For most skiers, “all-inclusive” means a lift ticket and a buffet. Forrest Schmidt means something very different: a hot titanium stove in a tipi, filet mignon next to a steaming hot spring, and ancient araucaria trees holding cold smoke over a perfectly set skintrack.
Schmidt, a 44-year-old “East Coast kid” from rural New York, runs APEX Andes (Andes Puro Exploraciones) out of Malalcahuello in Chile’s Araucanía region. His guide service is small by design with no more than six guests on all-inclusive trips and is built around one idea: he and his team handle everything so you can just ski.
“The idea is that you go out with us, you don’t think about anything, you just enjoy and really be present,” he says. “You know, the connection is a huge thing for us.”
A Local Operation In A Big Corner Of The Andes
APEX is based near the Corralco ski area, in a landscape of active volcanoes and araucaria forests. Schmidt describes APEX as “the premier guide service in our region,” with long-term relationships with Chilean landowners and Mapuche communities. The company offers day tours, volcano summits on Tolhuaca, Lonquimay, Sierra Nevada, and Llaima, plus six- to 11-day all-inclusive programs for intermediate to expert backcountry skiers and splitboarders. Even day tours are door-to-door.
“Even with your day outings, we pick you up at your place. The idea is you get off the plane and don’t think about a single thing, and just enjoy 10 days of relaxed vacation,” he says.
Most of the travel is human-powered, with occasional snowmobile shuttles to cut long, flat approaches. “Primarily we skin to shred,” Schmidt says. “Earning turns on skins.” What he leans on hardest is local knowledge—efficient climbs, smart terrain choices, and good snow. “When you come out, you’re going to have the most efficient up and the best snow quality every single day,” he says. “And a lot of that is due to being truly local.”
Signature Trips
Grand Slam Tour: 4 volcanoes in 10 days
The flagship itinerary is the Grand Slam: four volcanoes in ten days. Guests tick off Tolhuaca, Lonquimay, Sierra Nevada, and Llaima, stringing together big descents and hot-spring finishes. Tolhuaca is remote and rarely skied in a day—unless you know the shortcut.
“Most people do it in two days. Because we’re local, we have the good route. It’s one of the most impressive volcanic summits here; you actually stand on a pinnacle that overlooks everything below you; you can see 13 volcanoes on the horizon.”
Lonquimay mixes ski-area access with backcountry laps into the crater. Llaima is tall and wild, with sometimes rough skiing off the summit if coverage isn’t perfect. Sierra Nevada, though, is the heart of the program.
“My favorite is by far the Sierra Nevada,” Schmidt says. “It’s really spread out and has more lines than I think I can ride in my lifetime. But I’m trying.”
One of his favorite routes runs from the summit straight down to the Cañón Blanco hot tubs—“a really nice way to wrap up a big day in the mountains.”
Backcountry Ski & Ride — 9 days
The Backcountry Ski & Ride package is a nine-day, mostly guided trip (seven guided days plus a couple of resort days), built as a sampler of the zone: volcano objectives, storm-day trees, and some lift-served skiing to save legs and stack vert.
Best timing? Fly into Temuco (ZCO) between late July and mid-September. Schmidt points to one sweet spot in particular:
“Every year we get a big storm right around the 18th, which is also the Independence Day here in Chile. It can be a really fun mix to see how we party here and also get some pow turns in.”
Hot Tent Program — 9 days / 2 nights in a tipi
If there’s one product he really wants people to know about, it’s the hot tent trips.
A premium nine-day version includes seven guided ski days, two nights at a luxury riverside lodge, and two nights in a heated tipi already pitched deep in the backcountry. Guests bring only a daypack; beds, seating, and all meals are provided.
“The hot tent is something that changes what people think about winter camping,” he says. “Because of the titanium stoves that we have and that we have all the sleeping comforts. We have nice chairs with lamb skins that everybody gets to utilize the whole time, and we also eat like kings, stacked wine. Yeah, we just eat really good.”
Think filet mignon, proper sides, and good wine—sometimes right next to hot springs.
Snow, Trees, And A Cooling Micro-Climate
Despite being farther south, Schmidt argues that his snowpack is better and drier than more famous zones like Villarica, thanks to geography and the absence of a large nearby lake.
“Our snow is really good quality snow. I wouldn’t be here if the pow wasn’t good,” he says. “The benefit that we have is that there’s no lake close by, and our snow stays drier for it.”
The volcanoes sit on the front of the Cordillera and help trap cold on the backside.
“They kind of create a cooling micro climate behind them,” he explains. “We reap the benefits of that and we spend a lot of time riding wide tree zones 2,000 meters (6,000 feet) and below, because it conserves the snow quality.”
Terrain ranges from mellow, 30-degree bowls to true “how steep can you ski” faces.
Skiing Through 1,000-Year-Old Araucaria Trees
If APEX has an iconic image, it’s a skintrack winding through araucaria trees after a storm. These gnarled, spiny evergreens can live for over a thousand years and have fed Mapuche communities for millennia.
“They capture my heart and a lot of other people’s too,” Schmidt says. “Talk about a perfectly designed tree to be really strong over time.”
Their geometry fascinates him. “Where the branches come out of them, it always grows six of them, and it looks like a perfect star,” he says. On a powder morning, snow clinging to their branches throws the trees into sharp relief. “The way the snow hangs in them creates a really nice contrast—just the softness of it and puffiness.”
After a winter back in Colorado, that’s what he missed most. “It was good being back in the north in the snow again, but I was already just jonesing to be in our forest down here. There’s another energy to them all the way around.”
Culture
Forrest talks almost as much about food and culture as he does about ski lines. The all-inclusive programs include a restaurant circuit in Malalcahuello and chances to meet local ranchers and Mapuche families. “When we’re here, we do a tour of restaurants and let people really experience all of the different cuisines that are here and the local flavor,” he says. “One of the most enjoyable things about vacation is eating and eating well. And one of the most difficult things on a vacation is eating and eating well.” APEX works closely with two main lodging partners: a high-end timber lodge on the river with hot tubs, a gym, a wet bar, and an in-house chef, plus a more affordable, social hostel used for the budget hot-tent option. They also place custom groups in standalone cabins.
The connection with the local Mapuche people is deliberate. Early on, Schmidt almost launched a snowmobile-based cultural tour business; that idea morphed into guiding, but the relationships remained a core part of APEX. “Culture is one of the huge things,” he says. “Giving back to the actual culture here and trying to change what the world view is. When you meet them face to face, you realize all it takes is a bad egg to just fuck up all of it.”
Araucanía Avalanche Advisory
With no national avalanche bulletin in Chile, Schmidt eventually decided he’d better start something himself.
During COVID, when resorts closed and novices poured into the backcountry, he noticed kids skiing serious zones with no rescue plans and little understanding of risk.
“There were kids out in zones, like where we go, you know, but with no idea what they were putting themselves into,” he says. “People say the south is flat in Chile, and if you’ve ever been to the south, you’ll fully disagree.”
In 2020 he formed a local group, started running practice days, and launched the Araucanía Avalanche Advisory—the first public avalanche information of any kind in the country. Right now, it’s a crowd-informed, conditions-based advisory highlighting when, where, and what kind of avalanche problems exist. Long term, he wants to grow it into a true forecast center: weather stations, snow-study plots, and a small staff to collect real-time data. “By no means is it perfect,” he says. “But as we get more qualified people in the zone, we can start to weigh in and help improve that advisory. Hopefully [it becomes] a model of a program that can work in Chile on a small scale, and hopefully, in the end, get the government to back it.”
From Greek Peak To The Andes
Schmidt’s path to running an Andean guide service started in central New York, on a small hill called Greek Peak. A friend handed him a snowboard when he was 12; he was hooked. He became an instructor, went to college, and then bailed.
“I realized that I loved what I was studying, but it just wasn’t anything that created the same kind of fire that being on my board did,” he says.
He chased certifications, moved to Mammoth, worked as an instructor, then managed a ski shop until he left in 2013. “I decided to do something drastic and just go somewhere I’d never done back to back winters. So I took my unemployment money and I came to Chile and really quickly fell in love with the culture and the mountains.”
The move stuck. After years exploring Chile’s central Andes, he committed to Malalcahuello, built APEX, and hasn’t looked back. “Everywhere I look, there’s new inspirations, and there’s new lines and new peaks,” he says. “Eight years touring in a zone, and I really still have no itch to leave.”
He laughs when I tell him he sounds younger than 44. “I think the only thing I can attribute that to is like chasing what I love to do all the time,” he says. For his guests, that obsession shows up as a simple promise: the best snow he can find for your level, the most efficient uptrack he knows, a hot meal, and a bed—whether that’s a timber lodge on the Cautín River or a warm tipi tucked under thousand-year-old trees.
