Boulder over here, boulder over there

A beautiful V1 boulder problem in La Curva

For these past few weeks have I've been bouldering three to four days a week. In fact, except for one day in El Bosque of La Barrosa whn I took my niece, Lisette, and her newlywed husband, Trevor, to try a few routes, I haven't been roped climbing since the time with Martín and Analía from the last blog post.

Beautiful high V0 boulder on the face below the cave 

Reach the jug

Finishing up the same problem

A V1 problem on the face to the left of the previous problem

A delicate move out left is followed by a strong move up to a jug

Ever since I first started climbing, bouldering has been an integral part of my practice. I'm not very good at it in terms of modern day levels of difficulty, but that doesn't matter. I encounter almost every aspect that I find valuable in climbing when I go bouldering. There is challenge (both physical ands mental), fun, training, struggle, flow, meditation, concentration, adventure, peace, conflict, solitude, sociality, fellowship, competition, communion with nature, outright war against nature, joy in movement, frustration in movement, beauty, ugliness, learning, fear, confidence, sharing, ego, pride, humility, maening and release in climbing little rocks, without a rope, sometimes at the absolute limites of my ability and sometimes well within these limits. I bouldered on a regular basis without pads and often alone in Washington State, Utah and Argentina for more than 20 years, Now that I have two artificial hips, I take pads everywhere I go,

A challenging V3 problem in La Cueva

Footwork is key on this part

There are more than 600 established boulder problems an La Barrosa. We have an abundance of moderate problems but also a surprising amount (at least to me) of difficult problems. There are literally dozens of double digit problems, at least four different V12s  and one, burly V13, put up by Nicholas Pacheko and unlikely to be repeated in the near future. At any rate, given my current bouldering abilities I think it's clear to say I have more than a lifetime of boulder projects awaiting me on this little sierra, just minutes from my house.

Martin and me bouldering in La Curva

There are four cross sections of bouldering bands in La Curva. This band is the first cross section. 

Martín on a tricky start to a V3 problem on the first band of boulders in La Curva.

Mierda!

My turn

Got it!

Almost there

The top`out's over here.

This V2 problem on the third band has a funky top out. 

Martín working the heel hook to try to get the move.  

One day I went out with the local guys

Lu, Kari, Mati and Segu at the third band in La Curva

Mati climbs the beautiful V1

My second time up the V2 with the funky top out in the third band 

Lu on one of the cooler problems in La Curva. She recently sent her first V6

One move further on

Kari working a heinous sit start V5

I managed to send this thing. This kids tell me it's V4, which is pretty hard for me

You have to fight a bit not to swing off coming out of the cave

When you're a pasty old fat guy, these kinds of moves are all about footwork and tension in the body

The next move is a big one for me

Now heel hook to get the top out

Scrunch up over that hip!

Marian Vago sends a V5 roof problem

Late evening coming down from La Curva

The last one down

Spring is here

The cherry tree in my backyard looking spring-ish

Spring weather in Balcarce can be pretty variable. Cold and windy with intermittent drizzle one day then pounding rain the next, and then, suddenly, a run of sunny days with excellent climbing conditions. So far this season has had some fairly cooperative climate conditions for climbing and I've been getting out about as much as my body can handle.

When Gaby and I arrived to Balcarce in 1996 we didn't find any other climbers in town. There was a small group of active climbers from Mar del Plata who had previously established a number of routes in Sierra de los Difuntos and La Vigilancia but it would be several more years before they would venture out to try the bouldering on La Barrosa. Now, more than 19 years later there is a small but very active group of climbers who live in Balcarce. We call ourselves "CELB" for "Cento Escalada La Barrosa" and most of the younger locals are climbing harder than Gaby and I ever did. On Saturday, the 19th of September, CELB hosted its first ever climbing festival, "Balcarce Escala 2015". The event was organized by Matias Mollano, his wife Kari, Diego "Tower" de la Torre and my wife Gaby. My self-appointed role was that of "participant".

Local climbers from Balcarce working at the check-in table

All and all about 150 pàrticipants showed up and the boulder fest took place in a recently developed sector called "La Curva". I had only been to the area a couple of times just the week before and one of those days I was fried from climbing the day before, so there was plenty of new stuff for me to check out on the day of the festival. 

Participants watching a climber trying to send at the Balcarce Escala festival

How did my Organic crashpad get there?

The kids had marked about a total of 50 different problems with chalk circles indicating the starts and the top outs. The easy problems (up to around V4) were marked with green cicles and the harder problems (from about V5 to around V8) were marked with pink circles. No points were assigned and no scoring system was utilized. The idea was just to try and send as many problems as you like.

Fighting to get one of the green problems

There is a really nice problem that comes out of that little cave

There was an exhibition final planned for the end of the day but Martín showed up pretty late in the afternoon and I wanted to climb some more boulders with him so I missed out on this part of the festival. However Analia (Martin's wife) was there and got some photos of the kids on one of the exhibition boulders, a V7 originally climbed by local guy Cristian "Segu" Segura.

The scene for the exhibition final of the boulder fest

Santiago Gonzales flashing the V7 in the exhibition part of the festival

Santi finishing up the flash

Segu showing how to do his problem at the boulder fest

Besides all the bouldering, I also managed to climb a few days at La Vigilancia.

Martín climbing a 5.9 in La Vigilancia

The photos are of four new 5.9s in "El Nido" that were bolted just the day after the bopulder fest on La Barrosa. We also did the four other fine face climbs just to the right of the rappel in El Nido.

Analía climbs a 5.9 in El Nido

Martín getting over the initial buldge on a new 5.9 route in La Vigilancia

Martín higher up on the same route

We also did eight good routes in a new area called "Chiavolandia" and nine routes that I had done before in past years in "El Boque" (this is "El Bosque" de La Vigilancia and not El Bosque de La Barrosa). Nothing too difficult in the list: nine of the routes were 5.9, 15 were 6a or 6a+ (easy 5.10) and one route was 6b+ (probably 11a in US grades). This brings me to grand total of 146 different routes for the year.

Spring is coming

Gaby and Diego "Tower" de la Torre in la Vigilancia

It's cold today (there was a tiny bit of snow last night) but for the past few weeks the weather has been pretty much ideal for climbing, so I've been doing about as much of that activity as my body can handle. The climbing in Balcarce is very physically demanding and I am basically incapable of climbing anywhere near my limit for two days in a row. About the most I can manage after a hard day, is a few easy routes. During the week about my main option to climb (for lack of partners) is bouldering. Even though I'd like to climb more during the week, if I want to do anything more than weakly flail on the boulders, I need to take a rest day.

A few weekends back I went to the bosque with Gaby, Martín and Analìa. As I've m,entioned before, these were the first climbs I put up on Las Barrosa and there are about 15 short routes on two parallel bands of rock. So far this year I've manged to send all but one of these. What's left to do is a bouldery 7a roof problem called "El Pendulin de la Morsa".

El Pendulín has a little bouldery 5.10 move at the start

After that, there's a no hands rest before the crux

The first of three hard moves

This is the first time I've tried the route in about a decade, so I think just giving it a go counts as some kind of advance. However, I was unable to manage the powerful three move crux.

Martín afterr finishing up the last climb of the day in La Vigilancia

The past couple of weekends I went to La Vigilancia, once with Gaby, once with Gaby and Diego "Tower" de la Torre and once with Martín. 

Climbing an easy warm up route in La Vigilancia

Tower finishing up the same 5+ warm up route

Gaby gets ready to go

Diego finishes up another 5+ route

What's that?

All and all we added 13 routes to the year's list, including 7 routes I'd never done before. Highlights included a 6b omsight (my third this year) and a 6b+ that I almost onsighted and then sent pretty solidly on my second go. This is my first 6b+ of year that wasn't on La Barrosa (my home turf) and my second brand new 6b+ (the other being in El Autodromo). .

Tower flashing the crux of a 6b

Diego higher up on the same route

I also made a pretty good shot at red pointing a 7a that I'd never tried before. I figured out a sequence of moves that gets me up the thing. However, in 5 attempts over two days the best I could do was get to the chains after two hangs.

Gaby wishes me luck

This is going to be effing hard

The old, fat guy having a go at a 7a.

This takes my grand total of differnt routes, so far this year, to 121 (including two more routes redpointed on La Barossa since my last post). I also managed to send a couple of personal projects on the boulders. Nothing too hard gradewise, but stuff that thwarted me on various earlier attempts, none-the-less.

Martín in La Vigilancia