Dropping Into The Southern Hemisphere Winter is Coming!
The last few years have been bizarre on so many levels, but as the farthest corners of the world begin to reopen and return to an ever-evolving new normal, being able to travel to see old friends and amazing places really drives home the human need for connections, exploration and experiences.
Zeal’s partnership with SASS Global Travel is more than a business relationship, it’s a shared bond over all of these needs, a fact that I hadn’t realized until stepping out of my remise from the Bariloche, Argentina airport at the base of the Cerro Catedral resort after 48 hours of travel. I exited the cart to find the season’s flipped on their head and was greeted by double=overhead snowbanks under a Milky Way-festooned sky. But by far, the better welcome was the hugs and laughs shared with SASS’s crew of snow-seeking nomads that hadn’t had the chance to get together and revel in our shared passions for three years.
With the mountain’s deepest snowpack in years rolling out the white carpet for us, Zeal Week 5 unfolded without missing a beat. Although a divide of three years had elapsed, it mostly felt like it was mere weeks ago we had been riding Catderal’s spire-crested Patagonian bowls, skinning through terrain that dazzled the mind and bombing through widely-spaced sub-alpine birch and bamboo, testing next year’s products, gathering content and turning on Zeal Week clients to the joys of these South American Shred Sessions.
After getting our legs back under us, putting the new gear through its paces and making some amazing new friends and memories, I find myself soaring high above Texas, coming back to reality and the equally soaring temperatures of summer. My soul is full from ten days that erased some of the mental speed bumps of the pandemic thanks to the wanderlust and connections that drive this journey to Explore More.
And while the days are still long here in the Northern Hemisphere, photos from Colorado of changing aspen leaves, recent snow fall on the peaks and the recent launch of our ‘22/23 goggle line, makes the end of this voyage less bitter, and just the jumping off point for winter adventures to come.
A huge thanks to Ben Girardi and Santi Sarans for the amazing video and photography work, and to SASS Global Travel for bringing this tribe together, including the amazing crew of SASS Guides, Zeal Ambassadors and homies: Andrew Burns, Mauri Cambilla, Jon Conway, Kaitlyn Farrington, Vicente Katz and Piers Solomon.
We hope to see you out there this winter and back in Bariloche for Zeal Week 6 next August. There’s no better way to get tuned up for the season!
