Socaire!

In San Pedro we bumped into Pierre, Manuel and Clementine who we had met climbing at Torrecillas. They were keen to go climbing at Socaire, a gorge about 100kms away and up at an altitude of nearly 4000m. They were struggling for transport, but then Steve came to the rescue!

We headed of to Socaire, which is supposed to have really good climbing. It did not disappoint, the gorge has a good mix of sport and trad and half the gorge appears to not have been climbed at all.   We had a great two days climbing with Manuel and Clem, it was just so beautiful there high above the salt flat with a backdrop of volcanoes.

Gorgeous!

The climbing was pretty hard though (maybe in part due to the altitude.)

Manuel on Route

 

Me near the top of a 6b just before falling off!

 

We really wanted to stay, but our visas were due to run out in two days so sadly we had to head for Bolivia.

I thnk you’ll always leave this plce wanting more!

If you climb and get the chance to go to Socaire then go – it is great climbing on red sandstone in an amazing place, and you’ll likely be on your own.

Just take care to inspect those bolts, sandstone and expansion bolts don’t do so well. There were a good few horribly loose bolts on the routes, usually at the cruxes.

The first bolt on a route that was just about ready to come out! I thought I’d take a good look!