Adventure Magazine

It was an abrupt introduction to a
unique place that appeals to those who
love the high and the wild. Cochamó
is not your everyday holiday climbing
destination, where you clip some bolts
on a nearby cliff and then stroll to
the local for sunset beers. Here, the
only weather updates come via radio.
There’s no helicopter coming to rescue
you if something goes wrong. And
aside from occasional bread cooked at
one of the campsites, the only food is
what's carried in.
Such an isolated place might seem like
a deterrent, but there are undeniable
benefits to unplugging. No faces glued
to phones. A simplified life, a rewilding,
connecting only with what’s in
front of you and letting everything else
fall away.
Access starts at the end of a dirt road,
where horses ferry up to 60kg of
gear up a 12km trail to the campsites
near the confluence of two rivers.
These sites, where climbers set
up basecamp, are surrounded by
Above: Rachel Knott enjoys the view from The
Penthouse bivvy in Cochamó's Anfiteatro, one of
a number of valley's that are full of granite walls.
"Such an isolated
place might seem
like a deterrent,
but there are
undeniable benefits
to unplugging."
impressive cirques of granite. There’s
El Anfiteatro to the south, Trinidad
to the south east, La Junta and La
Paloma to the north, Arco Iris to the
west—each sector with several peaks,
rock-faces up to 1400m high, and
a number of established routes, as
well as innumerable ones yet to be
developed.
An abundance of classics awaits in
Anfiteatro, where climbers sleep under
an enormous boulder just above
the treeline. The rock-walls seem to
lean in and look down on you from
every direction. There’s Luchando
con Mariposas (translation: ‘Fighting
with Butterflies’), which includes
several slab pitches to test your gecko
footwork; La Aleta de Triburón (‘The
Shark’s Fin’), which has a stunning
aréte with gulp-fuls of exposure; Al
Centro y Adentro (‘To the centre, and
inside’), which follows a crack system
that eats your fingers, hands, fists and,
at times, your whole body. The crux
pitch of the latter, of course, tests your
gecko abilities on featureless rock.
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