Escalando en el Cajòn Arenales

Many thanks, the leatherman has been indespensible from cooking to gear repair and all the places inbetween. I still have both of my arms. Don´t worry.

Asado

May, Emily, Mika, Hanna, Peter, Abbot, Nick, Evan, Justinand the rest of the crew.
Who´s interested?

Chacos. Need I say more?

Granite Goodness

Up the valley

One of our many sun bathing friends

Arenales. I don´t even know where to begin. Nothing there but cows, climbers, caballeros, the gendamerie and the seemingly endless amount of rosy granite.

In comparison to Matienzo Arenales is teaming with life. There is a plethora of spikey pokey plants and shrubs, small song birds, Andean Condors, spiders, and multiple species of lizards among other things. Much more exciting than scree as far as the eye can see.

Group climbing trips brought me back to ae week trips and those out to Vantage and Si. Having gotten use to climbing with certain people I kept turning around expecting to see you all there with me.

The group was 7 including myself, 2 instructors and 4 other students. The US is beyond me, despite signing waivers enough to sell my soul we were only allowed to top rope/mock lead due to IWLS/AMG´s insurance policy. When will people get over themselves and realize that shit happens and you might as well be having fun when it does? It's really utterly and truely rediculous. Torturous to be in Areneales and not be able to lead.

The climbing that we got in was really good. But with our group and how we worked we didn´t get in nearly as much as I was hoping to. There is everything there; sport, trad, and bouldering ranging from small and crimpy to jammy cracks. The only way I can put it into proportion is that there is enough rock to climb new and different routes all day every day for the rest of this life and a few after that. Insane and beautiful.

In addition to climbing we did a lot with building various kinds of anchors, practicing knots and different rope systems. We also ate a lot of meat. So much that it´s been joaked that we'll soon be meat intolerant. Three asados and a bit later. eek but I hadn´t tasted meat until I´d eaten asado here. Slow cooked goodness.

At one of the asados we had camp guests a group of three other americans from Mamoth and Yosemite, their friend from Germany and two friends of one of our guides Mike. Mike is originally from Washington but moved down here in ´98 or ´99 and is now a resident. Mike has climbed near everything down here and is a wealth of information as well as a mountain guide. His two friends Damien Benegas (http://www2.thenorthface.com/ap/athletes/athletes-DB.html) and Fernando Grajales(http://www.grajales.net/aconcagua/information/about-us.html). Grajales is the supplier of transport, mules and other services for Aconcagua and other expeditions here in Mendoza.


For some of you you´ll understand this and others it´ll be another language but here is an overview of what we covered rope and knot wise. If I have itme before I head out on Saturday I´ll post some pictures of these and or my diagrams of them. This is deffinately the part of the course that I got the most out of. Some very important and fun new knowledge to play with.

Anchors
-static
-equalizing
-trad
-sport
-natural
-belay stations

Knots and Hitches
-8 (on a bite, threaded)
-bowline (single, double, on a byte)
-double fisherman´s
-prusicks
-girth
-clove
-munter
-MMO (munter, mule, overhand)
-PMMO (prusick, MMO)
-rescue spider
-auto block
-water

Rope systems
-escaping the belay
-passing the knot
-transfering loads
-multiple belays

I´m planning my return or extended stay to climb down here. Who is serious about getting down here? Things once you get here are pretty inexpensive compared to the states. Things to think about eh? Did I mention that it´s also summer here?

Enough for now. Love you and would love to hear from all and any of you who read this.

P.S. a random to Steven and Camp Wisdom. Your wonderful sounds have been to 15,000 ft more or less.

Comida Comida

My Door Step

Creative Repairs

The Local Watering Hole

Mañana

The past few days have provided some much needed rest and recovery. Using the mule barrel scale at the warehouse in Penetentes (where we left from for the mountains) we discovered just how much weight we all lost.

Before Leaving we had a celebratory dinner at the Hotel Anyelleen and enjoyed their breakfast including the so called famous eggs. Breakfast is not a happening meal here quite sad. So the fact that this place serves scrambled eggs makes them famous for their mere existence and not quality.

From wearing multiple layers of clothes for 24 days straight I forgot I actually had limbs and didn´t realize that they were getting a bit thin other than tightening the belt ony pack. I lost a total of 4kg (about 10lbs). The Mendoza diet has thus consisted of ice cream several times a day and meat. Lots of meat.

I don´t think I have ever seen so many ice cream shops before in my life as I have here in Argentina. There is literally at least one and usually more in each downtown block. I wonder what the ratio is of population to ice cream shop? 100:1? or how many gallons are consumed annualy on average? I don´t think that 50 would be to high.

Yestday was mission "comida" for the next twelve days. Group food shopping always brings me back to shopping for retreat and outdoor trips in high school. Tear the list and go. Here it is not quite as efficient due to needing to make more adjustments and making multiple stops. To try and eliminate the running around we went to, wait for it. walmart. Yep not only is there one, there are two here in Mendoza. But being walmart it did have the majority of what we needed including peanut butter in the international foods isle. Peanut butter here for some reason is an extreme rairity which I find kind of funny because near any candy bar or chocolate you can has mani/peanuts in it. It is also a very tasty addition to dulce de leche the national snack. This mornng I made a trip to the mercado central (sigh of relief) for bulk nuts and fruta demasecado or dried to go with our breakfast oats rather than cry around a zillion little 100g packets.

Random observations from here and around of things that I think the States needs to get on are marcado centrals, the metric system, siesta, and using our public parks and squares. To me these make much more sense and are generally much more enjoyable that the American equivilant.

ATMs are funny thing here. Follow the lines to get cash. No linea hay una problema. There is a limit to how much you can withdraw that seems to come and go. There is also little to no coin change anywhere. The local busses almost only take change and then instead of depositing it apparently sell it on a black market. Rather odd. So often prices are rounded including bus fairs.

Off in the morning for Arenales the Argentine Yosemite. With my last scoop of ice cream before I go.

Expedition Photographs

Horcones Summit Team (Travis, Joel, John, Me, Emily taking pic)

Horcones summit (5391M) Aconcagua in the back ground

High Camp #1

Up the scree to Avion de B.Matienzo

High down here

I´ve been in Argentina since December 2. The first two weeks were spent in and around Mendoza and Cordoba. Drinking wine and attempting to untwist my Spanish toung (still to no avail).

On December 17 I met up with the group from The International Wilderness Leadership School (IWLS) which is run by Alaskan Mountain Guides (AMG). There are two guides Travis and John and four other guides in training/students Sanna, Emily, Joel and Jordan.

After meeting up in Mendoza we headed east to Penitentes on the 7 near the Chilean boarder. In Penitentes we spent a day packing all of our food and gear for 24 days into mule barrels. These needing to be 20>30kgs without any rattles or else what ever you pack will be pulverized upon arrival.

Where we spent the last 24 days was the Matienzo Valley directly west of Aconcagua on the Chilean boarder. We hiked into the valley in two days following the the Rio de las Cuevas.

The hike in was fairly gradual uphill until just before where our barrels got dropped having two consecutive river crossings and a steep uphill. After 12k with packs at the beggining of the trip before my legs had adjusted to the additonal weight was a burner.

Had a bit of a detour as according to the map that we had the "refugio" was on the other side of the river. I think the cartographers where drunk. Oh it´s not Aconcagua no one goes there we can fudge no one will notice. So we trudge way up this scree hill in the good old fashion of one step forward, slide two down high enough to see our barrels up on the other side of a non crossable section of river requiring some back tracking. Find a rock, sit and contemplate accepting that they´re not going to fly to you. Split a Clif Bar and put the pack back on.

The next few days were spent deciding where we wanted to go and hauling gear to our next high camp. The next camp was about 13.9K feet almost as high as Mount Rainier. Here we learned and practiced various techniques of self arresting using an ice ace, crampon techniques, anchor building and passing pro and of course climbing.

The first peak was one withought snow the Andes having had an especially light winter; but the scree skiing on the way down was epic. A climber once made the declaration "I didn´t know god stacked screek that high" in refrence to the Andes. I didn´t know it either. Love it or hate it, it´s impressive and despite it´s difficulties and hazards can be some serious fun. According to the map I´m looking at now I think this peak was Avion de B.Matienzo (4502M) but not a hundred percent sure as these maps are special at best.

The second peak we tried to climb didn´t get climbed due to severe weather conditions. After cautiously probing and crossing the glacier in two roped teams and traversing to our desired "door"/coular we had to navigate the bergshrund (where the glacier sepparates from the mountain, usually a fair sized crack or cavern). This is where we turned around, there was a snow bridge going accross but it was thin at best and with 7 people rather risky. When probed the probe dissapeared below Travis´ feet indicating he was standing on it.

Lightening, theres something to mention. When you´re as high as I was you´re in the clouds of electricity. Metal shit+ electricity= conductive buzzing. After a restish day of gear repair/maintainence and part of an afternoon lesson on crevase rescue it arrived. Grappel (a wierd cross between snow and hail similar to shreds of packing peanuts) is not your friend usually if not always indicates what you don´t want. We were up on our training slope near camp geared up with all sorts of metal when it starts buzzing and vibrating I don´t know how to explain it. So it was a quick down the hill to camp where it´s lower. We stripped and piled the gear and spread out into lightening position. This being a crouching heels together and hands on your head or behind your neck. Not a super plesant position to hold for extended periods of time especially when it is snowing. I think of it like a bad yoga pose.

After almost two hours when we thought it had passed me and one of the guides Travis when to fill the camp bladders and peoples water bottles from the Glacial stream near camp. On the way back up the hill we both started to hear and feel the buzzing. Packs off (notheing like a lot of a conductive substence in a wet bag attached to you wtih metal rods eh?) and back down the hill into lightening position it was for another spell. Before we reached the bags again despite being stripped off all but our zipper tabs we started to buz again and I´m pretty sure I was feeling the plate in my jaw. Haven´t a clue if that is even possible but I´m a little paranoid now that I might have a lightening rod screwed into my skull. Anyone have any ideas about this? I´d love to hear them.


The third peak was in the same glacial valley as the first and seccond. Accross from the first and further down the same side as the seccond. This foray started at climbing time (way too early for anything else but sleeping) roped up, and helmeted with headlamps on. The route was straight forward almost straight up a near vertical snowy coular all the way toabout 4674M of what I think is Las Cuevas again special maps. Special to the point that we might have actually been in Chile (illegally). The way down being so steep required several pitches of rapelling off of ice screws and picket anchors. Our descent also happened to coincide with another bout of buzzing mid slope for some of us above the others. We spread out a little, planted our selves in the snow and attempted to distance our selves from our axes hard to do when you´re screwed if you loose it. Finally down and in relative proximity to camp the weather was in near white out conditions. Having left camp before the sun was up I didn´t get a very good look at the way we came. Glacial morains all look pretty similar even when it´s not poor visibility. So me and Emily got a bit lost on the way back taking about an hour to do what should have taken un 15min. Caused some worry and almost a search. Feeling highly relieved when we did arrive back and also a bit sheepish, and guilty like a 6 year old.

This saga continues and will do so shortly.

Chau,
CT