pizza dude travels: Stacking Rocks and Wacking Bushes

This is who we hang out with everday... and you thought the climbing was scary!

"Dude, we have more food than we did a week ago." said Brandon as we were sorting food to figure out what to pick up on our next town run. It recently occurred to us that we are now the longest standing guests to the Frey...and also the most pathetic looking apparently. In our time spent weve made a lot of friends, many of whom left this week. Gil and Carl both left for school and a job, respectively. Good luck guys!

Another week in the Frey has been filled with adventures. Good weather has allowed us to tick some of the most classic lines in the area. After 6 days of climbing we spent a well deserved rest day hiking down into the forest. After spending about two hours expressing our artistic sides through rock stacking (good enough to have hikers stop and take pictures! haha), we decided to follow the Campanile River to its beginnning in a cirque adjacent to the Frey. Unfortunatley there was no trail. The fun rock hopping along the river quickly turned to heinous bushwacking through the forest. Every once in a while we would arrive at a gorgeous waterfall that would be absolutely miserable to get around. Swarms of tabanos and frequent ant hills kept us on our toes the entire way. Luckily, the steep flowing river turned into an open marsh, sinking us up to our ankles in mud. After slogging through this for about an hour one of us had the great idea to head straight up the steep talus slope to the ridge that eventually brought us back to the valley weve been camping in and thus ending our ´rest day´.

There really isnt too much else to say in this post. We go climbing all day and spend most of that time talking about what we will cook for dinner. Sadly, our time in the Frey will be coming to a close in the next week and we will be continuing our trip elsewhere. Apparently El Chalten has some epic bouldering and Cochamo has tabanos two or three times the size of those in the Frey. Jake needs to hurry up and figure out his plans.

Helichopper! This is how several tons of food, refrigerators and beer are brought up a 10 kilometer trail

After waking up at 7:30 the campers are tricked into carrying supplies for the rufigio keepers, and our reward for such hard work... a handful of sundried tomatoes...

Objectivo Lunar! Jerome and Gil climbing somewhere on high on the excellent Objectivo Lunar

"El Cumbre!" Gil on the wild summit pitch of Objectivo Lunar

Jerome, high above the Campanile River on the summit pitch of Objectivo Lunar

After watching Jerome and Gil on Objectivo Lunar, we had to get some of our own. Jake somewhere on high on Objectivo Lunar

The Banana with the tower of Objectivo Lunar on the left, awesome climbing, awesome name

"Choss Rappeling!" Brandon on the first rappel on our way to Sinestro Total

Looking up at the start of Sinestro Total after rapelling the loose gully from hell

SPLITTER!! The awesome (and hard!) second pitch finger crack of Sinestro Total

Broken SPLITTERS!! Jake on another sweet pitch on Sinestro Total

Brandon sending the sweet fist crack on pitch 5 of Sinestro Total

Jerome and Jake belaying as Brandon climbs the fist crack

"How is this graded 6b! it feels 7b for me!" The French sport climber Jerome enjoying his first "splitter" crack on pitch 5 of Sinestro Total

Chossy Traversing!! Jake belaying Brandon across the first of two traversing pitches at the end of Sinestro Total

Jake and Brandon chillin in a sea of white and orange granite...

Brandon Hungry! Brandon Eat!... chillin at the start of the rappels after finishing up Sinestro Total

"Duct tape is just like the force, it has a light side and a dark side and holds the universe together" Rappelling Torre Principal after climbing Sinestro Total