Me and Thomas Gianola started our trip on December first, flying from Milan to el Sao Paolo, then to Buenos Aires and finally to El Calafate. After spending a night in El Calafate we took a bus to El Chalten, where we stayed for a little bit more than six weeks.
It
was a quite spontaneous decision to travel to Patagonia and we booked
our flight just a one and a half months in advance. The good thing was
that we are quite flexible and so we could choose the cheapest dates so
we good a quite cheep flight to el Calafate. We had bought a climbing
guide about the region before we started and we knew which mountains we
would have liked to climb....I mean who doesn't? I think the most famous
mountains for alpinists that go to climb there (for the first time) are
certainly the Cerro Torre and the Fitz Roy.
Certainly
Patagonia is also well known for his unsettled and windy weather and we
knew that good weather windows are quite rare to find, so we didn't
expect very much from our first visit to Patagonia. We just thought -
let's go and see if we can climb some mountains there.
The
fist impression was very similar to what one would expect...it was very
windy and it often rained. The fact that the weather forecasts for
these mountains aren't reliable at all didn't make things easier. The
main problem during the first few weeks was that it snowed a lot in the
mountains and so during the good weather days the conditions were mainly
quite poor.
The
first climb we attempted was the Aguja S, a small peak on the left side
of the Fitz Roy massif. As I said the conditions we not good enough to
climb something big and we also wanted to do something easy to start, so
we choose one of the most classic and easiest climbs, the via de los
Austriacos on the East face.
The
wind in Patagonia can be very "unique" and we had a good opportunity to
experience it during our first climb. When the wind diagrams talk about
10 knots per hour ...don't trust them...10 knots per hour in Patagonia
means it is going to be more windy than you expect...I rather would have
said about 50-60 km/h.
The
second thing we had the opportunity to experience were the approaches.
If a guidebook says it is going to take 6 hours to do the approach you
should calculate that it will definitely take that long, unless you
don't know the approach very well or have a very light backpack.
The
Austriacos route starts with a snow ramp (about 150 meters, 50-60
degrees), followed by three rock pitches in a dihedral that lead to a
saddle. From there you have to climb three more long pitches on the
north ridge to get to the summit.
Climbing
in the sun on the east face was very enjoyable and the snow didn't
bother us very much, but as soon as we got to the saddle we were
suddenly exposed to very strong wind, a never ending gust, that made us
decide to retreat.
We
very quite disappointed, and were already wondering if those were
normal Patagonian conditions and if we would ever get to climb any
mountain.
In
the meantime we learned little by little how everything was working in
this seemingly inhospitable region, not just what concerned climbing but
also the everyday life.
We
were staying at a little hostel and we got there just because on
"booking" it was the cheapest hostel we could find. But we were lucky -
it was one of the cheapest but also one of the best! The owner Jorge was
very kind and so were most of the guests that kept coming and going. We
seemed to be the only ones that planned to stay there for a longer
period and so we started to feel a bit like at home.
El Chalten is not
exactly the cheapest place and so we started to figure out which would
be the main ingredients for our meals: eggs, flour, milk, cheese (queso
cremoso), potatoes, dulce de leche (milk-sweet cream),
bread...and obviously meat! During the first few weeks our main dishes
were pizza, pancakes and fried eggs. The main reason for this not very
varied menu was that we read quite a lot about the climbs in Patagonia
but missed to read some important main-informations about the country...
We didn't know anything about the cambio blue in Argentina: the cambio
blue is the unofficial exchange rate that you get on the black market
and that is way better than the official exchange rate that you get in
the bank.
In simple words it meant that we didn't bring almost any Euros
or Dollars to Argentina and therefore with the official exchange rate
everything was very expensive (official rate was 1€=10pesos, black market 1€=14pesos).
So we had to try to spend as less money as possible and at the same
time try to find a method to get some euros as fast as possible. I knew
that a friend of mine was going to come to El Chalten towards the end of
December, so I wrote him if he could bring us some Euros...in the
meantime I sold a jacket to get some money.
During
the first three weeks we spent quite a lot of time in the town, got to
know new people and unexpectedly met people we already knew - for
example Miguel, a Spanish guy who we met in Chamonix this summer.
Time
was running by fast but it seemed we should not get lucky with the
weather. We tried to go to climb the Poincenot around the 15th of
December but the supposedly good weather turned into heavy snowfall and
so after a night at the Laguna de Los tres we got back to town without
even doing the rest of the approach to the base of the route. The more
time passed, the more things seemed to be impossible.
Aguja Poincenot - Cochrane Willans
Some
days later the weather improved, obviously after some consistent
snowfall. We went up again to try to climb the only climb that seemed to
be possible: the Cochrane-Willans on the Poincenot,
We
went up together with Israel Blanco, a guy we met some days before and
whose climbing partner had gone rock climbing to Chile for a few days.
We
decided to start from the Laguna de los Tres in order not to have to
carry our heavy 4kg tent higher up to Paso Superior. As we got to the
Laguna de Los Tres it had already begun to rain and kept on raining and
snowing also during the night. When we woke up the next morning we
realized that it would have been too dangerous and strenuous to try to
go up that day so we decided to wait and see if the snow would settle
down a bit.
We
were not really sure about what to do as it had snowed about 30 cm. We
were close to return back to town but then some other guys came up and
told us they were going to try to climb the Aguja Poincenot the
following day. So we decided to stay one more day and give it a try.
We
started from the Laguna de Los Tres at about midnight. We where glad to
see that the snow surface had frozen a little bit during the night and
everything seemed a bit safer. We got to the Paso superior and continued
towards the base of the face. The first part of the Cochrane-Willans is
a quite easy snow ramp up to 60-70 degrees steep.
Then
two mixed pitches lead to the upper part. In good conditions the upper
part should be quite easy rock climbing up to V+ but that day it was was
quite covered with snow and we had to climb it with crampons and
iceaxes. Some sections were quite tricky and also the route finding was
not always easy.
The
wind got stronger and stronger, as predicted, and we climbed the last
pitches almost in the storm. There was another climbing party that had
gone to the top together with us and to be sure that we would have
another pair of ropes in case one would get stuck we decided to abseil
together.
The
bad thing about this strategy was that we were exposed to extremely
strong winds for quite a long time. The descend seemed endless and I
would say it's almost a miracle that we all got down safe and without
loosing any rope. For me it certainly was one of the crucial experiences
in Patagonia and one of the worse situations I experienced in the
mountains. Sometimes the wind was so strong that it would have probably
blown us away if we would not have been attached to the anchors. We
also had to struggle against the wind to get down to our tent that we
reached after about 23 hours.
Back
in town we were very happy to have done this epic ascent even though in
normal conditions this climb wouldn't certainly have been that
challenging.
We were quite tired but that didn't bother us very much as the weather during the following days got very poor.
Over
Christmas it even started to snow in El Chalten so we had the
opportunity to cook something good for Christmas (to be honest it was
Thomas who spent the afternoon cooking while I had gone climbing with a
Grier, an very pleasant and cute girl we met hitch hiking some days
before). On Christmas eve we were pleased Grier joined us for dinner.
Towards
the end of December the weather finally seemed to improve. It seemed
like we should get a chance to climb something. Again we were quite
undecided about what to do as we knew that two Austrian teams we going
to try to climb the Supercanaleta, that hadn't been climbed during the
last months due to very dry conditions in the lower part. But as we had
left part of our gear at the Laguna de Los Tres we decided to have a
look at the Franco Argentina on the Fitz Roy. On the way to the Laguna
de Los Tres we unexpectedly met Toni and his girlfriend Sara. Toni is an
old friend of mine whom I climbed a lot with during my studies in
Innsbruck and I was very surprised and happy to meet him again on the
other side of the planet :-).
We
were the first ones to go to the Paso Superior early in the morning. In
the afternoon Miguel joined us, as we had planned to climb the route
together with him. During the day many others followed and in the
evening the Paso Superior was quite crowded with tents. Most of the
people wanted to climb the Cochrane-Willans on the Poincenot but there
were also two other roped parties that wanted to try the Franco
Argentina. We left our tent at about one o'clock in the morning. Miguel
decided to stay at the Paso Superior as his shoes were soaked up with
water.
One
team was already ahead of us so we had the advantage of their tracks.
As we got to the Silla we realized that there was still a lot of snow in
the cracks - too much to try to climb the route in a day and even if we
would have wanted to climb It, we could not have done it as we didn't
bring any sleeping bags or stove. So, again, we had to retreat, but this
time we knew that we simply had taken the wrong decision, because the
weather was good and stable.
We got back to our tents where Miguel was still waiting for his shoes
to dry up. As we still wanted to try to climb something we decided to go
to the Poincenot camp and try to climb the Aguja S the next day.
Aguja S - second go
So
after a few hours of sleep we started from the Poincenot camp. We
already knew the best way to get to the Laguna Sucia and to the base of
the route and our backpacks were quite light, so after about 4 1/2 hours
were were at the base of the route. We climbed the first pitches and
got to the point where we had given up some weeks earlier. Fortunately
the weather was perfect and so after three more pitches we stood on the
top of the Aguja S. For us it was a great feeling, at least we had
reached a summit again!
It
was the 31th of December and we got back to town at about nine o'clock
in the evening. After three days of walking and climbing we felt quite
tired but we knew that a good weather window was supposed to come in the
first days of January.
At
night I went to the Vineria to have a couple of beers with Sebastian
and Roman and some other people that were staying at our hostel. There I
also met Roli (the Austrian friend who brought me the Euros) and he
told me that he and his friends had climbed the Supercanaleta on the
Fitz Roy the day before. These were very good news for us because so
knew what we could try next.
Fitz Roy - Supercanaleta
We
almost couldn't believe it but the coming weather window seemed to be
even better than we thought. We started on the fourth of January and did
the approach starting from the Rio Electrico to Piedra Del Fraile,
Piedra Negra, Paso del Cuadrado and finally we got to the base of the
Southface of Fitz Roy, where the Supercanaleta starts.
There were also three Austrian guys that were going to climb the same
route. The conditions seemed to be quite good and fortunately it wasn't
very windy as we didn't bring the tent. After some hours of sleep we
started to climb. The first 1000 m are not very difficult and offer
snow/ice sections up to 65°. We climbed this first part in the dark to
be safe from ice and stone-fall. After that you have to climb a few
steeper ice and mixed pitches and you also pass by the frozen body of
Frank, a Dutch mountaineer who died falling into the Supercanaleta while
trying to solo the Californian route in 2002 and whose body is now
covered by ice.
After
the middle part you get to a ramp you have to follow diagonally to the
right. After this traverse you get to some steeper pitches. In dry
conditions this upper part apparently can be climbed in rock shoes. In
our case there was still quite a lot of snow that covered the rocks end
so we climbed all the pitches with crampons and mostly with ice axes.
The nearer we got to the ridge the stronger became the wind. The last
few pitches offered very interesting mixed sections but the placements
very mainly very good. The last two-hundred meters were on less steep
snow and easy mixed terrain. We got to the summit after about thirteen
hours and enjoyed the view for another half an hour before descending
again.
We descended to the col and abseiled along the Supercanaleta (you
skip the first part on the ridge and the traverse and abseil down
directly through the dihedral). After a few abseils we passed the next
dead body...this time it was the body of Chad Kellog who died in 2014
due to stone-fall while rappelling. He was left there hanging from his
harness, and abseiling we passed directly besides his body - a very sad
and macabre view. After about six hours of abseiling we got to our
sleeping bags. We slept at the base of the face for another night and
then walked out to the Rio Electrico the next morning. In the evening we
were back in town again and had time to check the weather forecast and
rest a bit.
We were positively surprised that the weather forecast was still good for the next few days.
We
also knew that a few teams had gone to attempt to climb the Ragni route
on the Cerro Torre that during this season hadn't still been summited.
We also heard rumors that someone had seen a person on the top of Cerro
Torre with a spyglass. So we decided not to rest for too long and after
one rest day we started again, this time towards our next big goal: the
Cerro Torre
Cerro Torre - Ragni Route
Which
alpinist doesn't know the Cerro Torre and dreamt about climbing it? It
is said that the Torre is one of the most difficult mountains to climb,
on one hand because there is no easy way to get to it's top and on the
other hand because you need quite a few days of good weather to climb
it. Until the year 2012 the Maestri route, on the east face was the
most popular climb to get to it's top. But then, after climbing a new
route, Hayden Kennedy and Jason Kruk removed almost half of the bolts
Maestri had drilled during his first (aid) ascent and since then it is
not possible anymore to climb the mountain along this route (David Lama
and Peter Ortner free climbed almost the same line 2012 after the bolts
removal - crux pitch 8a).
Since
then another much more logical but harder accessible route won
popularity: the Ragni Route on the West face. The Ragni route, now the
Torre's normal route has been first ascended in 1974 by Daniele Chiappa,
Mario Conti, Casimiro Ferrari and Pino Negri. It truly is a masterpiece
and it is almost incredible to think they managed to climb that face at
that time.
The access to get to the base of the route is rather complicated and usually takes two days.
The
first day we walked to the Laguna Torre and from there we continued to
Niponinos, a campsite situated underneath el Mocho and Cerro Torre's
east face. When I say campsite I don't mean a camping nor a perfectly
flat open area where you go to camp and just hang out. Basically
Niponinos are some big boulders on a glacier moraine with some small
flat sandy spots in between them. The place is very comfortable but the
approach is not that pleasant.....
There
were also two Austrian teams there. One three men party and one two men
party. We already knew them and so the atmosphere was quite good.
After
bivouacing there we started at about six o'clock the next morning and
went to Paso Standhardt, rapelled down on the other side and went down to
the Circo de Los Altares. It would not be necessary to descend until
the Circo de Los Altares but as we didn't exactly see where we had to
traverse we preferred to go down and then go up again to the Filo Rosso.
As
the snow was already very fluffy we decided to bivouac about 1300 m
underneath the summit. As we didn't bring the tent we bivouaced directly
on the snow.
Again
it was not a very long night and at one o'clock we already started
towards the Col de L'Esperanza. We got to the base of el Elmo, the
buttress of the steep needle-like summit, with the first light. The
atmosphere was simply magic, only the wind made it a bit more
uncomfortable. From there we climbed about three or four pitches to get
to the top of el Elmo. Generally it took us a bit longer than we would
have liked as we were the last of three teams and had to wait quite a
lot on the belays. After the Elmo we got to the quite easy mixed pitches
and to the head wall that offered two very good and steep ice pitches.
After those two pitches two more ice/rime pitches led to a little saddle
where we enjoyed the sun before climbing the unique ice tunnel that
leads to the last pitch. At the base of the last pitch we had plenty of
time to rest and watch the others climb this incredible rime formation
before it was our turn. The climbing on the last pitch was very cool,
and as we were probably the seventh climbing party to climb this pitch
this season it was quite clean and good to climb.
We
finally got to the summit at about half past three. Indescribable
moments - a dream came true. The weather was perfect, the wind wasn't
almost blowing and we enjoyed the view from the top before starting the
rappels.
After
about six hours we got back again to our tents. This climb was
certainly one of my best and most unique adventures, even though from
the technical point of view it didn't seem that hard to me (the crux is
the last pitch and was maybe comparable to a WI 5+ pitch).
But what I didn't know was that the hardest part was still up to come.......
Already
during the descent the wind had consistently got stronger and we
especially felt it on the last part of the rappels underneath the Elmo.
Then, at the tents the wind seemed a bit less strong. Our original plan
was to hike down to the Circo de Los Altares before it got dark and then
go back over the Passo Marconi during the night. What we did't expect
was such a strong wind. We passed the moraine at the end of the Circo de
Los Altares and started to walk in direction of the Paso Marconi but
the wind was that strong, that we decided to return back to the Circo de
los Altares, bivouac there and decide what to do the next day. Also
Peter and Sepp had decided to stay at the Circo de los Altares so the
next day we started together with them. Due to the strong wind we
decided it might be better to go back over the Paso del Viento. The paso
del Viento lies in the opposite direction than Paso Marconi but
apparently it takes the same time to go back to El Chalten - 12 hours...
And about 12 km of hiking on the hielo continental...
After
some endless seeming hours we fortunately got to el Paso del Viento. We
did't have a detailed description about this descent as we had planned
to do the descend via Paso Marconi. So we thought it would not last that
long to get to el Chalten. We were wrong: in total we had to do 45 km
and we got back to El Chalten after 14 hours. What a hike!
Back in El Chalten I could not miss to go to have dinner and drink a few beers with Toni and Sara - crazy!
During
the next days we rested, ate and slept a lot. The weather stayed good
and after a few days we thought we should do one last climb before it
would get worse again and we would have to leave. So we decided to go to
climb something easy that we could do in one day.
Aguja Guillaumet - Brenner
After three rest
days, on the apparently last good weather day we started at two o'clock
in the night. We took a taxi to Rio Electrico and from there we hiked up
to Piedra Negra and to the base of the Brenner Route on the Aguja
Guillaumet. This is one of the easiest and most accessible routes in el
Chalten ( 350m 6b). At about 8 o'clock we started to climb and reached
the top about four - four and a half hours later. During the descend we
realized that we still were quite tired from the last adventures and
that probably this would have been our last climb on this trip.
And so was it.
Even
though the weather stayed very good for the next days we decided that
it would be better to take it easy on the last days and leave the next
big projects for our next trip to Patagonia!
It
was a great experience that gave us also he opportunity to meet new
interesting people whom I hope we will meet again in future. Thanks and
good luck for future projects to everyone we met on the trip!
At this point I would also like to thank "Reusch" for the support. Best gloves ever!
Thanks also to Uli and "Riskprotect" :-)!
