Well known as a competition climber, sport climber and coach, how did Adrian Baxter find turning his hand to trad climbing in Patagonia? Ben Williams catches up with him to find out.
Adrian Baxter is perhaps best known as one of the UK's most experienced competition climbers, making over 25 appearances for the GB team between 2000 and 2010. As such you’d expect him to have a high on-sight grade and he has made numerous 8a+ on-sights as well as red-pointing 8c.
Adrian is also well known for his phenomenal fitness and his training acumen and is in much demand as a coach, counting the British Army and Royal Navy amongst his clients.
By his own admission however he’s never had much of a head for trad and ‘can’t climb cracks’. So what lies behind a recent trip to Patagonia and a host of mountain routes on granite? Here Adrian talks to us about hard grading, good banter and taking on a new challenge.
This trip doesn’t sound like your usual sort of thing? Basically this year’s been a write off for me in terms of climbing trips. I had a trip to Norway which got cancelled, then a trip to Verdon. Both partners pulled out. Then an Argentine guy I know called Antoine from the Westway got in touch and said his climbing partner had pulled out of a trip to Argentina, and would I like to come. Obviously I said yes.
And you started off with some sport climbing? We had three amazing days climbing – warming up really – in Valle Encantado, near Bariloche in Patagonia. It’s a world class sports crag. Another friend Diego from Colombia came out to meet us and we did some of the old classics, which I’ve done before. I fell off some stuff. There’s also some amazing undeveloped bouldering on the volcanic tuft in the area.
Presumably you were still in your comfort zone at this point? Obviously I’m very confident and happy with sport climbing. As you know I started out doing sport and competitions. But trad? Apart from going to Yosemite a few times and the Needles, California – and I’ve climbed one E7 and a few E5s in the UK – I think it's safe to say I’m not a super-confident trad climber. Once I’ve got my head around it I can kind of hold my own on Pembroke-type limestone but when it comes to granite, crack climbing, I’m just in a world of pain basically. Firstly, I don’t know really, truly how to crack climb. Secondly, I’m not 100% confident on trad – so, when I’m placing gear I don’t know if it’s going to hold. And finally, it’s all on your feet, going up slabs and holding positions. And I’m obviously all about the steep stuff. So I find it really tough sometimes.
You sound like you’ve been scarred by previous experiences! I’ve been on trips with people who are good crack climbers and I’ve always been well out of my comfort zone and hating it basically. So you don’t learn and you don’t progress. You’re crapping yourself the whole time and you don’t have time to learn and take it all in. All you’re doing is surviving from one route to the next.
Group shot belay high in the Frey area. Photo: Adrian Baxter
And this trip was different because of the people involved? The feeling of the trip was totally different. Antoine was climbing F6b - 6c. Diego about the same. I’m totally used to, "right, I’m going to climb 8c", or "I’m going to onsight 8a". And this was like, we’re going to go climbing every day, it’s not about the grade, we’re just going to look at lines and be safe, enjoy ourselves. We just want to have an amazing experience.
Did it make a difference climbing in a three? It can be really intense climbing in pairs, especially on a trad trip when one of you is feeling like a wimp. In a three you’ve always got this banter. It’s slow – you’re literally spending twice as long doing anything because you’re messing around with ropes – but every time you get to a belay ledge it was really lovely, congratulatory, and really good banter. I can honestly say I’ve learned more about trad on this trip than I have anywhere else – and that’s just because of the atmosphere.
In the Frey area. Photo: Adrian Baxter
Adrian climbing on immaculate granite. Photo: Adrian Baxter
Where were you climbing? One of the areas was called Frey – after Emilio Frey, who set up the Club Andino at the start of last century – and it’s right above Bariloche. It’s all immaculate granite. At the end of each pitch there’s a bolt belay so you’re safe, and you can walk into any of the multi-pitches in two to four hours from the refugio. There’s a whole world of amazing climbing. The only thing about it is that it’s known for having some of the hardest grades in the world. Literally, way harder than Yosemite and El Chalten, and that’s coming from a Yosemite guide I met out there!
How has it got this tradition for hard grading? Because it’s so accessible. It’s a three hour walk out of Bariloche. From the Cerro Catedral ski station you go past a load of incredible granite boulders and then the landscape changes from being green and deciduous to quite dry and arid. Then you walk up to the refugio through a load of snow. But a load of trad climbers have gone up there and climbed the hell out of it, then downgraded the whole thing. It’s the usual.
And what was the climbing like? Basically cracks and corners. And run-out. Sometimes we crapped ourselves because you’re climbing E3 corners and taking horrible falls onto ledges. A climb called Lost Fingers was particularly memorable. The last pitch – the Lost Fingers pitch – was apparently F6b but we had to dog it. We didn’t know what to do. A pure hand-jamming crack with poor feet. It was desperate.
So have you got any plans to do more mountain trad in the new year? We had wanted to try something big in El Chalten but (luckily for us) the weather turned bad. So we’ll have to go back there. And we’ve got to go back to Cochamo in southern Chile. Honestly, this is the most impressive climbing area I have ever visited. It’s as big and tall as Yosemite but so far there’s probably twenty routes on it. Literally. I’ve never ever seen so much new route potential in my life, like Yosemite must have been in 1940! I’ve got my eye on a five or six pitch line I spotted as we climbed alongside.
"the most impressive climbing area I have ever visited" Cochamo, southern Chile. Photo: Adrian Baxter
Any other plans for 2014? I’d like to do some more hard sport climbing this year. I’m going all in and trying to break into a new grade. I sort of hate mentioning it as it adds a lot of pressure – but then without the pressure I probably won’t ever do it! So let’s just say I’ll be visiting a certain cave in Spain a few times this year and spending a lot of time with very sore forearms and no skin.
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