Disclaimer: Ryan Dunfee works for SASS, and is therefore officially pumped on every last one of you who will be attending camp this summer. He also must officially recommend that you do the opposite of most of this advice, as he would like to keep his job.

No outerwear: Should you be unfortunate enough to be headed to a summer camp with real winter conditions and god-forbid, powder, your approach should be a little different.  Outerwear selection should be chosen for lack of protection against cold and moisture instead of against sun.  Definitely no jacket, this is where cotton is king.  Rip pow all day in one tall tee over a tall-long-sleeve tee.  Make sure everyone can see you riding the chair in your insufficient outfit and getting blasted by snow and wind next to some dude in a down jacket, making him look like a total pussy.  At the end of the day, roll your kit in a knot and stick deep in your backpack.  This will ensure that when you wake the next morning, your gear will still be soaking wet, cold, and now heinously smelly, and the pro at the front of the bus will not be able to ignore it.

Dress appropriately… for the apres only: No ski trip to South America is complete without hitting on the local tail.  With more plastic surgery per capita than any other country on Earth and likely hotter girls per capita as well, Argentina is a wasteland of gorgeous women (I cannot comment on the men, although I’m sure the accent has the same effect on both sexes).  But homeboy can’t expect to suck face with the models from Las Rosas wearing a tall tee and skate shoes!  Buy the skinniest jeans you can fit your thighs into, a silk button-down shirt, some pointy leather shoes, and get ready to wear hair gel and cologne anytime you go out.  You may be disoriented by the thumping house music, but just remember that in this land, it’s the Don Juan with the tightest and most commandering game (in Spanish) that brings home the trophy.  Remember, no means yes…

SASSy…see what I did there?

Fuck with the Locals: Cultural immersion?  Fuck that.  Nothing says “I’m on vacation” like treating the nationals of a foreign country like retards.  On cultural outings and trips into town to get food, be sure to ask every local you meet to repeat what they said in English, even if they said it in English.  Make no effort to learn the language or customs and eat McDonalds the entire time.  More of a “crazy asshole” look, this works especially well if you are from Texas and ask the coaches where the Mexicans are to carry your skis to the bus.

Disappear: Nothing gives a full-service tour operator a heart attack like losing a minor in a third-world country… go for it!  Booze, women, cheap women, and drugs are all available for the enterprising American teenager with no command of the Spanish language.  Sneak out your hotel room window or disappear off the ski trail and come back three days later drunk and having just left a 12-hour binge in the whiskeria with the most suspicious-looking group of locals you can tempt to rob you.  While this is in reality completely not recommended for plenty of reasons other than making my job go smoothly, chances are Michelle Parker, Garrett Russell, and Pep Fujas will remember your name if you pull this one off.

Garrett may be lost in Argentina at this very moment.

Learn How to Ski Powder: South America is a scary place where mulitple inches of snow may fall at once, forcing you out of the park the next couple days and into “the backcountry.” Cerro Catedral, where SASS operates, is the size of Mammoth, but outside of our park it only has a few long cat tracks and less than five groomed trails to ski. The rest of the mountain will remain untracked for days after a storm.  This fretting over skiing the much-feared “blower” is mostly induced by: too much time spent on the East Coast, in the Mid-West, at Breck, or on center-mounted 169 park skis with no waist.  However, simply by renting a pair of rockered skis at camp, stealing your buddy’s Hellbents, or manning up enough to finally buy some decent all-mountain (105 in the waist, at least) skis will solve this problem, along with watching Blizzard of Ahhhhs twenty or thirty times before you leave.  If you can’t figure out how to slide your pow turns like Abma, at least you’ll know how to hop-turn!

More POV! : You’ve damn near traveled half way around the world to ski; fuckin’ right people should know your vacation went!  Remember, you’ll be getting faceshots every other turn for two weeks, and people will be licking the screen just for the taste by the time they’re done with your insane Facebook posts.  While many of the fellow shred-heads around you will be sporting at least one GoPro or Countour on the helmet, go for the gold: two on the helmet, one looking forwards and backwards (for getting the facial expressions of people you snake), one on the wrist, one on the chest, one on a pole, and one on the ski.  You may develop cancer from all the electrical activity surrounding your body while you’re on the hill, but you’ll have enough footage to make Steve Winter cry.