Friday, September 11, 2015

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