Los Arenas, Argentina
After leaving Mendoza and cook duty behind we arrived at Los Arenas, Att.
2500m. This was my fist introduction to altitude on Hot Rock. Los Arenas,
for us, was a valley in the Andes with fantastic granite walls. The climbing
is both sport and trad and, as I discovered, some fantastic bouldering. The
walk ins are tough rising up a couple of hundred metres (at least) with a
steep gradient and less oxygen due to the altitude, but they’re worth
it. On one of my rest days I hiked up to above 3000m to make the walk in´s
easier.
Initially
I tried to top roping hard climbs to build my strength up. This turned out
to be frustrating and disappointing as I got now where. No, on one climb I
did make it to the top eventually and pulled some nice moves doing it to.
I finished that day with one easy lead. My confidence was shot by my days
performance but I got up there anyway. With hindsight my days performance
wasn´t bad, but 20-20 vision and all that.
Determined to get back into it myself, the brilliantly named Dai (pronounced
die) McFall and new to Hot Rocker Mandy took off to climb El Pasa del Condor,
140 meters of fantastic climbing. Everybody who had climbed this route was
raving about it, claiming it was the reason they started climbing in the first
place and it being the best days climbing they´d ever done. What can
I say? This route is why I took up climbing in the first place. 140 meters
of bolted bliss. Climbing as a party of 3 takes time but is still good fun.
Dai took off on the first pitch (which I would lead later) with myself and
Mandy following. The First Pitch is 4+ but feels like a 5+. Still it was a
great pitch and a fantastic lead from Dai. Up next was myself on pitch two.
I got lost, embarrassingly enough. Its just that I´m used to having
the bolts within 2 1/2 meters of each other. When the bolt is 8 meters away
its hard to find. Find it I did though attaching a sneaky sling to a flake
halfway I finally made it to the distant bolt. Run out was going to be the
name of my climbing this day. On I went through the next few easy moves and
I made it to my belay point, set up my anchors and waited for the rest.
Dai
took the lead again, delicate was going to be the name of his days climbing,
up to the party ledge. This is a ledge so big you could hold a party on it
(you get the idea). Mandy went next then I followed to take the lead on the
next pitch. Here we had a choice. There was 3 possible routes up instead of
the two we´d expected so I went the wrong way. After a nice hard bouldering
start the climbing was free and easy until the 2nd to last bolt. Once again
I couldn´t see where the next one was but unlike the second pitch I
couldn´t find the next bolt at all so I climbed onwards and upwards
to a ledge, hung around for a while until I saw the next belay a good 4 metres
traverse away. At this point I was 3 metres above my last protection. Deciding
it couldn´t be my anchor I went for it anyway only to discover the bore-hole
for the last bolt half way.
So at the top of a 7 meter pendulum I finally clipped into the anchor, which turned out to be the correct one. I belayed my companions up, switched everything around and Dai took off on the last pitch. Again very delicate climbing with a run-out scramble at the top. We had made it - we looked down into the valley for a while then started the descent home to dinner.
This was the best days climbing I´ve ever done. I´m particularly
proud of my ability to deal with such huge run outs. To be honest there was
little chance of my coming off but its still there in your head, I dealt with
it and climbed on. Still on a high from such fantastic days climbing I went
back to the same wall and led every single pitch route on it (inlcluding the
start of the Los Pasa del Condor) that I had yet to do. I was really getting
into my climbing at this point.
The following day, being our last, I went playing on some of the boulders
I had spotted earlier in the week. Now some people will wonder what the hell
I was doing bouldering with such good climbing around. Well, I love it, so
there. I really do think somebody should develop a bouldering guide to this
area, the quality and variation of problems is unbelievable. We put up a few
problems and exhausted returned to camp for food. The next morning we drove
out of Argentina for the last time.
Christmas Day
After a champagne breakfast we took off to the bouldering area again. My hands
had recovered and I took off to some problems we had found the day before.
Some were beyond me at the moment but there was lots to do anyway. Our cinematographer
Mel was there to record the days events. We put on a good display for Christmas
it had to be said. I managed pretty much everything I tried, being in better
bouldering form than the previous day and was in very good mood when we returned
to the camp site.
La
Serena´s bouldering has been developed a fair bit by the local climbers.
So the existing problems are marked and (off all things!) graded. We tried
the ones we found, we tried the our own ones, we found new existing problems.
The thing I love about bouldering is the social element of it. You get a few
people working on a problem - trying different moves, egging each other on
until somebody cracks it. Then the rest of the group finish it too. Another
thing I love is I can boulder a lot harder than I can climb. Why? I don´t
know - You´re probably safer falling onto a rope than an old worn out
bouldering mat - I just can´t seem to convince myself of this when I´m
climbing.
On
our return I helped with Christmas dinner for a while (to be honest theres
wasn´t a lot to be done) and went body surfing again. After freezing
myself to bits for a while dinner was served. Christmas dinner 2002 was fantastic.
We had steak, fish, squid, veggies and lots and lots of drink. After dinner
resident transvestite Wendy (aka: Badger) arrived as Wendy Claus and presented
us with our Chris 
Chringle
presents. My favourite was the fireworks but everybody else seemed to like
my Devils Pitchfork the best (fnarr!).
Then we starting playing volley ball. I´ve never played it before but
gave it a go anyway. It seems that the only way to play is to give it you´re
best shot and be sober. I managed one of these quite well the other I failed
on miserably. Its up to you to work out which. Somehow, in the proceedings,
volleyball turned into bury Fi in the sand. Fi is our truck driver.
How or why is a mystery as memories started to get a bit blurred at this point. The rest of the night passed with drinking, shouting, dancing and me blaming a loud fart on Mel (and getting away with it). At some point during the night I went to bed. Caelen found me on my way to the toilet at about 4 in the morning. Judging by the look on his face I wasn´t a pretty site. The next morning we drag ourselves out of bed, had breakfast, packed up and moved on to Socaire and to New Years. Scandal would be had.
Photo's and story by Phil
