Vamos a Valle!

Bariloche is a mid-sized town on the dry eastern rainshadow of the Andes. It sits on a large lake, surrounded by other large lakes, ski areas, and granite spires. It has become one of the outdoor adventure hubs of Patagonia, and its fun to sit at one of the outdoor cafes and match up the groups of eager young travelers with their countries of origin based on the gear brands of choice. Gear from Black Diamond, Patagonia, Outdoor Research--or the presence of tennis shoes--betrays a North American right away, with Canadians favoring MEC or Arcteryx backpacks. Meanwhile, Deuter and Mammut are big among the Europeans. South Americans favor a local company called Doite and slip-on shoes or converse all-stars. Israelis form their own traveling mobs with distinct fashion, language, culinary choices, and favored hostels, usually easy to identify by the size of the group and the fact that their clothes are none-of-the-above.
On the first day in Bariloche we ran into a couple more Brazilians (here comes trouble…) but these guys were sport climbers who had a large camp set up at an area 35 miles from town called the Valle Encantado (Enchanted Valley). We all quickly piled into a pickup and headed out to Valle with a bunch of food and climbing gear.
The climbs are mostly located across the river from the highway, but luckily the Brazilians had come equipped with a rubber raft called the ¨SeaHawk¨, a burly craft fully capable of shuttling dogs, climbing gear, cases of wine, and Navy SEALs into the most remote reaches of the globe. One problem with all these Brazilians is that I was just starting to regain some Spanish, and now I was hearing Portugese. A second problem – as relayed to me by my friend David who can speak Portugese – is that most of what these guys said was slang, nicknames, and cursing that even he couldn´t understand. Additionally, nobody seemed to have an actual name, with all 10 guys going by monikers such as Skunk, Monkey, Pollack, Fatso, Skinny, etc. It was a bit like living with the 7 dwarves, if only the 7 dwarves climbed 5.13 and talked constantly about women they had slept with, wanted to sleep with, or would only sleep with when drunk. Consequently all the Portugese I know is probably not something that should ever be repeated in the presence of someone´s mother.

These two pictures oare of David and myself working on an amazing .12c arete. A good photographer could leave Valle with some really great shots.



The climbing in area was awesome, with very featured volcanic stone and steep sport climbing on big pockets, cobbles, roofs, and constant sun.


Every night we would all gather at the camp, a spot stocked with 2 dozen bottles of wine and boxes of food. Even Obi, the offical dog mascot of the trip was enjoying the super cheap Argentine wine.

The camping was so plush that the Brazilians jokingly called it their ´Favella´, a local name for the ghetto in Rio de Janiero. Each night after climbing we would all gather around the favella and play music, joke around, and give excuses about why we did not succeed on a given route that day.

After a few days of damaging my delicate fingers on the volcanic rock and my delicate ears with Brazilian vulgarity we headed back to Bariloche to restock food and prepare for the alpine granite of Frey.

Patagonia... more than just expensive clothes

I am currently sitting in the store-wracked town of El Chalten Argentina waiting for some decent weather. I figured this would be a handy time to write a little bit about the trip.

I arrived in Buenos Aries on the morning of January 9th, and immediately I could recall the voice of my mildly-senile high school Spanish teacher drilling me on verb conjugations and useful phrases. All I could really remember was ¨Donde Esta el Bano¨, but luckily much of the rest just falls into places after clearing that initial hurdle. The airport was hot an sunny, a pleasant change from the cold and slush of Seattle.

Through one of those highly dubious friend-of-friend-of-friend-of-friend connections that climbers seem to revel in (and the general public disdains) I was able to stay for free for two nights in Buenos Aries with a guy named Rocco. While excploring Buenos Aires I came across Chocolaterias with chocolate, Pizzarias with Pizza, and this place, with...?



Rocco is a chic urban DJ to pay the bills, but a climber at heart. My broken Spanish formed the model of fluency compared to his more-broken English, but was had a good time together nonetheless and he made me a traditional Argentine barbecue called an Asado.

Like many residents of Buenos Aires, Rocco had a verdant rooftop garden where he grows trees, flowers, chives, mint, and herbs of a slightly more potent variety. Rocco´s apartment is in a neighborhood called ´Caballito´, which is Spanish for ´A Little Horse´, a apt description of one´s status after spending two days shouting at homicidal local taxi drivers.

I spent two nights in Buenos Aires with Rocco, which was two more than I had originally planned, and one more than I was told after arriving on the first day.

This delay was succinctly explained to me in a word: Brazilians. My ride from Buenos Aires to the mountainous Patagonia region was with Andrea, a Brazilian friend-of-friend-of-friend, and the 3rd link in my four person chain to Rocco. I soon learned that to Brazilians, a time zone is more a state of mind than it is a state of the minute hand. Eventually the two Brazilian women (Andrea and Simoné) arrived,
and we took of at what they called the ungodly early hour of 8:30 AM for the 18 hour drive to the mountain town of Bariloche, in the Andes near Chile. My climbing partner David had rented a hostel room for us all in Bariloche and I was eager to arrive and get some sleep.

However, my longing for expediency was thwarted at every turn by the Brazilian desire to relax, take random scenic side trips, and indulge in their sudden Maté addiction. Maté is a type of loose-leafed tea that all of Argentina is crazy about and I think looks (and tastes) like the hay bales I used to buck and stack for summer work. People carry thermoses full of hot water all day to take Maté breaks on important occasions such as the top of every hour, half hour, or odd numbered minute. Adding mate (and subsequent bathroom) stops to the baseline Brazilian slowness resulted in our arrival in Bariloche at 6AM, 22 hours after starting the drive. Since then I´ve had a whirlwind of excellent trips, climbs, and new friends. And since the weather in El Chalten doesn´t look much better in the next few days, I think I´ll have plenty of time to write all about it.

Chalten

After 36 hours of bus-riding exciting, I have arrived in Chalten. The granite peaks of Cerro Torre, Fitz Roy, Pollone, and others are coated in fresh snow, and my creaky joints are moving slower than the satellite internet here in town, but we are glad to be here.

The last two weeks have been spent in some amazing places in northern Patagonia, particularly sport climbing along a river in ¨Valle Encantado¨(the Enchanted Valley) and climbing alpine granite spires near the town of Bariloche, the best of which was a 9 or 10 pitch 5.11 route on the ¨Cerro Principal¨ we were accompanied by the ever-present Andean Condor and had an amazing time. More pictures and news to come, if I am ever able to get an internet connection at non-glacial speed.

Ciao!

Blake

Famoso!

Hola from Buenos Aries!

Soy un escritor publicado hoy!

An Ice Climbing article I wrote for the Vancouver, WA newspaper...

Breaking Trail

Last Bit of Winter for Me!

After a brief stop in Leavenworth to babysit the house and cats of some friends, I took a short trip to Stehekin. Leavenworth was eventful in a few ways, mainly in that the pipes in the cabin had frozen, which necesitated a distinctly un-fun phone call to the out-of-town owners of the home. However, we also got in a little skiing, ice climbing, and scrabble playing.

Stehekin is a tiny community located 55 miles up Lake Chelan from the driveable "downlake" city of Chelan. No cars can make it to Stehekin, and in the winter there is only a single boat which runs every-other day. The community is in the heart of the North Cascades, with 9,000' peaks rising from the valley floor.

My girlfriend Allison and I skied 7 miles up to a cabin through some of the hardest trail-breaking conditions I have ever seen. The day up took nearly 9 hours ot go 7 miles, with lots of headlamp illuminated skiing. My legs were cramping and I was completely beat by the time the snow-covered roof of the cabin came into view. Then ofcourse we had to shovel out enough snow to open the front door, start a fire, get water going, and all the other tasks that needed doing before we could relax. It brings to mind the Thomas Carlyle line - Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. It was entirely worth it though, and after a day of playing scrabble and messing around, we skiied the 7 miles back to the car in a leisurly 3 hours.

I'm off to Buenos Aries tomorrow, via Sea-Tac and NY city!

The Iceman Cometh

A week ago I was out sport climbing in a T-Shirt Nate Farr, an old friend from WWU who was one of the first people I ever climbed with. This week things were a little different. A big scary mass of Canadian air was on its way down (we send them acid rain, they send us arctic air, free trade at its finest!). With local TV forecasters hyperventilating about the chance to fire up the storm-tracker Doppler-8 infra-red mach3 Gillette Schick-Quatro weather radar, I knew I was in for a week of accessible waterfall ice, and unavoidable weather hype. While the later soon grew hyperbolically comedic, the former provided the chance for three days of climbing ice only 20 minutes from Vancouver, WA.


On Tuesday I skipped out on work at Cilogear and met up with Tim Holscher, to investigate a few flows in the Columbia River Gorge. We found 2 routes, each two pitches long, featuring solid WI3 with fat ice and little wetness.






After that, we did our best Somali Pirate impersonation, by hijacking a barge and motoring over to the Oregon side of the river. Here we went on a wild goose chase looking at more routes that weren't in condition yet, and not finding any wild geese either.

We did come across an amazing flake of ice that seemed to defy gravity, and eventually climbed at "Mist Falls" which is a pretty little amphitheater completely coverd in thick ice. This made for a fun, if very mellow end to the day.






On Friday Tim and I met up again, this time to investigate a series of flows that form off the Columbia River beach, on the Washington side. We came across 6 different routes, although only 3 of them were in climbable condition. Local TV reporters, high on overtime pay and truckstop coffee, gave dire warnings and prognostications of certain death to anyone crazy enough to venture out. We ignored them and found calm conditions, occasionally sunny skies, and an awesome 4-pitch linkup that put us 1000' above the river, clamoring over a guardrail onto highway 14.



The first pitch started out steeply, rising directly off the beach. As Tim climbed higher, he bemoaned the ice's decreasing thickness. The ice screws may have been crappy, but hey, at least the rock was total garbage!







After 60m and a little extra, Tim belayed from a tree and I followed the pitch before leading up a WI3 jungle for a short top-out pitch.







From here we collected our bearings, battled three rounds with blackberry bushes (sticker bushes 2, humans 1) and eventually reached the base of a 2-pitch flow which lead the next cliff band. I took the first pitch, which was mostly fun WI2, with a vertical step toward the top.




Tim led up the final pitch, which was featured and beautiful.


From the top we tromped up to the highway, overcame the afore-mentioned guardrail, and began to hike back toward our car. It had now begun to snow, and it took us to while to realize that in order to reach our car we'd have to catch a ride or walk back 3 miles along the highway, and descend about 1000' back to the base of the route. Past experience has shown that one's success in getting a ride is inversely proportional to the number of sharp pointy objects he or she is carrying.


Given a pair of crampons and two ice tools each, I pegged our chances of success as commensurate with the likelihood that local tv newscasters wouldn't finally be wetting their pants about the arrival of actual snow. However, my pessimism was unjustified, as we were soon given a ride, avoiding all but a mile of walking.



On Saturday we headed out one final time, although this time the feds had stepped in, with the National Weather Service issuing a blizzard warning for the area. Given the weather of my upcoming climbing destination, I figured getting out in the wind might be useful training. I kept thinking this until we went to make our first rappel, off a small promontory of land. I waited between gusts before throwing our rope over the edge, only to see the wind blow it back up at my face and shoot it out sideways at 40 MPH, leaving the ends of both strands 100' to our left, and uphill of where they'd started.



We eventually made it down to the wall, and were rewarded with a steep mixed (mostly rock) start and interesting ice features on the rest of the route.






Today I pulled my randonee skis out of the bag and did a lap around the neighborhood. The roads were covered in snow, nobody was driving, and the absolute quiet was astonishing. I could only stand it for about 10 minutes before I had to run inside. After all, the dopler-8 storm tracker had updates to report!

The "Proof Box" of Life

I haven't written in a while, largely because I haven't done much worth noting to my friends and family. However, I would appreciate it if everyone would check out my photos (#1 and #2) in this photo contest, and vote for them if you think they deserve it.
And I would ESPECIALLY appreciate you voting for them even if you don't think they deserve it! I basically haven't posted because I don't want to get too caught up in the boring minutiae of my daily life. I want this little blog to be entertaining and exciting, updating only when I have something worth saying or photos worth sharing. To quote John Ruskin, "When a man is so wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package."


I've been doing some part-time work for CiloGear, a small Portland company that makes the best backpacks in the world for climbing

(or bivying in).


It's been fun and I should be doing some major re-writes to their website in coming weeks. I have also gone climbing a little bit locally (on rare dry days), I'm working out to stay in shape for Argentina, and I hope to go skiing up on Mt. Hood after this week's storms. However, before all that, I have to get my wisdom teeth removed!This procedure was schemed up by dentists in order to reduce both my wisdom, AND chewing abilities. Still, I should get it done before my health insurance expires. Speaking of which, I should redeem my coupon for "One free skydive with beginner parachute purchase" right away too.

Anyhow, I climbed all November, was loaned some fantastic gear and now I am just waiting to use it in South America! Back when I worked at the legendary Stehekin Bakery, I would constantly be taking things in and out of the proof box. This is a purgatory-style kitchen appliance, where baked goods go to sit and plump-up, before the final step. A loaf of bread or pan of cinnamon rolls will sit in the proof box, nearly formed but not yet complete. I've been mixed, kneaded, and covered in sesame seeds... now I'm ready for the oven.

I've also been picking up odd-jobs around the Portland/Vancouver area, but I think I may have hit the jackpot with an idea to sign up for drug-approval studies. Charles River Clinical Services is a pharmaceutical company based in Tacoma, WA which does testing on a segment of their population described on the homepage as healthy adult males. Finally, a job I qualify for! This "healthy" description is written overlaying a picture of a guy rock climbing. Obvious the owners of Charles River Clinical haven't spent much time around climbers if this is their example of healthy (or adult for that matter). I'm hoping that my excessive consumption of expired balance bars has resulted in a rare and valuable blood type that will land me millions. Keep your fingers crossed...

Bros and Brahs

In their early 20s, when exposed to college, feminism, and new ideas, many women reach a time in their lives when they feel the urge to experiement like never before. This often occurs much to the consternation of their boyfriends, and can lead to distance and heartbreak.

My girlfriend Allison is no exception, yet her daliances have manifested themselves in a much more sinister form... she moved from Bellingham to Colorado!


Out in the Northwest, the Colorado 'scene' is often described as a bizarre amalgamation of sorority/fraternity craziness, and an uptight yuppy REI-catalog lifestyle. With visions of incessant "bro-brah-ness" in my mind, I headed out with trepidation to the Centennial state. However, my fears were soon allayed.



Allison showed me around Denver, and we went bouldering at a couple local spots. One day was at Flagstaff, on the hill east of Boulder. The other day was near the town of Morrison, about 15 minutes west of Denver overlooking a pretty little stream and the town's main drag. My opinion of Morrison remained high, when it became possible for even the brokest of dirtbag climbers to sweet-talk their way into a free milkshake from Ozzi's Espresso and Icecream.










The climbing in Morrison was sunny and a lot of fun. The highlight of the day was a rad problem (evidently an area classic) that climbed straight out of the biggest cave. We even ran into a local who had told us about Morrison while in Squamish last summer.







As long as Allison remembers how much cooler the Northwest's mountains are, I wont hold her Colorado residency against her.