Cochamó Valle Day 4

La Junta: Valle de Cochamó

DAY 4: Same New Route & Return to Cochamó

Saturday, November 15th, 2008. It’s Day 139 on The Big Trip.

It’s Saturday! Unfortunately, we’ve planned to leave Cochamó today in order to get a start one day ahead of Daniel, who is also returning to Bariloche, Argentina. If you haven’t heard the story yet, here it is: Valle de Cochamó, with its near limitless opportunities for climbing and enjoyment for me, does not offer an income, which I desperately need. Also unfortunately, neither does the town of Cochamó. And since Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt don’t “strike our fancy”, we’re headed back to Bariloche, which has skiing, climbing, and hopefully a lot more to offer for jobs.

Daniel Seeliger is also headed to Bariloche, planning to cross the border on Monday from Puerto Montt. So, we’re thinking that today we’ll leave the refugio a day ahead of him to snatch up some long lost internet and get in touch with our parents. I hope they haven’t yet bought the plane tickets to Puerto Montt’s airport (PMC) yet, although it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to rent a car for a 5-hour PMC to Bariloche drive. Plus, they’d get some passport stamps and beautiful Cordilleras de los Andes scenery! Although it’s cheaper if we can fly them direct to Bariloche! Enough said on that subject!

Before we leave Valle de Cochamó, we have some thanksgiving to do. Thanksgiving to Daniel for letting us get the first two ascents of the route he made that he let me help name! Here’s the naming bit: Daniel tells me I should name it. I say, “What?!” Because it’s his route, really. He should name it, or am I wrong? Either way, I enjoying silly creative pressure points such as naming a climbing route on the La Luna wall. So I come up with “Where the cow jumped over.” I don’t remember what nursery rhyme scheme this came from, but Alisa does. It’s goes like this:

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon, the little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon.

Daniel liked it and chose, I believe, the first three words of the rhyme, which of course will logically lead anyone with knowledge of this rhyme to the part of the rhyme that references the moon! Plus, hey diddle diddle does sound cooler than where the cow jumped over, and it won’t have people sniffing the air for fear that they’re standing near a cow carcass!

Although this climb puts us behind schedule for catching the bus from Cochamó town to Puerto Varas; although this climb will precede a hefty, minimally five-hour trek; although it’s early and Alisa hasn’t had her Yerba Mate yet, this climb will be a mixed 5.10b FA (first ascent) on a dirty route! What isn’t there to love about this opportunity! We start out on the trail that we now know and giddily approach the wall. The dust lines from where the rock has been drilled and bolts placed are still very evident. This is awesome! We get set up and I start leading. Thankfully Daniel made sure I had enough gear before I left. I was about to leave with only 4 large cams when he added about 7 smaller ones to my rack. Thank goodness! I’m placing pieces wherever I can find crackspace without dirt crammed in it still! It’s nice to see a route mature in its cleanliness. Soon the route will be able to wipe itself, but for now, we’re still picking dirt out of its cracks. The route is a cool trad route for six placements or so when you hit a small tree and begin the four-bolt sport section. It’s nice to yank and balance and twist again! I feel like there should be music on, until I look around at my surroundings and hear the noise of the streams colliding behind me! Come to think of it, one would-be route beside me is clacking softly with each drip!

After both of us sharing this nice, will-be-classic climb, we head back to the refugio, sign the registration book, say our goodbye-for-now’s, and start trekking our trek. Alisa makes a contagiously simple song we sing, “Here come Chains and Bandit, we’re Chains and Bandit, Bandit and Chains!” This helps pass the time going down the trail that now can be done comfortably in shoes. We make it down in 3 hours and 40 minutes! However, we still have 12 kilometres until town so we begin our dirt-road hiking and hitch-hiking with families to get back!

More to come on this adventure back to Bariloche from your landescaper, n8!