As an environmentalist, it is my duty to hate global warming. So please don´t tell anyone that I secretly really enjoyed having the longest window of nice weather in Chalten´s local memory. I´ve spent the past few days (weeks? how long has it been?) climbing sport routes, bouldering, picking guindas (sour cherries) and hanging out in the sun with my friends Angie and Steve, as well as our new local climber friends, Numa, Tehuenche, El Negro, Victor and some others. Now the weather has changed and its back to wind and horizontal rain.
We were able to cut back on our campsite costs by carrying our tents across town and setting up in Numa´s front yard. People in restaurants stared through the windows as we walked by carrying our fully-set-up tents on our heads. We are thankful to have an extra key to Numa´s house and to sit at his kitchen table sipping tea while the rain stabs at our tents. Yesterday we climbed some five-star sport routes behind Numa´s house. The crag is in his backyard and we could belay from his window if we wanted.
Numa wants to do a climbing trip in the US this summer. We´re trying to convince him it is better to do it in the fall because the summer heat is so intense. But he insists "I want to climb big wall with no shirt." Here, climbing multi-pitch is always risky because the weather could change at any moment. What appeals to him about climbing in the US is the notion that you can climb multi-pitch without the concern that it might be your very last.
The bad weather makes me wonder whether I should move on to somewhere else, but there´s so much good climbing here, and now that I´ve made friends with the local climbers, it´s really hard to leave.
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