The routes in the bosque

A younger, thinner Tim climbing in the bosque, circa 2003

I met my wife Gaby, in the city of Córdoba, in 1995. We quickly became regular climbing partners, heading to the Sierras of Córdoba on weekends and traveling to Patagonia during summer vacation. We moved to Balcarce in 1996 and continued to climb together weekends, holidays, whenever we could. I believe the year was 1999 when Gaby was given the word, from the University of Buenos Aires where she had been working on her Master's degree, that it was time to wrap up her thesis. She already had a full time job at a national university near home, so it had been easy to let the task of concluding her thesis, slide. Then, all at once, she was on a deadline to finish. Since Gaby would need weekends and holidays to write her thesis, I suddenly found myself without a climbing partner. At that time, except for Gaby and me, no one else in Balcarce climbed. Bouldering alone on weekends was one possibility. However, I had already scoped out a modest area of big boulders and small walls hidden away in a wooded part of La Barrosa and I thought it might be interesting to put up a few roped climbing routes for future enjoyment. While Gaby worked on her thesis, I headed out weekend after weekend, cleaning and hand drilling routes on rappel, using the bolting procedure I'd learned from the local climbers in Mar del Plata. More out of laziness than some grand ethic, I tried to avoid bolting where obvious good gear placements were available. It's just easier to place gear than hand drill  bolts. When all was said and done, I ended up with 17 little routes: two 5.8s, two 5.9s, six 5.10s and seven 5.11s, the hardest two routes checking in at 5.11d. The small area of routes is now known as "las rutas del bosque", or more simply as the bosque. When I put up the routes, I never imagined they might be used by groups of twenty or more climbers who I didn't even know. But lately that's what's been happening.

The weekend of April, the 14th and 15th, would mark exactly two months after my revision surgery. Since I had begun training in my bouldering gym, three weeks earlier, I had been hoping to climb outdoors, for my first time post-op, at the two month mark. As the time drew near, the weather forecast for Saturday was looking pretty dicey, but Sunday was supposed to be drier, cooler and sunnier: This is a classic weather pattern for Balcarce: hotter, humid weather gets blown out by a south wind and is replaced by perfect climbing weather: cool, dry and sunny. So Sunday would be the day. I hoped the forecast wouldn't let me down.

My good friend Martin, his wife Analia and their son Rafael came out to climb with us that day. Gaby wouldn't be climbing, because of a chronic shoulder pain that is giving her a hard time. When Sunday came, the weather turned out to be perfect. Here are some photos:

High stepping the gate at the start of the approach

It's about a 2 kilometer approach to the the climbing area and it was my first time with a backpack since the surgery, so I was a little anxious how that would go. It turned out fine.

Blue, Gaby and Tim hiking into the rutas del bosque

Tim, Rafi and Ceci on steeper terrain 

Tim and Ceci head up the hill

This was my first time climbing outdoors in more than six months and only my second time out in more than eight months. After these last two times outdoors, I wound up in pretty bad pain, limping around for more than a week afterwords. Sunday in the bosque, things went much better. I started out by climbing a straightforward 5.8 crack to face route.

The old fat guy climbs a 5.8

Placing a stopper

Placing a camlot

Finishing up out on the face

My daughter top-ropes the same 5.8 crack to face

Using opposition in the corner

Stem

Ceci takes a rest after moving out on the face

Topping out

Our next route was a short 5.10a face just to the left

The old fat guy climbs 5.10a

Ceci top-roping the same route

Ceci gets the jug

Martin climbed a bunch of routes that day

Martin prepares for the clip on a tricky 5.10 route

Martin cranks through a tricky 5.10 crux

Here goes the old fat guy on a 5.9 arete. I was happy about this one, because it requires a bit of a high step up with the left leg to mount the arete. It's a move that always gave me a hard time when I tried it with the my previous hip resurfacing.

Tim steps up onto a 5.9 arte with his operated hip

The old,fat guy gets the clip

More use of the operated hip

All and all I climbed five routes on Sunday: a 5.8, a 5.9, two easy 5.10s (one is a top-rope) and another elementary climb, where I placed some gear that Ceci could clip on lead. It was a beauiful day and felt great to be climbing again.  

Ceci sends a route on lead

Ceci skips a clip

Rafael climbs the same route

Rafi high stepping

A five mile hike on the flanks of La Barrosa

Sunrise over the Sierras of Balcarce from my back porch

The Province of Buenos Aires is perhaps best known for the sprawling metropolitan area of the city of Buenos Aires, home to more than 13 million inhabitants. However the province itself is quite extensive, covering more land area than the country of Italy. As a state in the USA, it would weigh in as fifth largest. Most of that territory is flat farmland, although two small systems of hills, or "sierras", as they say in Argentina, can be found in the southern part of the province. The highest system of hills, the chain of the Sierras de la Ventana, rises about 4,000 feet above the surrounding farmlands and is located just north of the city of Bahia Blanca, in the southwest part of the province. The other system, the Tandil chain, runs roughly from the city of Olavarria in the south central part of the province and traces the national highway, Ruta 226 for about 150 miles to the city of Mar del Plata on the southeastern coast. In general the hills in the Tandil system rise about a thousand feet or so above the surrounding farmlands. They tell me these hill are more than two and a half billion years old and the rock found here is some of the oldest exposed rock on the planet.

There are principally two different types of hill formations found in the Tandil system, representing the two different kinds of rock that occur. On the one hand, there are rounded, softly-curved hills like those found near Azul, the sierras in Tandil and Cinco Cerros near Balcarce. The rock in these types of formations is granitic and the climbing possibilities are fairly limited. On the other hand, there are flattop, steep-sided. mesa-type  formations like the sierras near Barker and most of the sierras near Balcarce. In these tabletop  formations the rock is a quartzitic sandstone and climbing possibilities abound.

The Sierras of Balcarce are part of the Tandil system and run from a point roughly 35 miles nothwest of Balcarce, for 70 miles in a southeasterly direction, finishing up in Sierra de los Padres a few miles from the sea. These sierras are home to some of the best climbing in Argentina. La Barrosa (the sierra behind my house) and Sierra de los Padres have outstanding bouldering, while Sierra de los Difuntos and La Vigilancia are host to some of the best sport climbing in Argentina. In terms of available rock, new climbing possibilities are basically unlimited, however there are serious access problems due to the fact everything in sight is private property. Luckliy, we've had continuous open access to climbing areas on La Barrosa since I arrived sixteen years ago. Let's hope it will stay that way.

La Barrosa from my front gate. A starting point for hikes and bouldering expeditions

The day before yesterday counts as six weeks and three days since my hip surgery and I went for my longest walk to date: around five miles total (using the trekking poles). Accompanied by my dogs, Blue and Mica, and the neighbor's dog Flash, I took some photos to catalog the event and to try and capture some of the gentle beauty of the surrounding sierras. I'm sure glad to be hiking my sierras again. Good job, Dr. Koen de Smet!

Only 200 meters into the walk, here is the view looking southeast towards La Vigilancia:

My companions and I reach a bench on the flanks of La Barossa

The view looking northwest

Various estabilished bouldering areas are visible in the following picture, including: La Media Tierra, Opere Doctor, Los Boulders de Siempre, Los Techos de Mierda, the roof of  Culito Reggaetón (El Panal) and El Coloso. Established boulders in these areas range in difficulty from easy, to about V9, with at least one outstanding unsent project yet to be completed.

The east side of La Barrosa

Sierra La Bachicha and the town of Balcarce

About one mile into the hike I headed half way up La Barrosa to hike past a bouldering area known as El Huevo:

El Huevo is the collection of boulders on the right skyline, half way up the hill

Flash the dog with the bouldering area known as El Huevo, up and to the right

The Sierras of Balcarce from El Huevo

My companions rest under an overhang

Here comes the old, fat guy

There goes the old, fat guy

The forested area behind me is simply known as the "bosque" and is home to some of the hardest boulder problems in South America

Preparing to enter the bosque

The trail through the bosque is pretty

Hiking through Eucalyptus trees

My final destination is an old, abandoned quarry. Now it's time to head back:

The climbing in this quarry sucks