🇦🇷 Argentina · Patagonia
Cerro Chapelco is the ski resort of San Martín de los Andes, one of the most prestigious and scenic in Argentine Patagonia, about 20 km from town, in the province of Neuquén. Famous for its views over Lake Lácar and Lanín volcano, it combines quality snow, well-designed runs for every level and the Andean-Patagonian forests of the lake district.
Through the winter (July to September-October, depending on the snow), Chapelco draws skiers and snowboarders for its runs, its ski school and its services at the base and up the mountain. The 2026 season marks a before and after: on 8 July the resort opens a new 10-person gondola that climbs from the base to the 1,600 level in five minutes, along with paved parking, more snow cannons and a refurbished mountain lodge, the biggest transformation in its history. It's a resort on a friendlier scale than the big complexes, much loved by families and by anyone after good skiing with fewer crowds.
Beyond the skiing, Chapelco is part of the tourist circuit of San Martín de los Andes, the Seven Lakes Route and Lanín National Park. In summer it offers mountain activities, scenic chairlift rides, hiking and mountain biking. Its mix of lake-and-volcano scenery, snow quality and the elegance of nearby San Martín de los Andes makes it one of the most complete mountain destinations in the south.
Cerro Chapelco grew as a ski resort tied to the tourism growth of San Martín de los Andes and the creation of Lanín National Park. Through the second half of the 20th century it modernized until it became one of the main ski resorts of the Neuquén lake district. The full version is on the history page.
Read the full history ↓The province of volcanoes, lakes and the araucaria: Pehuenche and Mapuche land in northern Patagonia, world capital of the giant dinosaurs, heart of the Vaca Muerta shale and gateway to the Route of the Seven Lakes.
Read the history of Neuquén →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
There is a moment, climbing towards the summit of Chapelco on a clear winter morning, when the forest opens and the snowy cone of Lanín volcano appears all at once, floating above Lake Lácar: for many skiers, that view is the reason they come back to this Neuquén mountain year after year rather than to bigger, busier resorts. But before the chairlifts and gondolas there were men who walked up the mountain with wooden skis on their shoulders. In the 1940s, pioneers such as Américo Astete and Federico Graeff pushed skiing in San Martín de los Andes and on the Chapelco range, when the town was barely a frontier settlement founded by the Army on 4 February 1898.
On 1 May 1948 the first mountain refuge opened at the 1,730 level, named Federico Graeff after the pioneer. In 1953 a group of enthusiasts cleared the forest with machetes to open the mountain's first ski run: that's how, by sheer arm strength, the ski area thousands of skiers use every winter was born. The setting could not have been better: Andean-Patagonian forests, the Lake Lácar basin below and Lanín volcano —3,776 meters of perfect cone— presiding over the horizon.
The technological leap came in 1963, when the first lift went in: a double chairlift that put an end to walking up with skis on your shoulder and formally began Chapelco's development as a ski resort. In 1970, with provincial government funding, two more lifts were added, and in 1973 the concession to develop the resort as a whole was awarded, opening a stretch of sustained growth.
The 1970s were the decade of professionalization. On 31 July 1974 the Chapelco Ski School was founded; it marked its half century in 2024 and produced generations of instructors and of San Martín kids who made their first turns on these runs. In 1983 came the biggest milestone: the installation of the gondola, which made Chapelco one of the most modern ski resorts in South America at the time. In the 1990s more runs and lifts were built, expanding the mountain's capacity and offering; it established itself as one of Patagonia's leading snow destinations alongside the rise of San Martín de los Andes as a prestigious mountain destination, in the same league as Bariloche but on a smaller scale and with a more intimate feel.
Unlike the bigger, busier complexes, Chapelco built a reputation as a friendlier, more family-oriented resort, prized for the quality of its snow, the design of its runs and, above all, its unique views. The elegance of nearby San Martín de los Andes, with its log-and-stone mountain architecture, its chocolate shops, its craft breweries and its excellent Patagonian food —venison, wild boar, trout, wild mushrooms—, reinforced the appeal of the whole and helped position the town as an all-round destination, able to combine winter sport with an urban life sophisticated by Patagonian standards.
The mountain's integration into the regional tourist circuit —the Seven Lakes Route towards Villa La Angostura, Lanín National Park with the volcano of the same name, the Lácar, Lolog and Machónico lakes, and the vast forests of coihue, raulí and araucaria— established Chapelco not only as a winter ski resort but as a year-round mountain destination, with summer trekking, downhill mountain biking, ziplines and scenic chairlift rides that stretch the tourist season beyond the snow. That diversification proved key to the resort's economic sustainability, since it no longer depends solely on the winter months for income.
The name 'Chapelco' comes from the Mapuche language and is usually read as 'watering place' or 'place of Chapel's water', in reference to the streams and wet meadows of the area. For centuries this whole lake region of southern Neuquén was part of the territory of the Mapuche people, who lived among the forests of pehuén (araucaria araucana, the sacred 'pine' whose nuts were an essential food), raulí, coihue and lenga, and in the valleys around Lake Lácar and Lanín volcano, a mountain of deep sacred value in their worldview, tied to deities and forces of nature that to this day are the object of respect and ceremony for the Mapuche communities of the area.
This territory was only incorporated into the Argentine state towards the end of the 19th century, in the course of the so-called 'Conquest of the Desert', the military campaign that between 1878 and the mid-1880s subjugated the Indigenous peoples of Patagonia and the pampas and brought their lands under state control, at an enormous human and cultural cost to Indigenous communities. After that campaign, the Army founded San Martín de los Andes on 4 February 1898 as a strategic point for controlling the border with Chile, amid the boundary disputes of the time between the two countries. The Mapuche presence, however, endured and remains a fundamental part of the region's identity: many communities live today in the area of Lanín National Park —Curruhuinca, Painefilú and others—, and the place names, the culture, the weaving and silverwork, and the traditions of the area keep a strong Indigenous stamp that coexists with the tourist and European stamp brought by later colonization.
That historical and cultural background is inseparable from the landscape visitors enjoy on the mountain today: the names of the lakes, hills and settlements, and the presence of Lanín on the horizon, point to a history far older than skiing, one worth knowing and respecting. Many local tour operators and guides now include information about Mapuche culture on their trips, a gesture of recognition towards the first inhabitants of these mountains.
Over the last few decades, Cerro Chapelco kept modernizing and diversifying, consolidating its place as one of the most complete and best-loved ski resorts in Patagonia. In 2025 a new concession was signed that opened the biggest transformation in its history: for the 2026 season, which starts on 8 July, the mountain opens a new 10-passenger gondola capable of carrying 3,000 people an hour from the base to the 1,600 level in barely five minutes, paved parking with twice the capacity, a smart locker system (the first in Argentina), more than 2,000 new rental sets, additional snow cannons and a refurbished mountain lodge. On top of that, from 2026 helmets are compulsory for all snow activities.
Beyond winter, Chapelco bet heavily on becoming a year-round mountain destination. In the warm season the chairlift runs for sightseeing and the mountain offers trekking trails, downhill mountain bike circuits, ziplines and adventure activities, making the most of the spectacular frame of Lake Lácar and Lanín volcano. That stretches the tourist season and diversifies the economy of San Martín de los Andes.
Today the mountain is an inseparable part of one of the most beautiful tourist circuits in Argentina, combining the Seven Lakes Route, Lanín National Park, the Andean-Patagonian lakes and forests and elegant San Martín de los Andes. Its mix of good skiing, lake-and-volcano scenery, human scale and quality services keeps it among the great mountain destinations of southern Argentina.