A brief history of bouldering on La Barrosa, Part 1

Andrés "La Renga" Puertas starting out El V3 de La Morsa (V5)

My next two blog posts are an English version of an article I wrote for the magazine Vertical Argentina, about bouldering on La Barrosa. I decided to split the article into two blog posts because I wanted to include a lot of pictures and this makes loading the post heavy going. This also means there´s nothing to be found about the exploits of an old, fat guy climbing with a revised hip surgery, at least for now. However, in case anyone's interested, I will say that, one year and three months post-op, my revision surgery is working just fine and my climbing continues to advance. More on that latter. For now here's Part 1 of A Brief History of Bouldering in Balcarce.

Visiting German climber Bob Bartl sends El V6 de La Media Tierra (V6)

 
The Tandil system is a low range of hills in the Argentine Pampa that begins near the town of Olavaría, in the center of Buenos Aires Province, and follows the National Route 226 south-easterly for about 200 kilometers to the sea. These hills are ancient. They are believed to have been formed about 450 million years ago, long before an enormous land mass, known as Gondwana, split into the modern day continents of South America, Africa and Antarctica. Rocks found here have been dated at more than 2 billion years old, reaching back towards the origins of the earth.
    The sierras of Balcarce form the southeastern-most arch of the Tandil system. Generally speaking, this part of the Tandil system consists of steep-sided, flat-topped, table-like formations, rising up maybe 200 meters above the surrounding farmlands. The rock is typically quartz arenite and although the cliffs are not tall, the stone presents excellent possibilities for short climbing routes and bouldering.
    The town of Balcarce has a population of about 45,000 and lies in the heart of the Sierras of Balcarce. When my wife Gaby Cendoya and I came to live here in 1996, I wasn't sure how good the climbing would be. We were lucky I guess. Bordering the town on the southern corner is a sierra called La Barrosa and it wouldn't take long for me to realize that hidden away on this small sierra was the best bouldering I've ever seen.

Juan Aleto and Cristian "Segu" Segura bouldering in the Matrix.

In 1996, the sport of bouldering was, for all practical purposes, almost non-existent in Argentina. Gaby and I found almost no evidence of previous climbing on La Barrosa and, on the weekends, when we went out to the sierra, we rarely saw any other people at all. Our approach to bouldering was old fashioned. When I began climbing, in 1979, in the USA, the local area where I practiced had some pretty good, moderate bouldering. At that time there were no bolted sport routes, no climbing gyms, and many of the local leads were quite dangerous, so bouldering was a way to train for lead climbing that, for me, was funner and more adventurous than top-roping. There were no crash pads, no sticky rubber and I didn't grade difficulty. Fun, adventure, training and not getting hurt were more important than the pure pursuit of difficulty. I would typically climb circuits of boulders without much difficulty (up to about V4), trying to do as many different boulders as I could in a day. It was this eye that Gaby and I began to develop the untouched bouldering on La Barrosa. I could see the potential for harder problems, but it be a few years before stronger Argentine climbers, with a more futuristic vision, would bring modern day difficulty to the area and make it truly world class.

Federico Allami and Fernando Cicconi working Proyecto Mañana. If this unsent project could be
linked up with an already completed highball finish, it would produce one of La Barrosa's proudest boulders.

La Barrosa is shaped like an inverted Y and runs almost straight north-south. Gaby and I began to climb the most easily accessible boulders and the developed areas grew up around our initial efforts .The bouldering sectors near the cross on the northern summit can be easily accessed from the base of the sierra above the corner of Calle 55 and Calle 40. These sectors include El Huevo, Los Boulders de Siempre, Techos de Mierda, Techo Grande, Media Tierra, Coloso and El Panel. The sectors in the wooded area (known as the Bosque) on the southern half of the west flank of the sierra can be accessed from the gate at the entrance of the property of the Fangio Foundation. These sectors include Aracnofobia, La Terraza, El Boulder en el Bosque, La Cabezona and the boulders near Las Vias del Bosque. Finally, the sectors near the southern end of the west flank can be accessed from a dirt road that passes around the south end of the sierra. These sectors include La Cueva, La Zona de Hanuman, La Costa Mosquito and La Matrix.

Gaby climbing on La Costa Mosquito

All and all Gaby and I put up about 150 boulder problems in the early years of development. Some of my favorites include Pinch Overhang (V2) and Golem Arete (V3) in the Media Tierra, Techo Traverse (V3) at Techo Grande, Scrunch Girl (V4) and Not for My Body (V3) in Los Boulders de Siempre, Go Left (V3) and Hook Roof (V2) at Techos de Mierda, El Huevo (V4) and Knee Bar Crack (V2) at EL Huevo, Bat Undercling (V2) at Aracnofobia. Techo Clásico (V3/V4) at Boulder en El Bosque and Dengue Sit-start (V3) at Costa Mosquito.

Tim on the opening moves of Hook Roof  (V2) in 2005

In 2001, just about the time the Argentina was hit by a severe economic crisis, my wife Gaby became pregnant with our daughter and I was kind of desperate to find someone to climb with. There were still, basically, no climbers in Balcarce, but our neighbor's 18 year-old son, Mariano Maceri seemed pretty athletic, so I thought I'd take him out and see if I could get him hooked on the sport. His first time out top-roping I could see he had the necessary drive and determination, even if he lacked the skills. Later we would spend countless weekends together in the sierra, bouldering the old-school way: topping out the boulders without crash pads. Now that a dozen years have passed, I'm happy to say that, not only have we gotten hold of a bunch of crash pads, but more importantly Mariano has become an important figure on the local climbing scene. He has far surpassed my bouldering abilities in both strength and skill and recently sent his first V9.

Mariano Maceri climbing in La Cabezona

By the year 2003 the younger climbers from Mar del Plata had learned to boulder with a vengeance and they were ready to come to Balcarce and climb some of the vast, untapped potential of problems on La Barrosa. Mar del Platense Esteban "La Morsa" Degregori organized the initial outings. A host of strong local climbers including La Morsa, Rubén "Michi" Molina, Juancho Torres and Charly Contartese came to La Barrosa on various occasions to enjoy the sierra and put up new boulder problems. Besides opening up an array of interesting new moderate boulder problems they also brought a whole new level of difficulty to the sierra. Some of their stronger efforts include El V6 de La Media Tierra (V6; FA: La Morsa) and Golem (V4) in the Media Tierra, Asperix (V6; FA Michi) followed by Aspirix Sit- start (V7, FA Charly Contartese) at Techo Grande, Dos Huevos (V5) a longer version of El Huevo, El V3 de La Morsa (V5; flashed by La Morsa and Michi)) at La Cueva, and the Right-Hand Arete at La Costa Mosquito (originally V6, now harder because of a broken hold, FA: Juancho Torres).

Ruben "Michi" Molina flashing El Huevo (V4) in 2004

End of Part 1