Over the last 5 months climbing opportunities have been few and far between. The Falkland Islands aren’t a world known climbing destination and southern Chile seemed to have no climbing crags, and our three day visit meant we had time to walk to Torres del Paine but nothing more.
I was pleasantly surprised when we drove to Stanley to 
see some crags only 100m from the road,
checking on the map to make sure no mine field was in the way, we made our way to the base, hoping it wasn’t going to be a choss heap. The quartzite rock was decent quality, short single pitches, on mostly crimps and cracks. I was getting excited as I’d never done a first ascent before. The whole experience was pretty rewarding, searching for a line, cleaning it, climbing it and finally naming and grading it. Our E1 5b Don’t N.D. route was the best line, it started on a slab and the went into a dihedral, using crimps on either side to bridge out, and ending in a compression move to avoid the roof above.
We had 3 days to explore Chile with our rental Toyota Hilux and given we could find any information about local crags, our only obvious answer was to check out Torres Del Paine.
Well worth the 12mile hike, but still I stood there just wishing I had my portaledge and enough time to give a route a go. At least I know the route in for next time.
I had been reading letters in the Alpine magazine recently and noticed there was someone in there from Punta Arenas, so found him on facebook to see if he could give me any details of any local climbing areas. Conglomerate rock never really gets me excited, more just nervous about pulling off handholds. But it was worth a trip. The blank mid section had holds just like something from a climbing wall, crazy half melon sized spheres enough to grasp with a hand. The crux was the last bolt a series of crimps and pebbles pinches.
Making the most of the midnight sun in Antarctica, we climbed a short few pitches up to the saddle of Jabbet peak on the Wienke Island close to Port Lockroy. A short pitch of 70° mixed climbing made the short 4 hour round trip interesting.
Apart from scrambling around on some Antarctic shores (which I’m claiming as Antarctica’s first ever deep water solo route,) the climbing hasn’t been too intense, though unique and diverse!