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| Gaby having a seat and Analia belaying in the Autodromo |
Like I've said before, La Barrosa is awesome for bouldering but kind of mediocre for routes. For roped climbing, you're much better off going to the nearby Sierra La Vigilancia or Sierra de los Difuntos. However, there are more than 50 established climbs on La Barrosa and it's not a bad place to go, if it's within walking distance from your home. The routes are very short (two bolts to four bolts in length with a few short gear routes mixed in) but tend to have hard moves for their grade and be suprisingly continuous and pumpy. .
There are three main areas for roped climbing. El Autodromo, on the west slope of La Barrosa above the Juan Manuel Fangio Racetrack has a total of 16 routes: 13 bolted and 3 short gear routes. El Bosque, in the tree covered area further south on the west slope also has 16 routes (five of which require some gear). The Matrix, on the south end of La Barrosa, has 27 routes, and handful of which require gear (some of my original routes have been retrobolted, which is fine by me).
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| Getting the clip on an 11a in the Autodromo |
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| It may be short, but it's a five star route |
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| Even after you do the crux, you still have to get to the top |
In difficulty, the routes range from about 5.8 to around 12a, with one other bolted route that is much harder (some kind of bouldery 5.13, I suppose). My hardest send since the surgeries was an 11d in the Bosque called "North American Invasion", that I did last Friday, on my third go. This is the hardest sport climb I've been able to do in around a decade.
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| Local guy, Cristian "Segu" Segura, getting the clip on North American Invasion in 2012 |
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| Climbing an 11b face in the Bosque |
So far this year I've managed 10 out of 16 of the routes in the Autodromo, 12 out of 15 in thr Bosque and 13 out of 27 in the Matrix (the weather hasn't been very conducive to climbing in the Matrix up to this point) for a total of 35 out of 58.
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| MartÃn on a short 10a face in the Autodromo |
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| There's a tricky move here |
I'm hoping I can climb 50 routes on La Barrosa this year (that will involve climbing some new ones that are kind of hard for me) and at least 150 different total pitches (so far, including the routes in Red Rocks and Prescott I've managed 69). We'll see how that goes.
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| Mica |
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| Sunset from the Autodromo |
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| Paragliding above the Autodromo on La Barrosa |
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| Buster the dog |
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| Hi Buster |
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| Close up |
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| Descending from the Autodromo with the last light |
