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.