Los Arenales is located outside Mendoza, Argentina.  I went down there as a graduation present to myself with my partner, Jeff.  We didn’t have too many goals in mind, just wanted to explore the country and do some climbing.  We traveled down to El Chaltan and then headed north to Barlioche.  Rain and bad weather drove us even farther north and we ended up on a bus from Bariloche to Mendoza near the end of our 6 week trip.

Oddly enough, some of the only good weather we hit was down in El Chaltan!

We were relaxing at the back of the bus and next thing we knew a French couple was nearly in our laps gasping at some rocks we were driving by.  We instantly knew they were climbers and struck up a conversation.  Turned out they were also heading to Los Arenales and we made plans to get out there together.

To get out to Los Arneles is tricky.  You have to catch a bus from Mendoza to the end of the line and then hire a driver to take you to the town closest to the destination and then hire another person to take you into the park.  You have to check in at a military post and then arrange a pick up time with the driver.

Everything went relatively smoothly.  The first driver drove a truck, so two of us had to rid in the back.  It only over heated once, but we made it to the town we wanted to go to.  This town is super small and we somehow found the next driver to take us into the park.  The second guy was an older gentleman with wild hair and had a crazy eye.  He drove a van and charged a good amount of pesos to take us in and out of the park.

Camp and the Refugio in the background. Much different than the nice ones we were used to in the Barlioche region.

Los Arneles climbing is alpine style, very reminiscent to the High Sierra.  There are splitter cracks shooting up golden buttresses that tower high into the sky.  Most of the formations require two ropes to get down,  and we only had one, so we had to find climbs with a walk off.

An example of the splitters that can be found in this Alpine paradise.

We started our day warming up on some single pitch cragging.  We were fealing really good on it and decided to go try Patricia, which was a 5 or 6 pitch 5.9 just down the cliff.  We climbed it with no problem, I led my first o.w. and was psyched on the climb. We made it to the top, took our summit shots and then started to follow the trail to the rap station.  Well, we got on a false trail which took us back down the cliff on a series of ledges.  We eventually were cliffed out and had to started walking back up towards the ridge line.  The last section to the top, we had to rope up for a 5.8 crack.  As Jeff was leaving the ledge, his gear loop got caught on a branch and it broke the loop.  All his gear fell off and luckily landed on the ledge we were on.  It was getting dark and that close call didn’t make us feel any better about having to find the rappel stations.

I believe this is Patricia.

Once we were back on track, things were much easier despite the fact that we didnt have a headlamp.  We went down the correct gully and managed to find the rap station just as it was getting dark.  We made it to the “ground” but had to decide to go back to our packs at the base of the climb or just go back to camp.  The walk back to the base of the climb involved a lot of scrambling and because we didnt have headlamps, we thought the best option was to hike the down the hill to the road that will take us back.  We were both extremely thirsty, having finished our water hours ago, and tired from the day and stress of the situtaion.  We decided the easiest option would be to find the road and walk back to camp.

We started making our way down the hill, and could keep on the trail.  Its just kept disappearing.  We had to bush wack our way down the hill falling down everyother step.  All the plants down there are pokey and hurt when you touch or fall on them.  Its kind of like the vegetation at Joshua Tree National Park.  Needless to say, it was awful.

Our second climb we did had an epic approach. We started way down by the river.

We finally made it to the road and when we got to the river, we just drank straight out of it using our dirty hands.  It tasted so good.  We were well beyond dehydrated at this point.  It was probably 3 or 4 in the morning when we finally found our tent and had no energy to make any food.  We were exhausted.

I forget the name of this climb we did, but you can see Jeff at the base of it in this photo.

The next day we got our bags back and took a rest.  That Monday, the crazy driver guy showed back up with meat and wine and had a party.  it was a wonderful surprise and much appreciated.  We got one more climb in on that trip and then started our long trip back home.  It was  great trip, and I highly recommend Los Arneles to everyone looking for adventure!

The place is amazing!