Patagonia: Bouldering snippets

One of the best suprises with the climbing around El Chalten was probably not the long approaches but rather that the hillsides around town hosted some good bouldering. Good as in really good bouldering. Recently I read something like "Bouldering in Patagonia is like masturbating in a whore house". Who knows, maybe it's true, but the fact that the weather can be really shit in the Patagonian mountains while it can be bearable or even quite decent in the valley makes such a statement pretty lame if not down right stupid, at least if you love climbing more than you love feeling sorry for yourself and complaining about the weather. Quite a few days during our trip in February where spent flogging ourselves on the boulders on the hillsides around El Chalten. Here are a few pics plus a video clip.

Josh Finkelstein attempting one of Chaltens top notch test pieces, Gato Negro.

Warton spots Finkelstein on Gato Negro

Pad people heading home from the hills

French Connections

Wulfman warming up on Balla Ballar

Last Saturday Daniel Andersson had a particularly good day of sports climbing at Östnoraberget, half an hour of south of Stockholm, sending both Arc de Triomphe and Vive la France in an annoyingly easy manner making the rest of us look even weaker and more uncoordinated than usual.

Daniel Andersson cruising up Arc de Triomphe.

Crusher Andersson, Arc de Triomphe.

Danne Andersson cruising again, this time on Vive la France.

El Corall, Simon Andersson looking french.

We are brave

Parts of the Tatatataa collective joined us to Åland over Easter. Martin filmed and and edited in his usual manner.

Aurinko paistaa

Olli struggling to hang on to the slopers on Lähetyssaarnaaja at E75.

Eevi on a pretty nice arete.

Mainland Finland probably isn't famous for it's climbing but for sure there are a couple of gems. Two of them are Falkberget and the sandstone!!?? bouldering area E75 close to Lahti. A couple of weekends ago I was invited show some slides (pics) and got the opportunity to climb at these two locations. Nice rock, cool routes, great friends and beautiful spring weather. I was probably most pleased with flashing the crack Charlatan at Falkberget.

Easter was spent at the more popular destination in the Åland archipelago. More about that later.