Three Days of Flights, One Day on Snow, and a Medical Emergency in Chile
The Not-So-Perfect Start to Our Independent Ski Camp Adventure
Well…this was not the start we were expecting.
When we planned our return to Chile as an independent ski race team, we pictured long training days, productive time on snow, and the kind of focused experience that makes traveling halfway around the world worthwhile.
Instead, the beginning of our trip delivered three days of flights, an eight-hour drive through epic snow, five runs on the mountain—and a medical emergency that sent us racing back to Santiago.
Independent ski racing requires flexibility on a normal day. This trip decided to test ours immediately.
Three Days Just to Reach
Chile
Our travel problems began before we even left Montana.
The Whitefish airport was being repaved, while severe weather on the East Coast disrupted flights across the country. Together, those two things turned our journey to Chile into three full days of airports, flights, delays, and rerouting.
By the time we finally landed in Santiago, we were exhausted—but relieved. We had made it to Chile, our equipment had made it with us, and we were ready to head into the Andes.
Then we learned just how much snow had fallen.
The conditions were incredible for free skiing, but not so incredible for driving or training. What should have been a much shorter transfer turned into an eight- to nine-hour journey up the mountain in our van.
Thankfully, we were with our favorite transport driver—the kind of person who quickly becomes much more than a driver when you are navigating an international ski trip. He got us safely through the snow and finally delivered us to the mountain.
Five Runs on Snow
After three days of travel and nearly another full day in the van, our girl finally clicked into her skis.
Her first day on snow brought soft conditions, low visibility, wild winds, and exactly five runs.
It wasn’t the first day we had imagined, but she was finally back on snow in Chile. At that point, five runs felt like progress.
We hoped the difficult part of the trip was behind us.
It wasn’t.
Ten Hours of Vomiting and Diarrhea
On our second night, our girl became extremely sick.
She spent approximately ten hours vomiting and experiencing diarrhea. By morning, it was clear this was more than something we could manage in the condo.
Instead of heading to training, our second “day” on the mountain began at the local clínica.
The medical team gave her IV fluids, nausea medication, and pain medication. What began as treatment for dehydration quickly became more serious when the physical examination raised concern about possible appendicitis.
We were told she needed to return to Santiago immediately for a contrast CT scan.
Getting down from the mountain during severe winter conditions is not always simple. Our transport driver came back for us and secured the special police and hospital permission needed to move through the restrictions and get her down as quickly as possible.
At that point, he had permission to pass, move fast, and do pretty much whatever was necessary to get her safely to the hospital.
The Diagnosis
The CT scan was negative for appendicitis, which was an enormous relief.
It did, however, show ileitis—significant inflammation of the ileum, the final section of the small intestine. The suspected cause was Yersinia, a foodborne bacterium commonly associated with raw or undercooked pork and contaminated milk.
She left the hospital with four different medications, a long list of dietary restrictions, and strict instructions to rest and recover.
And once again, our favorite transport driver returned—this time coming back to the hospital to collect us and drive us up the mountain at 8:00 that night.
By the time we reached the condo, the ski training plan no longer mattered. Our only priority was getting her healthy.
The Reality of Racing Independently
On the third day, our girl slept for 15 hours.
I managed medication schedules, tried to find foods she was allowed to eat, dealt with a seemingly endless list of little things going wrong, and attempted to keep everyone informed.
By the time I was finally ready to go to sleep, I realized the easiest solution was to post one social media update—because I no longer had the energy to send the same story through dozens of individual text messages.
But there was another part of this trip that made everything feel heavier.
My mom had recently passed away, and I arrived in Chile carrying far more than luggage and ski equipment. My emotions were all over the place. I was grieving, exhausted, vulnerable, and—if I’m being completely honest—incredibly volatile at times.
Most mornings began with me apologizing for how I had been the day before.
Grief does not wait for a convenient time. It came with me through the airports, up and down the mountain road, into the hospital, and back to the condo. I was trying to hold everything together for our girl while, in many ways, I was still falling apart myself.
This is the part of being an independent ski race team that rarely makes it into polished social media posts.
There is no large organization behind us handling transportation, medical logistics, meals, communication, grief, or sudden changes to the training schedule. When something goes wrong, we adjust. We ask for help. We rely on good people and there were so many GREAT people that helped!! Including the amazing coaches we brought. We make the next decision and then the next one.
Sometimes, the most important job has nothing to do with gates, timing, or technique. Sometimes, success simply means getting your athlete safely down a mountain and into the right hospital.
The Team That Understood the Assignment
Although we were there as an independent team, we were incredibly lucky to share this experience with a group that completely understood the assignment—and crushed it in every possible way.
They brought unshakable loyalty, unwavering support, productive training days, patience, more patience, and yet more patience, perspective, and exactly the kind of energy we needed. They supported our girl, but they also supported me through one of the most emotionally difficult periods of my life.
They gave us room when we needed it, stepped in when we needed help, and kept us laughing when everything felt much too heavy.
Love those guys.
Honestly, I’m not sure we could have made it through the trip without them.
More Than the Start of the Trip
Thankfully, the difficult beginning was not the whole story.
By the time our Chile adventure came to an end, we had experienced lots of tears from our girl being so sick and logged more miles up and down that winding mountain road than we ever expected.
But somewhere in the middle of all those miles, the trip began to change.
There were meaningful mental and physical breakthroughs on the mountain. There were productive days, hard-earned confidence, and moments when we could see pieces beginning to fall into place.
By the end of the trip, we had found an absolute diamond in the rough—a possible next season coach we trust to take our girl through the coming season.
Finding the right coach is about so much more than credentials or technical knowledge. It is about connection, belief, communication, and finding someone who truly sees the athlete in front of them.
Somehow, amid all the chaos, setbacks, long drives, and unexpected turns, we found exactly that.
There were hard days, but there were also lots of laughs.
Then more laughs.
And somehow, even more laughs.
That may be one of the greatest gifts of traveling as an independent team. The plans rarely unfold exactly as expected, but the shared experiences—the difficult ones and the hilarious ones—become part of the story we carry home.
"The Winter Must-Haves — and the Snowed-In Dinner — We Desperately Needed"
If there was one thing that stayed with me through all of it—the delays, the clinic, the long nights—it was the way the Andes turned even a condo kitchen into somewhere worth gathering. On the nights we were snowed in, waiting for word on test results or just too tired to think about training, the only thing that felt normal was setting a table and putting something warm on it.
That instinct is exactly what became A Snowed-In Tuscan Dinner—a curated table built for exactly those nights, wherever your mountain happens to be. You can find it, along with the rest of our
favorite pieces, in the full curated edit.
The Chile We Will Remember
This trip began with three days of flights, eight to nine hours in a van, five runs on snow, ten hours of sickness, two clinics, one CT scan, four medications, and a late-night return to the Andes.
It unfolded against a backdrop of grief, vulnerability, apologies, tears, countless miles up and down the mountain, and more emotional highs and lows than I could count.
It ended with resilience, meaningful mental and physical breakthroughs, a team that showed up for us in every way, an absolute diamond of a new coach, and more laughter than we could possibly measure.
It wasn’t the trip we planned.
In many ways, it became something far more meaningful.
And through every high, low, setback, breakthrough, long drive, tear, apology, and laugh, one thing remained constant:
Those amazing Andes sunsets never disappoint...
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