Though the first day it was windy and snowing up high, we walked up the sheltered Arroyo Van Titter to Refugio Frey. We spent the afternoon watching the snow storm over the cirque from the warm of the Refugio and marvelling at all the amazing Towers with hundreds of rock routes..
Day two was spent climbing up over a couple of beautiful snow slopes to neat passes and down steep ugly scree faces to Refugio Jakob.
Day three was to go through a scramble route to the next refugio, but when we saw the route, we thought better of the idea. It was steep snow, with a short exposed section of grade 16 rock. We had no rope and not everyone was keen to solo that grade with exposure and a full pack.. So instead we tried to force a route up a snow coulior and along a ridge. Our less experienced team members found the coulior a good challenge, but above the ridge we couldn't find a suitable route for our experience and gear, so we had to retreat back to the Refugio. We had a wonderful feast of campstove pizza and a couple of beers from the refugio.
Day four was up and over Passo Schwiezer and down a long poorly marked and swampy track to a wonderful campsite on the shores of Lago Mascadiri. Our final day was a good track in lovely warm weather via the lake shores and a swim to the road back to Bariloche.
Walking up Arroyo Van Titter towards Refugio Frey 
Argentine Civil Engineering
Setting off from Lago Jakob
Pip above Lago Jakob
Hiking up to the Laguna Scholl cirque, searching for a route onto the skyline ridge
Pip gets her first taste of mountaineering in a moderately steep coulior
The crew retreats after failing to find a safe route through the mountains
Amazing blues of the frozen Laguna
Pip and Dan on Paso Schwiezer
Rio Mascardiri 
Dr Pip deals with Mikes sore knee
Lago Mascadiri
Dawn light on Cerro Tronador from our campsite
Lookout over Lago Mascadiri and Cerro Tronador
Almost time for a swim..
1 comment:
Some friends told me the Nahuel Huapi is a wonderful river.
I was in a hotel near downtown Buenos Aires, but next time I'll visit the South!
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