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

Patagonia: Random Pics from the Chocolateria

[caption id="attachment_621" align="aligncenter" width="409" caption="La Choco"][/caption]

One of my favorite places to hang out at in El Chalten is the Chocalateria josh Aike. Great coffee, awesome chocolate, sick brownies, rustique atmosphere and loads of climbing mags.

[caption id="attachment_611" align="aligncenter" width="403" caption="Josh Aike Chocolateria"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_607" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="Paradise"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_614" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="David vs the choclateria."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_610" align="aligncenter" width="409" caption="Andreas Bergström dreaming."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_608" align="aligncenter" width="409" caption="Anabel making some of the best chocolate out there."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_619" align="aligncenter" width="448" caption="Magnus and Thomas."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_618" align="aligncenter" width="614" caption="David"][/caption]

Patagonia: An inspired Moment

Thanks to Seba at Aylen Aike for making our stay so pleasant. Thomas posing for the wall of fame.

After a wet departing party for some gringos and long night and a long night that ended up at the lokal Tango place in El Chalten, Thomas Meling and I got inspired to make use of the last little window of good weather. We started our hike up to Paso Guillamet after an early dinner and made it up to the bivi well past midnight. After a few houres sleep in the pass followed by a shot of coffee and some Clif bars we started scrambing up the Brenner route in head lights and summited at 8.30 am. We rapped the Amy couloir and were back by 10 just as the wind picked up, just as the forcast had predicted. A mellow lunch at the pass before we raced down the talus and made it back to the Rio Electrico bridge in 2.40 h. 17.40 CTC. Way better than submitting to being hung over and watching movies at the hostel.

Scrambling in magic morning light. Fhoto: Thomas Meling

Patagonia, a late update.

A lot of stuff has been going on over last couple of weeks but too slow inetrnet connection. David and I have mostly unsucessfully attempted various things. A lot of cool stuff has been done by other climbers. Such as Magnus Eriksson's and Thomas Meling's integral ascent of the Mate y Porro" on the north pillar of Fitzroy just houres after the first complete ascent. Here are a few pics from David's and my attempt of the Pendulorama-Kearney/Night on the north pillar of Fitz. Unfortunately David got sick and started puking on the first bivi. A pity since conditions were perfect.  The pendulorama variation was not as bad as people have been saying and is in my opinion an excellent option if the gully from the other side isn't in. A brilliant line in it's whole that's worth coming back for. Definately! We descended via the regular approach gully (bowling alley). Not recomended in warm weather! To quote Jules in Pulp Fiction: "That was divine intervention".

[caption id="attachment_576" align="aligncenter" width="553" caption="Stemming up a not to bad corner on the Pendulorama. Photo: David Fält"][/caption]

 

 

Southward bound

For some reason I'm really psyched about the winter that has arrived way too early and actually pretty exited that the ice is building rapidly. I never thought that I would care much for ice climbing other than as a substitute for proper climbing but it seems I was dead wrong. I’ve really been looking forward to this season. And what seems even more alarming is that I seem to have got all caught up in the alpine game and the other day I bought tickets to Buenos Aires with El Chalten in Patagonia as the final destination. One month of alpine climbing or at least the chance to do some of it if weather provides an opportunity. How did this happen? Ok, I've always enjoyed long routes in the mountains every now and then and been on a few trips to Greenland for example, but that's mainly been long rock routes with some alpine approaches. But this? Now I'm actually looking forward to climbing some icy couloirs and chopping ice out of cracks. Naïve probably!

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="619" caption="The hills outside Antalya"][/caption]

Now we, Sofia and I that is, just spent a week in Geyikbayiri in Mediterranean Turkey. This was our first trip together without kids since we had any at all and it was a holiday for sure! One week of limestone sports climbing on sick karst formations in beautiful settings, nice and perfect temps and more or less full board lodging, as far from dirt bagging you can imagine. So good! Climbing in and around the caves offers varied and three dimensional climbing on mostly tufa formations and a lot of the routes we climbed were 35m+. We rented a cabin at JoSiTo’s campground which served pretty decent food as well. For breakfast there where various options such as Scrambled eggs or fruit salad and dinners where rather huge portions of home made cross over cuisine. In short, a perfect holiday destination.

[caption id="attachment_421" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Goat."][/caption]

 We also got the opportunity to take a rest day and go into Antalya and paid a visit to a 600 year old Hammam, a Turkish bath house, or spa if you prefer. What could possibly be better than getting scrubbed by a big hairy Turkish man? The experience was definitely worth the money. The rest of the day was spent in the old town drinking freshly squeezed orange and pomegranade juice and, checking out turkish fast food and haggling. A part from that Antalya wasn't quite my cup of tea.

Summing the climbing all up I think it’s a long time since I climbed so well, consistently on sighting nearly everything that came in my way and feeling a playful ease while climbing. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been climbing a lot and training a fair bit, if it’s because this type of climbing suites me, if the ratings are a tad soft or just because I simply didn’t really care if I would fail. Never the less it was fun to boost the ego a bit. Sof flashed 7c and 7b+ and I managed to do 15 routes betwwen 7c and 8a on sight  (10/11 7c,  3/4 7c+ and 1/7 8a) in five days of climbing. I didn’t try one single route twice. Now it’s time to get fit for Patagonia. Bombah!

[caption id="attachment_422" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Morning yoga on the porch."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_443" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Crag dogs"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_444" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Sofia climbing in to the mist at Sarkit"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_446" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Olli Petteri Manni"][/caption]