Lets get one thing straight from the word go. Visiting these resorts isn't going to be your average week on the slopes. A holiday here is going to be as much about visiting South America as going skiing, and whatever method you use to get here, it is going to be a very different from spending a week getting shepherded round the Alps by a spotty-faced rep in a brightly coloured shirt.
The area. La Parva, El Colorado and Valle Nevado are as connected as Meribel, Courcheval and Val Thorens in France. In this comparison, La Parva would be Courchevel, off to the left side of a combined piste map and away from the slightly more crowded central resort of El Colorado. As in France, you can ski all 3 areas on the same pass, and it will take you more than a couple of days to do so. Off the slopes, however, the comparison with any European resort comes to a juddering halt.
Accommodation Accommodation in La Parva is limited and hard to find out about. There is almost nothing in the way of big apartments or hotels in either El Colorado or La Parva, most of the property is either chalet style buildings which I suspect are owned by wealthy Chileans or the original Andean stone/wooden buildings. I have never stayed in La Parva, which as far as I know has no budget accomodation. If I was going with my family now, and wanted something midrange I think I would try and book from Santiago upon arrival, and I wouldn't be confident about finding anything in La Parva. Possibly Valle Nevado would be a better place to start looking - it certainly has more hotels. Going as a backpacker, your best (only?) option is to stay in the hostel in Farellonnes and commute to La Parva by skilift, bus, or hitchhiking, which is the transport method of choice up in the mountains. The Farellonnes hostel is engraved forever in my memory. Its a big stone building hacked into the hillside for protection from the winter storms, and must be over a hundred years old. It is built to last from local stone and massive wooden beams and has a number of 6 or 8 bed dorms, as well as a few odd double rooms. The facilities are pretty hardcore, with heating and running water clearly having been added when they became available. The dormitory-style rooms are dark and traditional, and each bed has a number of extra blankets on to help keep out the cold. The showers are run from gas boilers, which you will have to light yourself in the morning, and boy oh boy is the tiled shower room ever cold. The communal area upstairs is great - huge and complete with table tennis, a balcony, and a massive open fire. Internet access is at a pub about 4 doors up the street, and the lowest lift is about 10 mins walk further up. Downstairs is the kitchen and a big eating area, where the family who own the hostel take their meals. They will cook include enough food for guests as well for a small price, but these are served at set times which may not be compatible with your apres ski requirements. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the place - maybe its the university hostel? There is only one though. so you cant miss it - just ask for the hostel on arrival in the town.
getting there Booking anything to the area is tricky. You cannot (so far as I know) get package tours down to these resorts, which leaves the options of the super expensive tours who organise everything (usually including heli-skiing), or the backpacker budget, which is what I was on. We booked a flight to Santiago (LanChile or Iberia), and then asked around the hostels downtown to find out how to get up to the resort. There is a company that runs a daily minibus up into the mountains as long as the road is open, but it's a long day. If you hitchhike (and you will) belt up if you are in the cars, and hold on in the back of trucks, accidents are commonplace.
Equipment Ski and board hire is no problem, but you will probably be hiring old equipment. The ski shop at the base of the lift is friendly, helpful, and english speaking. If you are going to make a big trip round Chile, there are 2 or 3 big ski/snowboard retailers in Santiago, most of which you will drive past on the way from the city centre to the resorts. The kit will be considerably cheaper than Europe, (Andorra excluded) and less than a year old. Back at La Parva, eating arrangements are a small shop close by the lifts, from where you can get bread, cheese and snacks. The alternative is a ski-restaurant which would be up the mountain in europe, but is located next to the beginners slopes here. Ideal if you need to keep an eye on your kids, I imagine.
On the mountain The skiing is good. There is off piste accessible by short hikes out to skiers right from the top chair, including the "chimney" clearly visible from the resort base. Ask at the base before you go, since if the weather has been warm it is possible that conditions will be icy, making the off piste dangerous. There are no glaciers in the area, so if you can find powder, you are safe enough riding it once the streams have frozen over. After a couple of days warm weather, and some careful route planning from the hostle, it is possible to ski old, compacted snowpack right down to the base of the ravine behind the hostel. Another great piece of terrain is the yellow valley, which will drop you out onto the road 50 yards before you come into town. All of this off piste is visible from the lift, so I dont feel that I am giving any great secrets away here - and besides - nobody rides the off piste here, where only the elite can afford to ski, and treat a trip to the slopes the same way as they would a trip to the golf course - any deviation from the fairways is to be frowned upon.
On piste, several of the European national ski teams come here to train, and some of the pistes are sometimes watered to make them faster for the race training. There is a snowboard park in El Colorado and a decent halfpipe in Valle Nevado, but nothing in La Parva, which is fine as there are plenty of natural hits if the snow is good.
And the snow can be VERY good. The resorts are high up in the Andes but relatively close to the coast, so a big storm can give you 50cms or so of snow in a couple of days or less. The photo I have included was a car parked in 3 inches of snow 24 hours earlier. Now that was a good day.
Off-hill entertainment Apres ski there is, so far as I am aware, nothing at all in La Parva. If you are lucky, (and can speak spanish) one of the lift attendants will let you use your La Parva pass to get a ride on the lifts over to El Colorado, where the main lift station restaurant is the place to be for Apres ski. A real bonus with an apres-ski session here is that once you know the resort you can then ride down the slopes to Farellonnes. Time it right and you get to see the sun setting over Santiago whilst you are riding down. The whole sky turns red, the snow on the surrounding peaks turns pink and then purple, and then the lights of Santiago start to twinkle down in the blackness of the valley. With the right level of inebriation, this can seem like a life-changingly awe inspiring view. Stay for a couple too many, however, and you will find that the dark combines with your your alcohol-impaired balance to leave you almost totally unable to move your board, laughing at yourself and your friends as you roll around on the piste like fools, looking for all the world like a beginners lesson on laughing gas. Never try this route to get a girl home from the pub on your back - it just isn't possible.
In summary, its a great area for winter sports, but also a great area for just plain travelling. Its a totally different experience from the mass tourism of skiing europe or North America. This area is still very much in transition from ordinary mountain village to international ski resort, so I guess it's a bit like stepping back in time - "How the Alps were 50 years ago." - with all the positive and negative factors that implies.
