Ski Area
The glacier on Chacaltaya served as Bolivia's only ski resort. It was the world's highest lift-served ski area, the northernmost ski area in South America as well as the world's second most equatorial after Maoke, Indonesia. The rope tow, the very first in South America, was built in 1939 using an automobile engine; it was notoriously fast and difficult, housed in the site's original clapboard lodge and is now inoperable. The road to the base of the 200-meter (660 ft) drop is reached by a narrow road, also built in the 1930s. Traditionally, due to the extreme cold weather, the lift operated exclusively on weekends from November to March. This summer glacier skiing is no longer possible following the unexpectedly early melting of the glacier. As of 2009, skiing is restricted to a 600-foot (180 m) stretch that sometimes receives sufficient snowfall for a run during the winter. The mountain is also popular with amateur mountaineers, as the aforementioned road stops only 200-metre (660 ft) from the summit.
Read more about this topic: Chacaltaya
Famous quotes containing the words ski and/or area:
“The goal for all blind skiers is more freedom. You don’t have to see where you’re going, as long as you go. In skiing, you ski with your legs and not with your eyes. In life, you experience things with your mind and your body. And if you’re lacking one of the five senses, you adapt.”
—Lorita Bertraun, Blind American skier. As quoted in WomenSports magazine, p. 29 (January 1976)
“The area [of toilet training] is one where a child really does possess the power to defy. Strong pressure leads to a powerful struggle. The issue then is not toilet training but who holds the reins—mother or child? And the child has most of the ammunition!”
—Dorothy Corkville Briggs (20th century)