Valle Escondido

Bienvenidos a Valle!

Carpe diem!

Evening clouds over Rio Limay

Kinda steep

Neil contemplating chirt

Classic steep jugs

Sports-action hero!

Authentic Argentine accomodations

Hasta leugo El Chalten!

The rodeo, El Chalten

Behold, great bouldering

Silvana looking good

Stick it!

Planeta Kauffman...

After a few weeks of fun bouldering in El Chalten, los Hermanos boarded a north-bound bus for Bariloche. 30 plus hours and multiple bad American movies later, we arrived in this great city just east of the Andes in Northern Patagonia's Lake District. Bariloche offers lots of sunny weather, chocolate shops on every street, urban culture, and two of Argentina's best climbing areas; Frey and Valle Encantado. The granite spires of Frey are just a few hours hike above the city in an excellent alpine setting. Valle is located 65km down the Rio Limay in a drier, warmer climate, invaded by pine trees and littered with amazing volacanic tuff. This is definately the training ground for many of Argentina's strongest climbers. Joel and I arrived determined to get back into hard climbing shape; it didn't take long. Most of the climbs here are steeper than they first appear with amazing, deep pockets, always fighting the pump clock! We were able to climb 5 days with 2 days of rest; its amazing how fast the arms grew and the "alpine layer" melted away. We are now back in Bariloche visiting Aussie runaways Marcus and Cerin and eating bife, chocolate and winos! Resting hardcore for two days, then back to the Argentine send-bot factory! 7b here we come!!!