Portillo, Chile – Chile’s Hotel Portillo may be closed for the ski season, but its 9,500-foot slopes are still cranking as Bode Miller, Ted Ligety, Marco Sullivan, Steven Nyman and the men’s U.S. Alpine Ski Team wrap up their final week of camp in the Andes.

Consistent cold temperatures at the end of the camp have created good training conditions, despite the minimal snow coverage. Portillo allows the U.S. Ski Team to live and train at the mountain for an additional week after the resort has closed to the public, which provides for a variety of speed and technical training options. Athletes have been able to train downhill, super G, giant slalom and slalom on a variety of slopes, though the final week has been downhill heavy to utilize the private terrain.

“It was pretty warm before we got here, so the snow is thin, but it’s been surprisingly productive,” acknowledged Ligety, of Park City, Utah. “We have a short downhill track which allows us to work on glide turns, but we’ve been able to do almost full length giant slalom and slalom.”

Both Sullivan and Nyman have been in Chile since a mid August camp in nearby La Parva and have now continued on to Portillo, the final on-snow camp for technical skiers like Ligety, Tim Jitloff and Tommy Ford before the team moves to their European Training Base in Soelden, Austria for the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup opener on Oct. 28.

“This is week six in Chile for me, but I got a big boost when we moved over to Portillo. It’s good to have the full team down here and Portillo does a great job of taking care of us,” said Sullivan.

“It will be good to have a few more solid days of training before we race Soelden, but I feel really good,” Ligety added. “My equipment is running well and physically, I’m feeling like the season could start tomorrow.”

The Portillo camp also marked the return to snow for Olympic gold medalist Bode Miller, who has been off snow since late February with a knee injury.

“Bode mainly focused on glide turns and getting his feet back under him while he was here, but it was good to have him training with the group,” said head coach Sasha Rearick. “He was mostly in full jacket and pants, but stripped down for some downhill. He’s still pumped on skiing and looking to compete this season.”