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Chile · South America · southern hemisphere
Portillo is at its best for skiing in July to August. Good but not prime in September. Crowds peak in August and bottom out in October.
| J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skiing | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 42 | 90 | 90 | 67 | 17 | 12 | 12 |
| Crowds |
Swipe the table sideways for the rest of the year.
A single yellow hotel at the top of a pass, two hours from Santiago, selling week-long stays rather than lift tickets — the season runs roughly late June to late September. Northern-hemisphere ski racing teams train here in their summer, which tells you when the snow is good
Most of June and the last week of September — the lifts open about 20 June, so an early-June booking risks no skiing at all. Early June may not have opened at all — openings have been postponed for want of a base — and by late September the lower slopes are going.
Mid-July to late August, which is also when the snow is best — but the hotel caps guests, so “crowded” here means a full dining room, not a lift queue
Genuinely good for families — all-inclusive, with childcare for the younger ones while parents ski. The altitude is the catch: the hotel sits near 2,900m with no gradual approach from Santiago.
There is essentially one hotel and it sells weeks, not nights, in tiers from bunk rooms to lake-view doubles. Everything is included, so the sticker price is not comparable to a European lift-ticket-plus-lodging quote.
The Andes pass road closes in storms and the hotel can be cut off for days — which regulars treat as a feature.Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep
Kept out of the score on purpose. Averaging a rare catastrophe into a monthly number would tell you something false; the warning is the honest form.
0 is this destination’s own quietest month and 100 its busiest. The scale never compares one destination to another. Source: Wikipedia — Portillo, Chile