Rock Climbing Lava Cliffs in Ecuador
Hello Steemians!
Today I am going to talk about my first time rock climbing on a real rock wall and not in a gym. In early 2017 I was traveling through Ecuador and spent a fair amount of time in Baños, which is known as the extreme sports capital of Ecuador. I hadn't planned on rock climbing but I met a British guy named Andy at the hostel who had got to know a climber in the bar and he was going for 4 hours of climbing the next day for $20USD. That sounded like a lot of fun so I asked if I could tag along and they both said yes so we were off.
The guy Andy had met in the bar was named Eduardo and he was a professional climber that worked for a tour agency but took us with his gear on his day off so we got a really good price compared to the packages in town. We met him in the plaza de armas at 8:00am and we piled into his truck with his dog Tito and were off for the Lava Cliffs just outside of town.
Eduardo provided all the gear we needed for the climbs from his own store of stuff:
- Shoes
- Ropes and hardware
- Chalk bags
- Harnesses
So all we need was our cameras and ourselves which was convenient. In order for him to belay us he first had to free climb up the wall and anchor the ropes, and let me tell you, I have never seen anyone move up a wall as fast as him. It was inspiring to watch, he was like Spiderman! After he came back down we set up to climb the first wall one at a time.
The whole time we were climbing Eduardo was shouting out instructions about where to put our hand and feet. After a little struggle in the beginning we both made it up with ease and were looking out over the river from the top of the wall, it was a great time. After that we moved on to a tougher wall and we both struggled quite a bit to make our way up but we both made it in the end. Finally, Eduardo took us to a much tougher wall and we both struggled to even make it half way before I quit because my arms were going numb. Andy pressed on for another 20 minutes before calling it quits as well so we packed up all the gear and headed back to town.
In the end it was a fluke for me to join in but it ended up being one of the most rewarding things I did in Baños despite the fact that my arms ached for a few days afterwards. If you ever find yourself in that part of the world then look up Geotours, I hear they are the company to beat. If anyone else has climbed these walls let me know in the comments, thanks for reading!
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Nice rocks :)
Agreed! It is a beautiful wall
The features of the wall look really funky and it must be a lot of fun to climb on them! I'd expect the lava cliffs to be pretty sharp, is it the case?
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Ya I have never seen a rock face quite like that, it was really fun to climb but quit tough. There are quite a few sharp handholds but the toughest part was how smooth the rock itself was. We struggled on the 2nd and 3rd walls because the grips were smaller and even with chalk our hands would just slide, it was very strange.
Haha, really. Slick rock is the worst! But if you climb on it more often, your technique will improve a lot! :-)
Yes, I would love to go back, the locals practically flew up the wall, it was inspiring to watch.
Yeah, that's what I was noticing in the photos - smooth as plastic!!!
Yup it was near impossible to find grips! If there wasn't a hand hold then my hands would just slide and I would fall, it got really tough.
Great post man. You added alot of detail on your trip. Rock climbing seems fun. I hope to do it one day. From a scale from 1 to 10 how hard was it? 1 being easy. Thats so cool that you just tagged along with those guys. Really cool man. 😁✌
I'd say climbing these walls was about a 7-8 in difficulty. I used to be a member of an indoor gym and spent a fair bit of time there but this was a whole new beast for me. The wierdest thing about this was how smooth the rock itself was, not like indoor gyms at all. If you couldnt get a definitive finger grab then you would just slide and fall so it got quite tough. Ya i got lucky I met them when I did though because the actual tour isnt quite so cheap, or so Ive been told.
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