We arrived in Bariloche on New Years Eve with what we thought was a reservation at a hostel named Patanuk. When we showed up at their door they told us that they were full and that they didn’t know anything about our reservation...... so we went online to try and find another place to stay. We found online that The Bariloche Backpackers Hostel had space for that night, so we promptly made a reservation there and headed over..... only to find the same thing.... they were also full and were really shocked that we had been able to book a place in their hostel online. The staff member on duty was very helpful (thanks Juan P!) and after some deliberation, let us sleep on the floor for free! So we just rolled out our sleeping pads and sleeping bags and it was actually pretty comfy.
On New Years day, we met up with a local guy named Maty and our new Canadian friend Monty and Maty took us to an amazing crag named White Wall. Since we hadn’t climbed at all in the last 6 weeks (Jason) and many months (Janice), we had some troubles getting our bodies to cooperate on the easier climbs in the area... 6a - 6b (5.10a-10c) grade range. But we did get up them after some grunting and some rests. We ended up climbing for 3 days before heading out trekking for 4 days to the refugios Frey and Jakob.
The trek to Frey starts from the ski area Catedral and goes for about 5 hours with big packs, including rests, picture stops, etc. We got to Frey around 5pm, to find the same theme holding true for us.... no vacancy in the camping area! After some searching around, we managed to find a nice spot to pitch our tent, but it was way up the hill and we needed to build our own rock wall for wind protection.... Oh well, it was nice to be away from the crowds that were lower down but it meant about a 50m elevation gain and loss every time we needed to get water.... however, this was the result:
Next day we headed towards Refugio Jakob and found a nice little lake above Frey that looked inviting for a swim after the short hill below warmed us up.
