Fonrouge-Bertoncelj III 5.10+, La Deriva de los Incontinentes III 5.10+ Campanile Esloveno, Patagonia, Argentina Del Frente II 5.9 Aguja La Vieja, Patagonia, Argentina Sifuentes-Weber II 5.9 Aguja Frey, Patagonia, Argentina Hayden Miller (‘10)
T
im Gibson (‘10) and I had just gotten down from La deriva de los Incontinentes, a 400 foot slab on perfect golden, alpine granite. We both had huge smiles on our faces and had begun the now standard declaration of all the same superlatives that had followed every climb we had done so far. Perfect. Amazing. Classic. And so on. After a quick bite to eat and some water, we threw our gear in our bags and started hiking to the next climb. The area we were in is known as Frey, which is comprised of two alpine cirques dotted with hundreds of small granite spires above the northern Patagonian town of Bariloche, Argentina.
While approaching the base of the next tower, Tim turned around, looked at me, and said, “This is my favorite place in the world.” Tim and I had now been in Argentina for four weeks. The first portion of our trip had been an intensive senior capstone class for our geology major at CC were we traveled from East to West studying the geology of the Andean range as it changed from the foothills outside of Cordoba to high peaks around Aconcagua. Since the class took place during sixth block, we were able to stay to spend spring break in Argentina. A 15 hour bus ride after the class had ended up dropping us in the Northernmost region of Patagonia where we planned on hiking into the mountains and putting to use the full rack and two ropes we had been carrying around with us for the last month. Both of us had read amazing things about the region online and the few pictures we had found showed very high quality rock in an amazing alpine setting. However, neither one of us were prepared for how good this place truly turned out to be. The rock was as good as Yosemite, with patina face features like Bishop, in a wilderness alpine setting like Rocky Mountain National Park. Oh yeah, and there is next to nobody there. The five days we spent in the mountains were certainly some of the best I have ever spent climbing. We arrived in Patagonia late in the season (March), but were lucky to get very good weather. Although we had one day that the wind made climbing too unbearable to consider, we had nothing along the lines of entire trips spent in the tent à la Fitz Roy. Furthermore, the size and proximity of the climbs allowed us to either climb multiple towers in a day or just leisurely get up stuff and enjoy the amazing scenery. Often we found ourselves enjoying a nice lunch in an alpine meadow playing on the perfect boulders sitting below the spires. While I was not willing to say it at the time, all and all, Frey might be the best climbing area in the world. [This page] Hayden Miller, racked and ready below one of the granite spires, La Aguja Frey. Shorts and a teeshirt in Patagonia? Count us in! Tim Gibson
72 CCAJ