Operation Pichilemu-Portillo

Josh Dirksen and Shroder Baker hit up Chile for some late summer surf and shred action.

I left Jackson August 18th. The destination, Santiago, Chile, where I would meet up with long-time buddy Josh Dirksen.  It was an easy flight coming from J-Hole, only one stop in Dallas and then nine hours to Santiago.  Getting upgraded to business class made it a really nice flight (the sleep button kicks ass).  Dirksen had a much longer flight being that he lives in Zurich, Switzerland.  It would be seventeen hours or more before he touched down.

I was first on the scene, so therefore it was my duty to piece out the situation. All I had to do was figure out how to get to the bus station and find bag storage for our skis. Pretty easy task, I thought. Right out of the gate, I was bombarded by ten or fifteen eager taxi dudes.  I’m sure I stuck out like a sore thumb (“look at the big gringo with big bags, quick, get him”).  I pushed most of them out of my way and politely said “no gracias”, but they were relentless.  At one point I had to get physical and pulled a pretty sweet move like a college running back throwing his best juke. I thought I was in the clear, then I ran into this one Chilean fellow who seemed cool and wouldn’t take no for an answer. 



At this time Dirksen showed up groggy, not knowing what was going on. I was stoked to see the boy, gave him a big high five, and told him I had it under control. Next thing we knew, we were headed out to the parking lot to his van to take us to the bus station. We got all our stuff in the van and the taxi bro says, “that will be 25,000 pesos please.” I wasn’t totally sure of the exchange rate as of yet, so I was cool and paid the man. Then, his helper buddy says, “how ‘bout a tip, you know for the troubles.”  I was like, “cool, here is 10,000 pesos bro.”  Ten minutes later, I figured out the exchange rate and felt really dumb knowing that we just dished out 70$ USD.  Oh well, live and learn, I guess. 



We arrived at the Santiago bus station, grabbed our gear, and found a sketchy place to store our shred stuff. Dirksen bee-lined for the Mickydee’s for a couple of Big-Macs, we picked up our bus tickets for Pichilemu, and were on our way. Three hours later, we found ourselves in the sleepy surf town. A super-cool place right on the Pacific, rolling hills, pine trees, eucalyptus trees and cacti were all in the mix.  Not to mention three world-class lefts that we were chomping to get ahold of. We found a cheap place to stay for 3,000 pesos (6$ USD) a night, stored our stuff, and headed to the beach to check on the surf. We made our way to the point in the town of Pichilemu and found that the surf was flat, but we were stoked to be in a new place and didn’t really care, so we paddled out anyway. We had good times surfing ankle-breakers, caught a couple of waves, and called it good. After that, we were hungry for some food, and the place we were staying had a good restaurant, we grubbed on chicken, rice, French fries, and tomatoes.  We had a couple of grande Cristals (Chilean beers), talked about our plans and then sent it to bed. 

The next morning when we got up, I swear Dirksen was so pumped up I thought he was going to start eating his own arm off (we call this chomping). The boy gets fired up to catch waves, and he is pretty dang good at it for being a pro shred. We made our way to the local internet café to check the surf report. Good news, things were looking up for us.   The report was calling for the swell to pick up each day and topping out at about 4.5 meters (about 15 feet). We stood our ground, took in some of the great culture and waited for the surf to pick up.

Tuesday August 21st.  After a couple of days of waiting out the flat surf, the swell picked up and it totally paid off. After having some breakfast and talking over our game plan we decided to head for Punta De Lobos. This is one of the most epic spots that I have ever been to. A super-long left point, this is what you look for as goofy footers from the northwest. It has been said that when this wave’s on, it’s the longest left in the world.  When we showed up at the point we were excited to see that the wave was indeed working and peeling for a really long time. We took no time getting in the water, even though you got to walk down a cliff, then walk out on rocks and time the sets before paddling out. We got out in the line up (with only like 6 locals), picked up seconds, and had some of the best waves ever!  Eight-to ten-foot faces, clean and going for days. The cool thing about surfing a good point is that you can see everybody ripping it up. Dirksen and I watched each other and everyone else in the water have an epic session. This is one thing that gets me fired up, seeing a good buddy rip it up. It’s almost as rewarding to see your good friend rip it up than ripping it up yourself.  We scored, we finally got our four star day.



Wednesday August 22nd. The swell picked up to over 4 meters. This is big for me and I was kind of gripped. I don’t surf a lot of 15’ waves.  Dirksen got out before I did.  I was caught inside, and took seven or eight monsters right to the head.  I finally got out and waited my turn. After frantically paddling around and over these big waves, I saw one coming with my name on it.  I paddled and caught the beast all the way to the beach. I hopped off my board and called it, one monster was good enough for me. 

Saturday August 25th. After having a great time surfing it up in Pichilemu, it was time to pack up our boards and head for the mountains. Portillo was our destination. We hopped on the bus at 4:45 in the morning and had the coldest bus ride of all time. I froze my nuts off for like three hours, all I could think about was getting my hot tub on in Portillo. 

We arrived in Portillo in the evening on Saturday night. It looked like we missed the storm by about a week. It was all good, because we were going to get our shred on in the Andes in August. Portillo has a great feel to it, cool lodge, insane vibe, and lots of ski and snowboard fanatics.  We got all settled in our dorm-style room, then went to go get our gear out of storage. It was time to dust off the sticks and get ready for a week of high-speed turns.

After the first day of just pulverizing the corduroy in the sun, we headed for the awesome Portillo hot tub.  This hot tub has one of the greatest views of all time, looks right up the valley over the Laguna Del Inca (big ass frozen lake), with two 10,000ft plus monsters on each side of it. The cool thing about Portillo is that it’s wide-open well above the tree line, both sides of the resort sloping into the Laguna Del Inca. It is a place that houses epic visuals and great terrain. With a fresh snowfall this place would indeed produce.  One thing we were determined to do during our stay in Portillo was to hike to the infamous Super-C.  It is an hour-and-a-half bootpack up to a super long C-shaped couloir with a breathtaking view of the highest peak in the Andes (Aconcagua 6,950mtrs or 22,841ft).

The next day we hit it up…awesome!  I checked my altimeter watch at the top of the boot pack and we were standing at 13,250 ft with a sick view and some untracked powder below us. We dropped in and got some of the good stuff to hit us in the face, made a few more turns down to the bottom, had some laughs and threw a big high five.  This is what we live for.  As the good doctor once wrote “Buy the ticket, take the ride.” This is what we did, and we scored.  Good people, good food, good surf, good shred…what more could you ask for?

Oh yeah… cold beer. We got that too!

“Let the good times roll”

Peace out,
SJB