After a couple of rainy days of chocoloading in Bariloche
the weather turned fair and we were ready to not be in a hostel. In spite of the fact that we heard good
reports about the backpacking nearby we had to work hard to resist the urge to
peddle out of town. It is becoming
pretty clear to me that I have a tourist town allergy. Although it was not the remote wilderness experience
we were both glad we did the mini backpack.
The most popular local option is to take a bus to the base of the ski
area where most hikers take off for a couple of backcountry huts or
“refugios”. Refugio Frey is about a
four hour hike in on a well-used trail unless you take the gondola up in which
case you have a four hour scramble across a boulder field marked by painted
dots. We opted for the gondola ride up partly to see the ski area. That turned
out to be a good call as the scenery was the best you could buy for sure. The Santa disguise worked for the substantial
senior discount so the ride cost us about $14 a piece. They have a nice refugio
(hotel) at the top of the gondola that I will have to admit would have been a
nice place to hang out even if there were a lot of tourists wandering around
taking pictures. When we first got to the top it was in a cloud and it was a
good thing it cleared up right away or the route finding would have been real
sketchy not to mention the views would have been only of naked ski hill. The ski terrain looked very good with lots of
steep expert runs, full of natural jumps and rock outcrops. If I were an avid
enough skier to want to fly south to winter in the summer this would be
something to experience with the views and different culture. assuming they have
good snow.
Originally we planned on going to a couple of huts but it
was hard to imagine better scenery than that first days hike to the Frey
hut. You could stay in the hut with or
without food or camp outside. The full
meal deal with lodging was only about $50 but our cheap genes are so dominant
we packed in our own tent and food with the pannier adaptors. Camping with a couple dozen other people is
not what I usually associate with backpacking but I am starting to let go of
that programing in order to experience the huts with the international
tourists. Frey is also a climbing destination with well-known climbing starting
a short hike from the hut. The granite did seem appealing for that being grippy
for the shoes but oddly had a slightly polished feel to be easy on the
hands. We had to do a lot of low fifth
class climbing (you have to use your hands) to get to the hut from the ski
area. The tenters could use a portion of the hut to cook and hang out so we got
to meet some of the other campers which followed the typical Patagonia mix of
international origins. It was interesting that at the hostel in town Laurie
talked to a few Israeli girls who hardly looked old enough to be traveling on
their own who had gone off to Pucon and did the volcano hike there but decided
to return to Bariloche mostly because it had better ice cream and chocolate.
Satisfied with our little backpack and the stellar views we
hiked out the next morning on the trail most people use to hike in. We had an hour to kill waiting for the bus so
we had a beer at the outdoor restaurant while listening to real Bavarian
accordion music. We decided we need to get some of that music to listen to in
the car for skiing back home in order to get in the proper mood. How can you
not be in a good mood listening to that? Even the old Argentinean ladies
waiting in line for their hamburgers were doing little dances to it.
Back in town there were three new bike tourists at the
hostel one of which was from Bend! This turned out to be the guy from Bend we
had been hearing about. He turned out to
be not exactly a typical Bend resident as he was originally from Istanbul
Turkey and he runs some sort of import export business out of Santiago. Also he
was not exactly the typical bike tourist either in that he had a passion for
telemark skiing and spent a lot of time down here bike touring with skis. His favourite
experiences were paying local Mapuche Indians to take him into snow-capped
volcanos and then having them come pick him up in a few days. He said they were
willing to do it for cheap like ten or fifteen dollars but he paid them more
like twenty. His bike was something to see as he had old trap type bindings
bolted to the top of his front rack where he could clamp his ski boots into for
transport. I’ve seen everything now.
We are headed out of Dodge so gotta go but we are going to
miss the completion of the giant fifteen foot tall chocolate Easter egg in the
town square.
