Podcast #222: Corralco, Chile General Manager Jimmy Ackerson

Who

Jimmy Ackerson, General Manager of Corralco, Chile

Recorded on

July 24, 2025

About Corralco

Click here for a mountain stats overview

Located in: Curacautín, Araucanía, Chile

Year founded: 2003, by Enrique Bascur

Pass affiliations: Indy Pass, Indy+ Pass – 2 days, no blackouts

Base elevation: 4,724 feet (1,440 meters)

Summit elevation: 7,874 feet (2,400 meters) top of lifts; 9,400 feet (2,865 meters) hike-to

Vertical drop: 3,150 feet (960 meters) lift-served; 4,676 feet (1,425 meters) hike-to

Skiable acres: 2,475 acres lift served; 4,448 acres (1,800 hectares), including hike-to terrain

Average annual snowfall: 354 inches (899 cm)

Trail count: 34

Lift count: 7 (1 high-speed quad, 1 double, 5 J-bars)

Why I interviewed him

The Andes run the length of South America, 4,300 miles from the southern tip of Argentina north to Venezuela. It is the longest continental mountain range on Earth, nearly six times the length of the Alps and 1,300 miles longer than the Rockies. It is the highest mountain range outside of Asia, topping out at 22,841 feet on Mount Aconcagua, more than a mile higher than the tallest point in the Rockies (14,439-foot Mount Elbert) or Alps (15,772-foot Mont Blanc).

So this ought to be one hell of a ski region, right? If the Alps house more than 500 ski areas and the Rockies several hundred, then the Andes ought to at least be in the triple digits?

Surprisingly, no. Of the seven nations transected by the Andes, only Argentina and Chile host outdoor, lift-served ski areas. Between the two countries, I’m only able to assemble a list of 37 ski areas, 33 of which skiresort.info categorizes as “temporarily closed” – a designation the site typically reserves for outfits that have not operated over the past several seasons.

For skiers hoping to live eternal winter by commuting to the Upside Down each May through October, this roster may be a bit of a record scratch. There just aren’t that many ski areas in the Southern Hemisphere. Outside of South America, the balance – another few dozen total - sit in Australia and New Zealand, with scattered novelties such as Afriski lodged at the top of Lesotho. There are probably more ski areas in New England than there are south of the equator.

That explains why the U.S.-based multimountain ski passes have been slow to move into the Southern Hemisphere – there isn’t much there to move into. Ikon and Mountain Collective each have just one destination on the continent, and it’s the same destination: Valle Nevado. Epic offers absolutely nothing in South America.

Even with few options, Vail moved south a decade ago with its purchase of Perisher, Australia’s largest ski area. That English-speaking nation was a logical first pass frontier, but the five Kangaroo resorts claimed by the Epic and Ikon passes are by far the five largest in the country, and they’re a 45-year flight from America. New Zealand is similarly remote, with more but generally less-developed ski areas, and Ikon has established a small presence there.

But South America remains mostly wide open, despite its obvious appeal to North Americans: the majesty of the Andes, the novelty of summer skiing, and direct flights with no major timezone hopping required. Mountain Capital Partners has dropped anchor in Chile, purchasing Valle Nevado in 2023, neighboring La Parva the following year, and bidding for also-neighboring