[TR] Argentina-nahuel huapí national park-refugio frey- lots 3/1/2006

[Matt_Anderson]

Climb: Argentina-nahuel huapí national park-refugio frey-lots

 

Date of Climb: 3/1/2006

 

Trip Report:

Patagonia Light

Short Version:

Todd and I climbed at what may the greatest alpine cragging venue around. You should go there.

Long, long long version:

Refugio Frey is a picturesque hut that provides food, shelter and toilettes at the end of an alpine lake sitting at the base of alpine cirque similar in scale to Washington Pass. The cirque it sits in and an adjoining cirque offer an unlimited amount of rock climbing from single pitch crag routes to 5-600 foot granite spires. The longest approach time from the hut is about two hours.

It sits in nahuel huapí national park just outside San Carlos de Bariloche in Argentina. Well to the north of the Fitzroy and Paine groups and well to the east of the Andes Crest, it offers far more predictable weather at a latitude and elevation similar to Tahoe. Perfect for a couple of out-of-shape, overworked putzs like Todd and Me.

Todd and I left Seattle around 9:00 a.m. on Thursday and arrived around the same time next day in Buenos Aires (five hour time difference). Todd took the day to do some work for microsoft and I had a day to kill checking out Buenos Aires. I spent the time walking around seeing the sights and trying to find a gift nice enough to make up for the fact that I left my wife for a week and ½ and went without her to an exotic location, but also innocuous enough that it wouldn’t remind her of the same fact for the next few years. Ultimately torrential downpours stopped me from getting much of anything besides a few pictures:

Todd and I are suckers for the gear sorting shot. Thanks to Microsoft, preparation for our burly adventure took a different tone:

We also love the “expedition shot” just as everybody gets ready to hit the trail. Rough times:

A plane ride, taxi ride, stop at the grocery store, bus ride and 3 ½ hours hike deposited us at our camp an hour or so before sunset, just seconds from Refugio Frey and a freshly cooked pizza dinner:

 

Strong winds and a hangover the next day delayed the start of our climbing.

We climbed the Aguja adjacent to the Refugio in about three full rope length pitches. Winds picked up to well above 50 mph on the last pitch, necessitating a hurried decent and another bottle of wine. . . The refugio is at the bottom left of the photo. The route follows the skyline.

Day number two dawned clear and beautiful. We poked our head over the saddle into the neighboring cirque to try our luck on a different formation. We started some exploratory climbing on La Tapia, but got off route and wound up munging up clean, but primarily 4th class chimneys to the top. Back down to another formation and got on Naka Naka Crunch Crunch, a beautiful route that ascends the right hand side of this formation: Again, three full rope length pitches got us to the top. Like many other routes, the crux involved face climbing between cracks on huecos.

The ever present wind howled all night, at one point, making both of us wonder if the tent would collapse. Day number three was windy and rainy, so we amused ourselves with a couple of bottles of wine, 10 or so games of chess

and a hike up the neighboring ridge to see what we could see. We moved the tent to a more sheltered local.

Same weather on the fourth day and I started going a bit stir crazy, after all, this was Patagonia LIGHT. The showers stopped by the end of the day, but the winds were still strong and the temps still low. An ascent of Refugio Frey stalled as it became clear that protection would be hard to come by.

We set the alarm in the hopes of good weather on day number were not disappointed (also the only day we got out of the tent before 9:00). We headed over the saddle to the neighboring cirque and headed towards Campanile Slovena. The refugio is at the viewer’s left at the head of the lake. Naka Naka Crunch Crunch is to the right of the saddle.

The campanile is the second highest spire in the area, has the best position and the pride of the area.

Everybody said it was just a two hour approach, but it looked more on the scale of the approach to the north face of Mt. Baring - a half day of vertical talus and end runs around cliffs.

The campanile is the prominent spire in the top right corner of this photo. The approach traverses the brush covered slopes at the bottom of the photo, heads just left of the snow patch in the center, and then traverses’ back left across the talus above the center cliff band. The great thing about this place, however, is that everything looks waaaay more burly than it actually is. The approach took two hours as promised and ended in a beautiful little oasis just below the campanile:

The wind was howling and our chosen route wasn’t looking like much fun, as it sat on an arete totally exposed to the winds. We didn’t have the guidebook, so we chose a dihedral out of the wind and hoped for the best. Our route was is the dihedral on the left side of the picture, just catching the sun.

The dihedral was beautiful, hand, finger and fist cracks through overhangs on perfect rock.

The protection petered out 1/3 of the way through the second pitch, so I headed for a bolt out left. Regularly spaced bolts (one every 30 feet or so) peppered a gorgeous hueco filled arête until a perfect belay, 15 feet before the rope ran out.

The views from the top were out of this world:

The last day of climbing was more exploratory climbing on a formation called La Piramidal.

Once again, perfect cracks and rock dominated the route:

The roof above Todd was about 30 feet and was split by two cracks, one a splitter off-fingers, the other hands and fist in the back of a flare. The summit, like every other summit in the area was super exposed and afforded great views.

We got up and packed at 7:30 the next day and got back in Seattle 35 hours later. On the way back, we stopped at restaurant called “Desnivel” go there if you can. Super casual, super cheap, super good food (meat), super friendly staff (they stored our expedition packs and carryons while we ate) and super good wine.

 

Notes:

The Climbing: This place is out of this world. Although there are a couple of sport routes, the vast the majority of routes connect crack systems. The rock is way solid, way covered with hueco’s and edges, and a dream. Most formations can be climbed in three to four full rope length pitches, so if you’re motivated, you can do a couple of routes a day (or more). If you’re lazy, there’s a lot of time for soaking up the sun afterwards(if it is out). The guide book can be bought at Club Andino Barilloche, which is in town on Moreno Street. The described routes start at 5.9 (french 5), with plenty of 5.9, 5.10 and 5.11. There are a lot of cracks that go at less than 5.9, the guidebook just doesn't bother describing them . . .

 

Gear: Double ropes are very handy to reduce rope drag and allow you to connect up the cracks (the cracks wander also). We brought doubles up to # 3 camalot, and would have occasionally liked a #4, but sucking it up got us past that. There are a whole lot of fist-sized cracks there going through steep rock.

 

Weather: The wind is super strong and almost always around. Bring a strong tent and be prepared for blustery weather. By the way, when planning to avoid/soak in the sun, a south face there= a north face in our hemisphere . . .. It took us a day or two to figure that out.

 

The refugio: There’s no need to bring anything besides lunch food if you don’t want to. That said, the refugio offers stoves to use for a small fee if you want more variety (there menu is here: http://www.clubandino.org/data/i_refugios_frey.asp, the current exchange rate is 3 pesos to the dollar). Bring a tent, though, because the refugio can get crowded at night and I doubt that it would be quiet. (It is on a popular trekking route.).

Edited April 1, 2006 by Matt_Anderson

[magellan]

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[ken4ord]

Looks like a lot of fun and really scenic. Thanks for posting.

[G-spotter]

Once I was hitchiking to Squamish, and I got picked up by two hot Argentinian chicas that said they climbed all the time around Refugio Frey. I've wanted to visit ever since

[sexual_chocolate]

Awesome trip report. Thanks.

[Jim]

Did you tag Torre Principal, the big guy, and how many condors were sited? Gotta get back there soon.