Cerro Torre in the morning light
The final headwall pitch had been challenging, super exposed and at the end of a cold bivy and 2 days climbing in the cold. Seracs three times the size of Kilnsey hang off granite monoliths nearby. Myself and Tim look down at another team low down on the climb. The BD pro team had been forced to retreat off the first hard pitch, fiendishly strong as the leader was he was unable to pull his partner up, fond of waffles and dolce de leche his second had been risking breaking the belay anchors. We give them a wave and turn around to continue up the thankfully easy angled snow slope, still not too soft from the sun. As we top out....
I wake up from the dream and look out of the plane again at the layer of clouds beneath, it had been getting thicker and thicker as we’d crossed the Atlantic and as we neared GB there were no gaps. This was appropriate as beneath those clouds lay bills, dampness and replays of some of the worst weather for decades. None of our objectives had been achieved, in fact we hadn’t even gained the base of any of them, but it had still ended up being a great trip. I looked back on a month in Patagonia with Tim Neill:
Day 1: Fly into El Calafate, a small airport in a fantastic situation on the edge of a glacial lake. A 3 hr minibus journey across flat plains tracking the edge of a huge lake brings the pointy granite peaks into view and the sudden contrast of plains into peaks gave a good insight of why this place holds a place in the heart of many people. We get dropped off in the town of El Chalten and head to the Aylen Aike Hostel ran by the gregarious Seba. Growing rapidly El Chalten was the name given to the higher peaks such as Fitzroy by some of the first inhabitants of the area.
After a 30 minutes walk down the high street I looked in a mirror and my forehead appeared to have been microwaved. I forgot that although the Montreal Protocol was one of the most successful bits of international environmental legislation the hole in the ozone layer is very close. Some Patagonian regulars informed me it’s the easiest place to get burned, they lived in California.
Day 2: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....
Day 3: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....
We have seen the first condors of the trip. In the middle of the day a huge horse gallops full speed down the El Chalten main street trailing 20 metres of rope, a few minutes later 2 dogs came running after it!
Day 4: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....
Day 5: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores, boulder and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....but there is a blip on the graphs and the talk moves to a ‘window’.
Day 6: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs...
a hive of activity begins, objectives are talked of, files sharpen axes and everybody makes ready for an exodus to the hills.
Day 7: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs...
People shop and pack. Josh Wharton and Brian leave us a gas canister. The world is a small place, Josh lives in Colorado but his grandad had helped set up the Ogwen Mountain rescue team back in North Wales.
Day 8: Getting my rucksack on in El Chalten I wonder if I can move the pig of a weight out of town, 8 hrs later having attached ourselves to Mikey Schaeffer and Co halfway along we enter our basecamp, Niponino. On the walk in Cerro Torre had popped out of the clouds, Hazel cleverly observes free climbing it at that moment would be tricky as it was plastered white. The landscape is incredible and it’s very hard to grasp the scale of all the granite faces, the seracs and overhanging snow mushrooms hanging off many of them.
I wake up from the dream and look out of the plane again at the layer of clouds beneath, it had been getting thicker and thicker as we’d crossed the Atlantic and as we neared GB there were no gaps. This was appropriate as beneath those clouds lay bills, dampness and replays of some of the worst weather for decades. None of our objectives had been achieved, in fact we hadn’t even gained the base of any of them, but it had still ended up being a great trip. I looked back on a month in Patagonia with Tim Neill:
Day 1: Fly into El Calafate, a small airport in a fantastic situation on the edge of a glacial lake. A 3 hr minibus journey across flat plains tracking the edge of a huge lake brings the pointy granite peaks into view and the sudden contrast of plains into peaks gave a good insight of why this place holds a place in the heart of many people. We get dropped off in the town of El Chalten and head to the Aylen Aike Hostel ran by the gregarious Seba. Growing rapidly El Chalten was the name given to the higher peaks such as Fitzroy by some of the first inhabitants of the area.
After a 30 minutes walk down the high street I looked in a mirror and my forehead appeared to have been microwaved. I forgot that although the Montreal Protocol was one of the most successful bits of international environmental legislation the hole in the ozone layer is very close. Some Patagonian regulars informed me it’s the easiest place to get burned, they lived in California.
Day 2: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....
Day 3: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....
We have seen the first condors of the trip. In the middle of the day a huge horse gallops full speed down the El Chalten main street trailing 20 metres of rope, a few minutes later 2 dogs came running after it!
Day 4: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....
Day 5: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores, boulder and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....but there is a blip on the graphs and the talk moves to a ‘window’.
Day 6: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs...
a hive of activity begins, objectives are talked of, files sharpen axes and everybody makes ready for an exodus to the hills.
Day 7: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs...
People shop and pack. Josh Wharton and Brian leave us a gas canister. The world is a small place, Josh lives in Colorado but his grandad had helped set up the Ogwen Mountain rescue team back in North Wales.
Day 8: Getting my rucksack on in El Chalten I wonder if I can move the pig of a weight out of town, 8 hrs later having attached ourselves to Mikey Schaeffer and Co halfway along we enter our basecamp, Niponino. On the walk in Cerro Torre had popped out of the clouds, Hazel cleverly observes free climbing it at that moment would be tricky as it was plastered white. The landscape is incredible and it’s very hard to grasp the scale of all the granite faces, the seracs and overhanging snow mushrooms hanging off many of them.
Tim on Chiaro de Luna
Tim on top of Saint Exupery
Day 9: We wake at 1:00 with the intention of trying Exocet but the temps feel like a summer morning in Camp 4, Tim makes a great call of going back to bed and trying a rock objective. We get up at 5 and go for Chiaro de Luna on Saint Exupery. Although cold with often ice filled cracks it gave a great day out. Getting back to camp we encounter horror stories from people who had attempted Exocet, the best being Marc Leclercs and Jason Kruk who had to wait under a boulder for 8 hrs for the bombardments to stop so they could abseil off.
Day 10: Set off on Yellow Grey Arrow/new route and decide we’re 5 hrs too late. Abseil off and do Rubio Azul which gives a great view of the Cerro Torre summit headwall, from close up it appeared quite featured. The sun had melted the snow off the headwall and I grew more optimistic about getting on it. As we abseil off the weather craps out. We camp and get no sleep, listening to the wind ‘charging’ in the glacier before battering down the valley sweeping the rain into our tent. We walk out early back to the great food in El Chalten. Our stash was where we wanted it and all we had to do was wait....
Day 11: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....
Team Epic TV (being Jack Geldard, Rob Greenwood and Matt Pycroft) had an eventful window helping with the rescue of 2 climbers who had taken a bad fall off the Supercanaleta. It took all night and at the end of the rescue Jack gained some sage advice from a man also on the rescue:
“First time in Patagonia? Let this be a lesson to you on self reliance”
Jack took the advice literally and was hardly seen outside of the kitchen for the duration of the holiday, his baking was 2nd to none.
Days 12-20: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....
This is the easiest place to hitch I’ve been, people and families go out of their way to make space for hitchers, very welcoming. Jack, Rob and Matts time has come to an end. The film in production for Epic TV should be watched by anyone thinking of eating out in El Chalten as they visited every restaurant and cafe on their trip. Myself, Tim and Hazel may have put up a new 4 pitch route on a nearby cliff, unfortunately its not worth giving a name to.
Days 20-21: Another window appears and myself and Tim enthusiastically walk through the rain to get to Niponino on New Years Eve to try a new route on El Mocho on New Years Day. A lone fox is one of the few other inhabitants of Niponino. It snows during the night and combined with spindrift and cold weather we end up walking back out disgruntled and wondering if we were being men of low moral fibre. Maybe it was bad karma for putting an equivalent of 3 tonnes of CO2 each into the atmosphere with our huge flight? Other teams head in as we leave, carrying axes, Mikey Schaefer and the Kauffman brothers succeed on an excellent new route the Super Domo on Domo Blanco.
Day 10: Set off on Yellow Grey Arrow/new route and decide we’re 5 hrs too late. Abseil off and do Rubio Azul which gives a great view of the Cerro Torre summit headwall, from close up it appeared quite featured. The sun had melted the snow off the headwall and I grew more optimistic about getting on it. As we abseil off the weather craps out. We camp and get no sleep, listening to the wind ‘charging’ in the glacier before battering down the valley sweeping the rain into our tent. We walk out early back to the great food in El Chalten. Our stash was where we wanted it and all we had to do was wait....
Day 11: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....
Team Epic TV (being Jack Geldard, Rob Greenwood and Matt Pycroft) had an eventful window helping with the rescue of 2 climbers who had taken a bad fall off the Supercanaleta. It took all night and at the end of the rescue Jack gained some sage advice from a man also on the rescue:
“First time in Patagonia? Let this be a lesson to you on self reliance”
Jack took the advice literally and was hardly seen outside of the kitchen for the duration of the holiday, his baking was 2nd to none.
Days 12-20: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing.....
This is the easiest place to hitch I’ve been, people and families go out of their way to make space for hitchers, very welcoming. Jack, Rob and Matts time has come to an end. The film in production for Epic TV should be watched by anyone thinking of eating out in El Chalten as they visited every restaurant and cafe on their trip. Myself, Tim and Hazel may have put up a new 4 pitch route on a nearby cliff, unfortunately its not worth giving a name to.
Days 20-21: Another window appears and myself and Tim enthusiastically walk through the rain to get to Niponino on New Years Eve to try a new route on El Mocho on New Years Day. A lone fox is one of the few other inhabitants of Niponino. It snows during the night and combined with spindrift and cold weather we end up walking back out disgruntled and wondering if we were being men of low moral fibre. Maybe it was bad karma for putting an equivalent of 3 tonnes of CO2 each into the atmosphere with our huge flight? Other teams head in as we leave, carrying axes, Mikey Schaefer and the Kauffman brothers succeed on an excellent new route the Super Domo on Domo Blanco.
The best pizzas in the world at the Chocolateria
Days 21-26: The wind blows, the climbers eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana is playing....
Dave Macleod, Calum, Ally Swinton and Ben Winston arrive. It’s good to have renewed energy bumped into our trip, we’ve climbed almost every day but the sports venues are by no means similar to Ceuse and we were feeling the lows of the meteographs, accentuated by Tim reading Birdsong and me reading a very good but slightly bleak post apocalyptic book.
Dave looked exceedingly strong doing a font 8b in 2/3 sessions and I hoped Calum had not left his jumars back with his statics on the torres. The rarity value of getting up any of the bigger climbs in Patagonia certainly adds to the flavour much like the rarely in condition Welsh winter climbs.
Days 27-30: Our final window. Short and cold we were aiming to repeat Super Domo.
Dave Macleod, Calum, Ally Swinton and Ben Winston arrive. It’s good to have renewed energy bumped into our trip, we’ve climbed almost every day but the sports venues are by no means similar to Ceuse and we were feeling the lows of the meteographs, accentuated by Tim reading Birdsong and me reading a very good but slightly bleak post apocalyptic book.
Dave looked exceedingly strong doing a font 8b in 2/3 sessions and I hoped Calum had not left his jumars back with his statics on the torres. The rarity value of getting up any of the bigger climbs in Patagonia certainly adds to the flavour much like the rarely in condition Welsh winter climbs.
Days 27-30: Our final window. Short and cold we were aiming to repeat Super Domo.
The Fitzroy range on our walk in
Tim on the first of the 3 brilliant final ice pitches with Rolando Garibotti going up the top pitch in the distance
Tim had his 70th birthday as we climbed, looking up the final ice pitches
We set off at 2.30 and with 1 team ahead and 2 teams behind we walk in via a cloudless morning and great views of the Fitzroy range. The first part of the climb had some great easier ice pitches, the middle had a techy mixed pitch which Tim dealt with smoothly and the final 3 ice pitches looked superb. Owen the ozzie and Mike from Colorado were hot on our heels and Pete Graham and Ben Sylvester right behind them. As Tim climbed the 1st of the top ice pitches I watched Rolando Garibotti climbing the final, crux and intimidating top pitch managing not to send down any ice onto us by hooking it. As I seconded this last ice pitch I noticed a good 6 inches of slack between me and Tim and I shouted to let him know.
Tim traversing out on the final pitch with an annoying converter insignia in the middle
The CAC calender on top of Domo Blanco with Fitzroy behind
We were lucky to top out on Domo Blanco with a view across the Patagonian ice cap (something I felt we’d missed out on), to our original objective Cerro Torre and back towards Fitzroy. This ascent made the trip for the both of us. The line of Supercanaleta particularly stuck out, being a huge corner with an ice streak in the back splitting the huge peak. It’s the best mixed/alpine style line I’ve seen and having been wondering what brought people back for a 2nd holiday it suddenly became clear, it was certainly the best winter line I’d seen.
Above: Some footage of the area whilst abseiling off Domo Blanco
The walk out the following day we retrieved all of our kit and although we had heavy bags the walk back to El Chalten felt considerably easier than on the ‘empty bagged and handed’ New Years day walk out.
Days 31-2: Last 2 days involved being knackered from the walk out and pizza+alfajores from the chocolateria and feeling the weight of the good food whilst trying to boulder. Ed Brown and Paul Reeve arrive to bolster the Brit contingent. Colin Haley told the best 4 jokes I’ve ever heard and gained huge respect points but then lost them all by mentioning how he liked the band the Streets. We met the person named the ‘Troutman’ who managed to maintain a conversation on fish migrations for 40 minutes+. It was time to leave.
The final morning our friends, Seth, Neale, Zach, Lowri and Ryan helped me and Tim to get our stuff to the minibus and we said our goodbyes to them and Seba, the owner of the finest hostel in the world. We were sad to leave but knew that....
.. the wind would blow, the climbers would eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana would always be playing....
Big thanks to Tim, Calum, the BMC....
& to Glyn & Scarpa, Dan Thompson & Rab, DMM, Sterling and the Chocolateria for goodies.
The walk out the following day we retrieved all of our kit and although we had heavy bags the walk back to El Chalten felt considerably easier than on the ‘empty bagged and handed’ New Years day walk out.
Days 31-2: Last 2 days involved being knackered from the walk out and pizza+alfajores from the chocolateria and feeling the weight of the good food whilst trying to boulder. Ed Brown and Paul Reeve arrive to bolster the Brit contingent. Colin Haley told the best 4 jokes I’ve ever heard and gained huge respect points but then lost them all by mentioning how he liked the band the Streets. We met the person named the ‘Troutman’ who managed to maintain a conversation on fish migrations for 40 minutes+. It was time to leave.
The final morning our friends, Seth, Neale, Zach, Lowri and Ryan helped me and Tim to get our stuff to the minibus and we said our goodbyes to them and Seba, the owner of the finest hostel in the world. We were sad to leave but knew that....
.. the wind would blow, the climbers would eat empanadas, alfajores and watch the meteographs, in Aylen Aike Hostel Nirvana would always be playing....
Big thanks to Tim, Calum, the BMC....
& to Glyn & Scarpa, Dan Thompson & Rab, DMM, Sterling and the Chocolateria for goodies.
Zach, Neale and Seth the Alaskan checking the meteographs in Aylen Aike Hostel
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