Five Dudes in a Fiat

A week ago we set off on a good ol´Argentine roadtrip with the gang in our overpacked four door Fiat, made by the same company that owns Ferrari. Unfortunatly instead of being the compact, four door, bright red Ferrari we expected, the car we got resembled a clown car and began to look like one when five guys, gear and food for a week was carefully crammed in. Three hundred something kilometers on highway 40 and 100 or so kilometers on dirt roads brought us to the middle of the Patagonian desert, and a giant monolith called Piedra Parada. This place is an unexpect oaisis after an hour or so of bleak desert; a large, clear river surrounded by trees beside a 400 foot tall tower sounds pretty sweet.

Chuck Norris is ten feet tall, weighs two tons, breathes fire, can eat a hammer and take a shotgun blast standing. I heard he invented the giraffe by uppercutting a horse. Thats what I was always led to believe before arriving in Piedra Parada...
"My friends call me Chuck." said a local Argentine climber as he introduced himself and his buddies at a crag in Piedra Parada. "Kinda like Chuck Norris?" blurted out Gill before anyone else could ask. Thats right. We met Chuck Norris out in the middle of the Argentine desert and he pulls down 7a! Well...he was more of a short, mostly Spanish speaking climbing bum version of Chuck... Its amazing how the legend of a certain Master of the Universe can gain international renoun. The one topic that can stir interest and a sense of humor with people of any origin is Chuck Norris.
The climbing in Piedra Parada was amazing, crazy huecoed faces, wild sharp pockets, juggy overhangs. The canyons is very similar to the mini Zion and the climbing potential is untapped. The entire time we wondered why there were so few lines instead of being overrun and overbolted. All of the climbing is within walking distance from the free camping right outside the canyon. The only real downside was everything getting covered in dust (see our tent at the end of each day)...well that and a local who tries to sell you eight kilos of lamb meet in the middle of the night. Even with the dust and the meat salesman, it was a great time in the desert filled with climbing, wine, and Frutigran crackers.
The Argentine climbers that we met on the first day quickly became our friends and generously gave us topos and information on other climbing areas around Bariloche. On our last night in the the area, we all sat around a campfire the climber known as "Chuck" stood up and said, "In the beginning, there was only God and Chuck Norris. Do you see God anywhere around here?"


´Wanna go to Valle Encantato?´ After four days of patagoian winds across the desert, going to a place called the enchanted valley sounded pretty good, so we all jammed back into the fiat and headed back north. Sleeping outside of a small town called El Bolson, in a field, down a dirt road, with no tents sounds like a pretty good idea in theory right? Well the gang thought so to, so around 1:00 am, after eating amazing chorizo in a parilla in the ski town of Esquel, we pulled off the dirt road, poured out of the fiat and passed out on the ground, well sorta. That is until the swarms of mosquitos descended upon us, leaving Brandon with some 60 bites in one 5 inch square piece of skin alone. So with almost no sleep we grabbed a quick breakfast in El Bolson and headed back to Bariloche to drop off Carl and get more food and wine.
Valle Encantato would prove to live up to its name, even with the intrusion of a highway, it is an ideal area to climb and hang out. We camped next to the road and climbed for three days on amazing rock overlooking a valley filled with towers and a torquoise river running below all while seeing no other climbers. The climbs here would turn out to be some of the best of the road trip, including one which began with a rappel into a slot canyon and featured awesome climbing up tufas! But that was in the past, and there is a full pig, ready to roast, waiting for us at the hostel so... Merry Christmas!