Good News!

Today is Monday, March 2^nd, 2009.

There is much to celebrate here in Bariloche, Argentina:

1) We just had our good friends Becky and Olivier visit after meeting them in Ecuador at the beginning of this trip! We cooked a lot, hiked a bit, and played some intense card games! The top picture features the four of us atop Cerro Llao Llao.

2) Alisa quit a bad job just in time to have 9 free days to prepare for an excellent teaching position here, this time with a great boss and educator!

3) I just got my 2^nd job at a hostel, which is really my only job now since the 1^st didn’t quite count due to nonexistent working hours.

4) Awesome high school friends of mine, Kevin and Darrell, will be visiting in late March! More to come on this wild trip of theirs!

5) Given that Alisa has no work up to 4-hour days and my current schedule of 4-hour days six days a week, we now find ourselves in the midst of some extracurricular activities. For instance, making friends, going to parties, and enjoying the nature of and around the city of Bariloche!

More to come! (Parting shot is taken from the top of a route at El Trebol.)

Climbing after 4pm

Tuesday, February 17, 2009.Alisa and I head out after her work, with a dufflebackpack full of climbing goodies - rather, climbing necessities - and head out to catch the 20 Bus out to KM19.5 to go climbing at the walls near the lake, El Treból. The views at the top of each climb, especially at Pared Blanca (the White Wall cragline), are a nice reward for the pump you receive for these slightly overhanging testpieces for the grades! We climb a few routes, two of which I am in love with and hope to climb 100 times each, making them a warmup! Here's a welcome and parting shot in one for our after-work climbing day: Alisa rappels down the gorgeous 6a+ with Pared Blanca in the foreground, the closing sky and Cerro Lopez in the background.

Visits, Visas, and Various Other Things!

It is now 3:00pm on Monday, February 16th, 2009.
Pat, Alisa's mom, has graced us with her presence and filled our lives with some tempting travels! During her visit to Argentina, Pat brought us to Chile, too!
We saw many towns yet unseen. While it was my second visit to El Bolsón, I hadn't before gotten a haircut there! Meanwhile, we visited Osorno, Valdivia, Villarrica,
and Pucón in Chile, thanks to the excuse that we needed to renew our Visas for Argentina.
It must also be mentioned that we visited new towns in Argentina as well, namely, Junín de los Andes, and San Martín de los Andes. We ate watermelons,
Chilean completos,
and homemade yogurt. Thanks to Pat, we got to see a lot (including this man and wires everywhere in Valdivia, Chile)
and I was able to practice my stickshift skills!

Thanks for a great visit, Pat!

In other news, today I posted flyers at many hostels and equipment shops in town offering my Porter and Guide services to aid in receiving some income whilst hourly-job-hunting.

Furthermore, I am considering enrolling in a 2-day running race that will cover many trails that I am familiar with. The first day would be the "3-day" loop connecting refugios Frey and San Martín; I have written about this loop already on this blog. The second day would be another loop of comparable difficulty connecting two other nearby refugios (Italia and Lopez). My enrollment will weigh the entry costs, winning likelihood, and prizes offered, if any.

Two friends from our travels in Ecuador are finally touching down in Bariloche, starting on the 19th of February (3 days from now). We are excited to host Becky and Olivier! Beyond that, Darrell "Hammer" Hoy and Kevin "Smashing Keviniel" Wilcox are looking to visit in late March, April, assumedly this year! Can't wait (to see them and to see how two 6'5" guys fit on our futon - haha)!

More to come (including pictures) from this jobhungry landescaper, n8

Update

It is now Sunday, February 1st, 2009.
I am getting over being sick. My job occurs once a week, forcing me to look for more work.

One piece of good news is that the last time I had to porter to the refugio, I made it up in 2h40, a new record for me that found praise from the workers there, some of whom care to learn some Chinese!

Like always, I took some pictures on the way up

and on the way down.

The other good news is that we just had Ben Kunz and Lindsey Saunders visit us from Seattle on their 15-month trip around the world. They are two wildly bubbly climbers! Visit their travelpod blog at the following address: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/benandlindsey/1/tpod.html Thanks to them we got more climbing in than usual!

Featured in this blog entry are pictures of climbing at Cerro Ventana, Bariloche and resting atop Cerro Campanario.

Now! Looking forward to Pat's visit, cooking dinner, finding a job and freetime with Alisa!

Work or Play?

Friday, January 23rd, 2009.

This is my office.

The big update in my life is that I am now employed. My employer is Diversidad, an active tourism agency. Besides guiding for rock climbing and trekking, I am a porter for one of the refugios. That means that I carry around 20 kilos (SEE 45 pounds) of groceries in my pack up to the refugio.

From Colonia Suiza, Refugio Italia and Laguna Negra are a 14k uphill trek. I expected it to take me 6 hours with the 20 or 30 kilos that I shoved into my Exposure 50 Osprey pack and into the backpack that I attached thereto. Nothing less than delight jumped into my eyes when my clock read that I had arrived to the Refugio vista just short of 3 hours!

I was met inside of Refugio Italia by the workers there (SEE Natalia, Santiago, y Guadalupe). These awesome people gave me juice, a seat, and a nice little bowl of spicy veggies with quinoa to complement the 2-day-old bife de chorizo with sliced tomato that I had lugged up along with the 2 24-packs of soda, cans of fruits, and tubes of cookies that weren't for my lunch! Also, Natalia gave me contact names for some other refugios so that I could complement my current sporadic job with porting for other beautifully located refugios!

This trip I was just cruising to get a fastest-time gauge for future trips up to the refugio for work. I also left late (SEE 12:30) and was afraid I'd have to take out the headlamp for the return trip, missing dinner, etc. Also, Ben and Lindsey, two awesome, groovey climbers from Seattle are visiting us and they were set to return from their 4 days at Frey this very night! So rush I did. I descended in a mere 1 hour and 40 minutes, jogging almost all of it, light as a feather with only the empty packs.

More to come!

3 Day Trek, 1 Day

My plan was to do a 4 or 5 day trek in 1 day. Instead, due to icy conditions on the steepest part, I accomplished instead a 3 or 4 day trek in 1 day. I'm still happy and have put the former plan on a to-do list along with the portion of it I didn't manage to see. As a note to all concerned readers, I brought lots of food and 7L of water to complement the streams and lakes, and a rain jacket, to cover my bases. I also planned to turn around and retrace my steps at 2pm if I did not make it to the halfway point. Unfortunately, as mentioned, forces other than not being on time (SEE ice) blocked my mission.

7:20am Leave the house. Say goodbye to Alisa who will wait for Bus 50 into town. Walk to the end of Avenida de los Pioneros to wait for the Catedral Bus to pick me up.
8:20am Keep waiting.
8:50am It's too late to start walking now.
9:00am Catedral Bus picks me up.
9:10am Start hiking from Cerro Catedral, South America's famous ski resort, to Refugio Frey.
10:01am Reach the 4K marker on the trail and take a picture so looking back on the pictures and the timestamps I will know what time I hit this marker and the shaded Van Titter stream valley.
11:00am Frey! Laguna Tonchek! I'm here! Sit down and eat rapidly, saving most of the potatoes and beaf for later. Meet up with Brazilian friends made while slacklining in the park the previous day. Check the clock. I made it up in less than 2 hours (SEE 1h50), giving me some slack time in order to trek all of the refugios (four) in one day. If only I had enough time to stop and climb with these climbers:

11:52am Lagoon Schmoll! Just above Frey and its granite spires sits a beautiful high-mountain reflective lagoon, shown here (First from below, then from above).

12:33pm Reach the Catedral Mountain Ridge, where the trail splits between a route back to Cerro Catedral and Laguna (and Refugio) Jakob.

1:15pm Make it down the steep scree path that I think of as a Chachani landslide and come to the valley and a shaded path in the woods.
2:03pm I hope you enjoyed the valley because next up are the rock hills and rock lands!2:16pm Summiting of the rocklands is yet another vista! One more dip from a ridgeline into the valley will see me at the well-located Refugio Jakob.

3:08pm I reach Lago Jakob. I could stay here for longer if I weren't in such a rush. I speak for a few minutes to Pablo who works at the Refugio. He tells me it is not possible to continue on to Refugio Italia and then to Refugio López because of 1) my sandals are not sufficient for a very very steep section that may or may not be covered in ice at the moment and 2) I only have one day, which is now half of a day. So it is that I get directions from him to return a direct route back to Bariloche, or, Refugio San Martín where I will find a ride back to town.

3:26pm I start trekking the 18km back to town. It's about the same distance as my trip through the remaining two refugios would have been, except is mostly flat, easy to navigate terrain through the Casa de Piedra stream valley. I am informed that I can do it in 3 hours if I'm not tired. Well, I'm exhausted. But if it's easy hiking I should be all set. If today has shown me anything, it's that I can push myself. There are some pretty stream-crossings going back to Bariloche this way.4:47pm I don't know what kilometer out of the 18 I'm on. I wish there were markers. The paths are mostly shaded, which is a huge plus for a long trekking day like this. Tried to call Alisa at work to inform her of my likely return time schedule only to have the "Sin Red" error meaning that there is no connection! Of course there is no connection! Where am I?!

6:05pm I arrive at the end. That means I did the last 18k in roughly 2.5 hours. And I have many excuses to not have done it that fast! Here I go, ego tripping already! This sign is such good news to me, I take a picture of it. The horses and car-road that I see here are signs of civilization, so I start on my way, looking for a bus or hitchhike!
6:26pm I catch a ride back to my house with three other very serious trekkers from Bariloche and plop myself down on our futon while Alisa is wonderful and makes me a wonderful stew and rice dinner. We eat to the soundtrack of me regurgitating my day of meeting Australians, Americans, Argentinians, ABrazilians, and so on and the sites and trails I found! I haven't talked much all day due to the different trekking speeds of myself and all those I met briefly on the trails, so I'm ready to tell all!

Hitlist

While it’s Top 10 for a lot of newspapers, I’m ready to give you The Hitlist. This The Hitlist has been prepared to give you the gear reviews for the hits and the misses, for my advice and the downright “Don’t take my word for it; you’ll have to try it yourself!”s. Let’s be honest: don’t you watch those movies with bad reviews if you had your mind set to it anyway? I can tell you which of these poor performing beasts to chase down for yourself!

5.10 Daescent Shoes. Here’s what I did with these approach shoes that can also be handy for casual bouldering. I took care of them. I bouldered V5 in them in the gym. Then I tore across the US, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina with them, hiking, running, sandboarding, sliding, slogging, you name it. All of that, in all sorts of conditions that aren’t in the longevity contract for these shoes (SEE: dirt, snow, rain, combinations thereof). And so I find myself with a less-than-6-month-old pair of shoes, already flapping in the wind. The sides have blown out wings and my toes seem to be pushing to get fins installed. Although I can still wear these shoes as long as I don’t mind getting loose gravel or sand under my feet and thus the sensation that I’m wearing sandals with socks on…I feel a little silly hanging on to this pair of shoes.

BOTTOM LINE: This is a pair of shoes that you might want to give a ride, yourself. However, for my money I’d just as soon buy a pair of Asics Tiger shoes and boulder or do whatever with those, like I did back in the day! They lasted 9-12 months of my beatings.

Osprey Porter Pack. I have taken this pack everywhere with me. It’s been slashed and treated. It kicks butt. If I could change anything about this pack, though, it would be to simplify and toughen its design even more, since that’s what it’s been good for at least for my purposes. I am now finally using it as a climbing bag and rope feeding back and its as if I didn’t just trudge it through 5 countries! Unless you already have whatever you need, I’d suggest this duffle backpack bag for just about any sort of traveling or hauling.

BOTTOM LINE: I would like to work for Osprey’s design team because they are doing awesome work!

Sporknife: This plastic three-in-one utencil convention is cool. It’s a gadget. It’s plastic. It’s cheap. It’s good for easy eating. And it snaps when you push too hard because it’s plastic. So, use for cereal, not for steak.
BOTTOM LINE: In this age of compact convenience, it was bound to be made, and bound to be broken.