UKC

Hi all

I'm travelling to Chile in a few weeks time and hoping to get some climbing done when I'm there! Any kind, but nothing too difficult, I've mainly done indoor before so want a gentle intro to outdoor! I won't be able to carry my own gear on the plane so any recommendations of where to go climbing there? I'm gonna be spending a couple of weeks in San Pedro de atacama and then a couple of weeks in Puerto Natales.

Cheers

Pips

I wouldn’t bother. We found little decent lower grade climbing there, Patagonia is probably not the best place to learn to outdoor climb. Since you don’t have any gear or experience finding a guide to take you up something easy is probably your best bet but there’s lots of great trekking etc. around so do that instead, it’s certainly going to be better than any of the single pitch stuff you might be able to do. 

http://www.vulcanochile.cl/portfolio/tour-escalada-san-pedro-de-atacama/

The guides will find you something to do if you chat about your experience 

There is the same in El Chalten just over the border. Also best cragging  is probably in Central Chile

Definitely don't 'don't bother'

Fair comment.

But.... it’s a long way to go to do something you can do in the U.K. 

based in San Pedro- what about climbing one of the big volcanoes, eg licancabur? You certainly can’t do that here 

(you might already be planning this, Pips, so apologies if I’m suggesting stuff you’ve already thought of...)

You can ice climb, boulder, sport climb and trad climb in the UK of all styles  

So never do them elsewhere  

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/the_pub/types_of_logical_fallacies-699090

It’s a long way to Chile; and there’s plenty of stuff to do that you can only really do in Chile (or other Andean countries).

Having said that, the link you posted looked pretty good, and a day climbing in the Atacama Desert would be pretty cool

I’d still pick climbing one of  the big Puna volcanoes first though....

Would very much agree. On our latest trip to Chile we had our trad grear sent out to us and we had some good days out but they certainly weren’t the highlights of the trip. However 2 weeks in San Pedro is quite a while so going out on a guided trip like the one suggested might be fun. In Patagonia nobody is seriously going to suggest that single pitch cragging is better than trekking in Torres or Fitz Roy and I would assume guides may be limited in what they can do with you with no experience but it’s worth getting in touch with a few if you are really keen.

That's great thanks for the comments everyone! I'm planning on mainly trekking while I'm there, got a few places all planned out, just wanted to get some climbing in too, seems to be a lot I can find near santiago as well so that might be an easier spot. I'll check out that link you sent though and see what I can get organised! 

The climbing around San Pedro is pretty cool and as an experience may be better than what you could find around Santiago in terms of gentle single pitch as it's so different a landscape.

As said by other though I wouldn't do too much of it, day or 2 max.  Unless you're going big in terms of climbing all the others adventures you can have are just too good to ignore.

Yeah I'm not planning on doing loads of climbing, just while I'm there don't want to miss the opportunity to climb in such a great environment! Can't wait! Sent a couple of emails so I'll see what comes of them.