A new approach

Caro, trying Seven Spanish Angels.

                                    

After some time off climbing and mainly focused on skiing and ski mountaneering, we are back on a climbing training cycle.  It was hard to stay away from climbing. The first couple of weeks were very hard, but i guess, once your body and mind gets used to do other things and understands that resting is as important as training, everything is much better.  That time away from the sport, helped me to come back more motivated and although I still feel weak, I can see that in a couple of weeks I will be stronger than before the break.  

Santiago Valerga warming up

I´ve always focused my climbing in either sport, trad or alpine objectives.  Within this time i came to realize that in order to see progress in my climbing, would be good to experiment a little bit harder with just plain bouldering.  That is why, when we gazed the possibility to take some days off from work and  go to Bishop, we didn´t hesitate.

Caro sending a nice V6.

Santiago Valerga in Soul Slinger

We spend 5 days camping out in Bishop. The first 4 days were very cold and finally the last day was warm.  We climbed a bunch of V2 to V5/6 problems and also did some V7´s.  I was getting close on a really nice V9, but it will have to wait for next trip.  It took us, almost the entire trip get in the bouldering mood.  Totally different approach than sport climbing.   Once we were finally getting in the groove and temps were warmer and more pleasant to climb, we had to leave.  

The last 3 days were spent at Red Rocks, in Vegas. Climbing some sport and trad routes. 

Now we are back in Colorado, skiing again and more motivated for training and getting strong for the spring plans.

We have to thanks Ian Young and Julie Trombetta for picking us up in Reno and driving us around.  Thank you so much, it was a great and fun trip.

Trying Los Cholos.

Popurri

Santiago Valerga en Dulce Duro, Piedra Parada.

It´s been a little bit of everything. It was good to spend more time than usual in Argentina,  get to climb in the local spots and get to share with local climbers. Definetely, spring, is the best time of the year to be a climber in Argentina and Chile. Since the ski resort shut down at the end of september, it´s been kind of a non stop road trip for us.  Headed to Santiago de Chile, to climb with Martina, Carolina Fritz (my wife) and Camilo, for a week. Climbed mainly in Las Chilcas. Drove all the way to San Martin de los Andes and spent some days there, climbing and bolting some new routes. A few days later we drove to Bariloche and enjoyed the unseasonable warm weather, climbed a little bit on each area and laid down at the beach by the beautiful lake on the rest days.  Drove to Piedra Parada, before the Petzl rock trip madness and enjoyed most of the routes for ourselves. Got to climb the Piedra Parada with Martina, up the most amazing line on it, Chocolate Profundo, 9 pitches, 8a / 13b.

After that we went back to Bariloche hoping to hike up to frey and do some trad climbing, but the weather got bad and we drove back to San Martin, for some more bolting and climbing in the sun.  

Every weekend drove to bariloche, to climb at Paredes Blancas, definetely an amazing laboratory of hard sport climbs and sincerely my favorite wall in Argentina, so far. 

View of San Martin de los Andes, with the full moon.

One week before the Rock Trip in Piedra, my frind Mariano Tome, flew from Buenos Aires and it was great to share the rope with him again, after many years. We climbed in San Martin for a few days and then headed to Bariloche for another 3 or 4 days. He flew back to Buenos Aires and I drove with Carolina to Piedra Parada, to find that the peaceful and quiet place we´ve been at a couple of weeks before, was hosting about 2000 people now. The event was rad. Great organization from Petzl, everything was perfect and despite the amount of people, we were able to climb at will almost every day. 

After 5 great days out there, it was time to head back to Bariloche to pick up Ian and July, friends from the States, that will be climbing in the area the next month or so. Climbed in bariloche for 2 days and drove to San Martin with them. Packed and took a bus to Santiago. Tomorrow we are flying to Aspen, back to winter times and psyched to ski and train for the next months. 

Life is great. Enjoy the pictures.

Tick list of this past month.

- Sauron 8a+, Covisal. 

- Dulce Duro 8a, Piedra Parada.

- Emocionado 8a, Pared Blanca.

- Corsario Negro 7c+, Pared Blanca.

- Anhilator 7c, Pared Blanca.

- Al Abordaje 7c, Pared Blanca.

- Forza Makita 7c, Ventana.

- Sin Nombre 7c, Piedra Parada.

y muchos 7b+, 7b y 7a.

Pared Blanca, Bariloche.

Said Beljah trying Osho, 8b+. Pared Blanca.

Refugio Cordillera, bariloche, the best place to stay.

a view of Bariloche.

Caro, Santi, Ian and July

French climber on Corsario Negro, 7c+.

Gerome Pouverau trying Osho, 8b+.

Santiago Valerga before entering the crux section on After Hour, 8b.

Said sending Emocionado, 8a.

BARILOCHE & PIEDRA PARADA

This past month, has been pretty busy. Our friend, Martina, from Austria, came to climb in south america and we had no other choice that traveling around some of the best climbing spots.
We started the trip in Chile, with some climbing days at Las Chilcas.

After some days in this sunny and hot  climbing spot, we decided to move down south, closer to home and with better climbing temperatures. We arrived in San Martin, were super pleasent temps and sunny skies welcomed us.  After showing her around our small but cool local spots, we continued down south to Bariloche. We spent almost a week in Bariloche, climbing at different spots and alternating between single pitch sport climbs and multipitch mix climbs.
After Bariloche, we headed to Piedra Parada, place where the next Petzl Rock trip will be held in november. We spent about 7 days here, testing some of the new routes bolted for the rock trip and also did an ascent of an amazing route on the Piedra Parada, called Chocolate Profundo, which is 260 mts long, 9 pitches and it goes like this: 7c / 8a / 7a+ / 7c+ / 6c / 6b / 7b+ / 6a / III.
Really cool climbing so hard pitches, so high off the ground.
That´s been our busy and fun month. Now we are back in San Martin, climbing and bolting new routes. We will post some info soon.