If you don´t know yet, there´s some conflict going on between the local community and the guy who ran the refuge at Hatun Machay. Business conflict aside, the fact is that until July 14th of this year, 20 of the 24 sectors in the area had the bolts on the routes completely removed, or the first and second bolts removed, or worse still, the last bolts of the route removed. All sectors close to the refuge were stripped clean of their bolts, and the ones further away until a few days ago still had routes on them. However, given that the place has over 300 routes on 24 sector, and this has been done during the nights for the past few weeks, one can expect Hatun Machay to be completely stripped clean of all its routes in a matter of weeks if not days.

Just a warning to those who were planning to come down to rock climb in the region.

Feel free to discuss.

Well this blows. That was a really neat place to hang out and clip some bolts when you are too tired from climbing 6,000m peaks in the Blanca. Any more details on the conflict? I would bet that the guy running the refuge isn't giving the local community their share of the profits which can't be much. I remember paying very little to camp there 4 years ago.

I heard the guy who owns the place has gone mentally insane... Like actually has a serious illness. It's pretty sad actually