the management of Henry and Miguel Portillo.
The hotel has the main restaurant, a cafeteria where people of the Inca have their meals and where the few allowed ski day trippers- eat. Also ski instructors eat there, not sure if the rest of the employees…
There is also a bar at the hotel and the bar at the employee housing (called Siberia, if I don’t remember wrong…) where you can go, that is lots of fun!
The Octagon has rooms of four (two sets of bunk beds) and a private bathroom with shower. The Octagon Lodge is many times used by international ski teams that come to train in Portillo during their off-season. Guests of the Octagon Lodge take their meals at the main restaurant.
You can buy a room at the Octagon or the bed and share with other people. It is divided for male and female guests.
The Inca Lodge is a sort of hostel, with rooms for males and females. Bathrooms are on the floor and shared by all the rooms, again separated by female and male. The rooms are more basic, and the meals are taken at the hotel’s cafeteria. You can also buy the bed at the Inca and share with others.
History of Ski Portillo. The Must-Read Guide to Portillo, Chile.
Portillo was born of a railroad. The engineers building it, started skiing for their work and play. In fact, the train was the international rail track was the first ski lift since 1910 that was taking these engineers between Caracoles and Juncal crossing to what is now the Portillo ski area.
Ski clubs started appearing in Chile at that time and were the ones that made the ski business grow in Chile. By early 1930, skiing enthusiasts started to dream of developing the ski slopes around the Lake of the Incas in the area known as Portillo (that means the little pass in Spanish). The first lift in the area was a tow lift like the Poma lift of today (surface button lift). Adventurous skiers from Europe and the US started to ski in the Andes along with the Chileans and they were staying in a small mountain hut called as Hotel Portillo.
The small hotel was bought by a stock company known as Hoteles de Cordillera SA in the early 1940s, with the intention to build what was to be known as the “Gran Hotel Portillo”.
Because of the war the plan was derailed but the construction started again under the Corporation for Development of the Chilean Government and finally, in 1949, the hotel was inaugurated with 125 rooms. When it opened, the ski area had two single chairlifts and one surface lift. Grooming was done by the ski school, guests, and the high mountain school of the Chilean Army.
In 1961 Portillo was purchased by two North Americans: Bob Purcell and Dick Aldrich, two men that travelled and worked for long time in Latin America. They had skied in Portillo and were impressed by the terrain and beauty of the landscape. They felt at the moment, that the resort was needing more infrastructure.
Bob hired his nephew Henry Purcell, then aged 26 and fresh graduate of Cornell School of Hotel Administration, who had worked five years for the Hilton Corporation. Henry soon discovered that what he has learnt at the Hilton Corporation would not apply to Portillo.
Purcell hired Olympic gold medallist Othmar Schneider as director of skiing and the US firm of Needham and Grohmann to start a publicity campaign. Henry worked organising the hotel operation, training personnel, and cleaning the place up. When he was hired, a huge black sheep called Lumumba was living in the Hotel Portillo’s living room!
Purcell worked to get the 1966 Alpine World Ski Championships in Portillo to put Portillo on the map and got it. He designed and built lifts, hotel rooms and recreational facilities, and prepared a downhill course for the event. He also installed communication systems and improved the transportation system.
During the testing on a pre-event race, in August 1965, a massive typhoon moved in from the South Pacific with winds up to 120 miles per hour, unusually heavy snowfall and avalanches that took out all but two of the ski lifts, including the two newly built chairlifts. The brand new 1,800-meter Juncalillo Poma double chair lost 13 of its 24 towers plus the base and return stations. Five skiers were killed in an avalanche that destroyed part of the employee housing. Ski teams that had gathered for the event were trapped in Portillo, and when the weather cleared, they had to ski out to the nearest train station 20 miles away.
The FIS was distressed and asked the Portillo owners what they wanted to do. Dick Aldrich was entering into US politics, so he sold his stock to Bob Purcell. Bob was convinced about putting the event on, and told the FIS that he was going to rebuild to hold the 1966 World Ski Championships in Portillo. With an admirable spirit of generosity, the FIS agreed to move forward with the plans.
They rebuilt the lifts with Poma and the experience of men like Othmar Schneider on how to avoid the avalanches. The Chilean Army offered artillery for avalanche control and a regiment of mountain troops to prepare the runs.
In August 1966 FIS President Marc Hodler and Chilean President Eduardo Frei inaugurated the first major ski event south of the equator. Thankfully the event happened in amazing weather conditions.
Portillo has since become a successful ski area, with generations of skiers and ski teams coming to the resort year on year, as well as many personalities.
Speed trials were held on three occasions. In 1978 Steve McKinney broke the barrier of 200KPH in Portillo.
Over the years Henry Purcell and his brother purchased Portillo from their uncle. Henry continues as executive director of Ski Portillo, and his son Miguel Purcell is the general manager.
The ski resort has not changed much. It is still a boutique ski resort. Nobody rises too early, meals are social events and dinners are served late, Chilean style, with afternoon tea served to tide guests over. There still are relatively no ski lift lines or many people tracking up the powder. The pace is leisurely and lends itself to making friends and relaxation. The same people come on the same week, year-on-year, so everybody knows each other and are excited to catch up again!
Rates for Ski Weeks – The Must-Read Guide to Portillo, Chile.
Rates for Ski Portillo signature 7-day Ski Weeks begin at US$3,050 for a Valley View room (per person based on double occupancy), US$2,050 for the Octagon Lodge (based on quad occupancy), and US$1,550 for the hostel-style Inca Lodge. Other accommodations include Hotel Portillo Suites and the Chalets. Rates for ski weeks include accommodations, four meals daily (breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner in the Hotel dining room – or the Cafeteria for Inca Lodge guests), lift tickets, and all the amenities of the resort.
For information or reservations, visit www.skiportillo.com for online bookings, call +1.800.829.5325 (US/Canada toll-free), or email reservations@skiportillo.com.
2024 Special Weeks. The Must-Read Guide to Portillo, Chile.
Annual events including Friends Week and Wine Weeks bring additional activities to already action-packed weeks. Following are weeks that have been confirmed:
- Friends Week (Aug. 10 – 17) brings friends, new and old, together for a week of fun with apres-ski parties, wine dinners at Tio Bob’s, complimentary ski tours with our guest ambassadors, guest yoga instructors, film presentations, and more.
- Wine Week (July 27 – Aug 3) and Wine Fest (Aug. 24 – 31) celebrate Chile’s world-renowned wines. Guests may enjoy complimentary après-ski wine tastings from Chile’s finest vineyards, attend special wine pairing dinners, and learn more about Chile’s rich wine landscape.
About Ski Portillo
For reservations, call 1.800.829.5325 (U.S.) or email reservations@skiportillo.com. For more information, visit www.SkiPortillo.com.
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Featured Image: Hikers up the Ridge with the view of the Tres Hermanos peaks. Photo: Frank Shine. Courtesy Ski Portillo.
