Cara Este on Mojón Rojo

January 28, 2014

For Dale's take on this adventure, check out his blog:
http://www.daleapgar.com/words/patagonia-2014-part-iii

Some days come together as a perfect concert of luck and execution. The rarity of such days is highlighted by the number that more closely follow Murphy's Law, of which we'd experienced a few during our time in Patagonia.

Taking in the magical Patagonian ambiance

In this case, we snuck in a great climb and our first summit of the trip in a weather window shorter than one day with decently high pressure, but high winds and an impending storm in the late afternoon. Dale and I teamed up with friends Alan and Adam, woke up in our hostel early in the morning, and were on the trail up to Campo Poincenot around 4am.

For the first time on the trip, we were carrying a minimal amount of gear—nothing to spend the night, no stove, no bulky food, no full ropes, and a tiny amount of rock gear. The impossibly light feeling resulted in some seriously fast hiking on our approach to Rio Blanco and then up the river to Lago Sucia, mostly before dawn and with the last bits at the lake at sunrise. The clear skies let us see a looming Fitz Roy massif from early in the hike and the granite faces slowly became contrasted against the night sky as dawn drew nearer.

We made our way around the scree slopes on the South side of the lake and then headed up the steep, somewhat loose rock outcrops on our way up to the glacier. It had been cold overnight and our few stream crossings were a bit treacherous with tough-to-see verglass on all of the rock. Thankfully we made it through unscathed and dry. We suited up for the glacier once on the snow slopes and were glad we did—I plunged into my waist twice while crossing the crevasse field. All of the recent snow had filled things in enough to make the crevasses mostly invisible, but not enough to create solid bridges.

The crevasse danger subsided as we reached lower-angle slopes below Mojón Rojo and were blown away by gorgeous views North to Poincenot, Fitz Roy, and the rest of the massif. The last bit of snow was deep and tough going, but we traded off a few times and hit the 4th class rock without being too tired. The route wasn't crystal clear, but everything was pretty manageable, so we took a couloir up to some rock, pulled a steeper section, and headed up 3rd class for a little bit until we hit a short 5th class bit. It wasn't long or difficult enough to warrant roping up.

The last bit to the summit was more 3rd class and we arrived at the summit block to experience some incredible views of the Torre massif as well as some roaring winds. Standing 20 feet from the edge was decently calm, but getting near the sheer cliff would push you off balance. We briefly put a rope on to take turns pulling the exposed 5.6 moves to the top for the proper summit tag, then packed up and started our descent.

It was pretty uneventful on the way down and the forecasted weather was clearly rolling in, but not chasing us off the mountain. We stopped at the toe of the glacier to nap in the sun. It was so nice to have some warm sun on our faces without a perceptible wind chill!

We eventually motivated and hiked back out, quickly hitting the lake, skirting it again, following the river out, and then following the well-worn trail back to town to complete our home-to-home mission. What a great day.

Attempt on Aguja Standhardt

January 23, 2014

For Dale's take on this adventure, check out his blog:
http://www.daleapgar.com/words/patagonia-2014-part-ii

Challenging weather and conditions continued into our second week in Chalten. Exocet, a classic ice route on Aguja Standhardt had been on our list before flying down and we were able to chat with a pair of hard-charging Austrians at our hostel about their recent send of the route to soak up as much beta as we could.

This weather window promised higher pressure and lower winds, but very cold temperatures, so we made the call to give it a shot. Our approach was fast to Lago Torre and then slowed considerably as we mistakenly took the East side of the lake rather than the West. Our scree surfing and boulder hopping were pretty exhausting, but eventually brought us back to Niponino on a cold evening with snow beginning to fall.

Given the snow, we decided to take the next day as a beta-gathering session. We woke up later than usual and headed up the glacier, figuring out how to skirt Nunatak and how to avoid the seracs and crevasses of the glacier above on our way to Col Standhardt. The weather was marginal and we were glad that we weren't up there climbing on the route.

That evening, we got to meet Colin Haley and guidebook author Rolando Garibotti at Niponino. Apparently Mikey Schaefer was also in camp with Dale's friend from the Sierra, Josh Huckabee. We got the updated weather forecast from Colin's satellite phone and then hunkered down for the night.

It snowed over night again and we woke at 1am to a bunch of fresh powder outside the tent. It was going to be an interesting day. Things went smoothly up past Nunatak, but the white-out from snow falling, lack of a moon, and set of boot prints headed up the glacier led us astray for nearly two hours. Shining headlamps in the distance only enhanced the Star Wars effect—we really couldn't see anything. We hit dead end after dead end in a serac field before roping up and crossing some sketchy terrain to gain the main boot pack up towards Col Standhardt. We weren't that far behind schedule (trying to hit the col at daybreak), but had burned a bunch of energy going up and down the snow slopes.

Another party was clearly above us on the approach. We could see their headlamps making steady progress toward the col before dawn. Unfortunately, the new snow was being blown into pretty significant drifts and was over a foot and a half deep in places. We were on slopes that met the magic criteria for avalanche and knew there was an icy layer below. Dale's spidey sense was going off and we had a chat about the avalanche potential at a rock band just below Col Standhardt. It was decided that the risk was not worth the reward, especially given a party above us on the route who would be causing a bunch of ice to fall in the crux WI5+ chimney, up to 4 pitches above us, so we bailed.

We were pretty dejected. After not being able to summit our first objective and a couple of days spent festering in town, we were both a bit sad. The snow stopped as we got back to safety and the sun came out. Cerro Torre emerged and we spent the next few hours taking photos of the gorgeous valley, with striking views of the Torre Massif and the West side of the Fitz Roy Massif.

After an afternoon of champion napping in the sun on my thermarest, we spent the night and hiked back to town the next morning with weather rolling in over the course of our 6+ hour saunter.

Regardless of the outcome, it was a great experience and we were able to catch views and see parts of the range that most trekkers never get to see. I'll take it.

Amy-Vidailhet Route on Aguja Guillaumet

January 15, 2014

For Dale's take on this adventure, check out his blog:
http://www.daleapgar.com/words/patagonia-2014-part-i

Our plan before making it down to Chalten included starting out on Aguja Guillaumet as a warm-up. We had wanted to hit the Brenner-Moschioni route on the North ridge, but it became clear once we made it to Chalten that our trip was not going to involve much pure rock climbing. All of the granite faces were plastered with snow and had cracks filled with ice, and the temperatures weren't rising enough to bake the wintry coats off of the towering granite peaks. "Play the hand you're dealt," we told ourselves. The clear back-up route was the Amy-Vidailhet, a snow and ice gully running up to the summit ridge.

Piedra Negra camp with Guillaumet behind

We were still figuring out the lay of the land and weather when the first "window" appeared on the meteogram. After spending one day in town after all of our traveling, we were rested and ready to hit it up. The forecast for our approach day was pretty miserable, but the following day looked good, or so we thought. The cab ride had rain pounding the windshield and we were dropped off at Rio Electrico under an ominous sky.

The first 2 hours to Piedra del Fraile went easily and quickly, but as we approached the exposed ridge heading to Piedra Negra, we began to feel the brunt of the weather. This section of the approach felt quite a bit like Aasgard Pass back in Washington. Driving winds and horizontal rain pelted us on our hike up to Piedra Negra and we found ourselves completely soaked by the time we made it to camp. No one else was up there. We struggled the tent up in the wind and hopped in immediately, not to emerge until the next morning.

Hot meals and warm sleeping bags helped us dry and thaw out before waking at dawn the next morning to give the climb a shot. We took a slight mis-step on our way up to Paso Guillaumet, but were able to traverse back to the col successfully and were greeted with a sunny, relatively calm day on the East side of the massif.

The climb was in perfect condition. The snow was well consolidated and had good, secure steps in it. Much of the route was full-on alpine ice that took good screws. We climbed along another pair of guys from Seattle and exchanged whoops and hollers of delight as one-hit wonders kept greeting us all the way up.

Unfortunately, the wind at the ridge was insanely strong and appeared to be getting worse by the minute. Snow started blowing straight up the gully as we turned around and rapped the route with our new friends. A set of 3 or 4 double-rope raps got us back to the steep snow below the bergshrund and we booked it for the pass, where we were greeted with violent winds carrying snow crystals and an unintended exfoliating facial. The winds calmed a bit as we dropped back down to the lower glacier and it was much more calm by the time we hit camp.

A bunch of people had come up to camp while we were climbing and spoke of a window that was opening up, so we decided to stay the night and see if the sky would open a bit. Some more hot meals knocked us out well before sunset and we woke to uninspiring conditions after enduring another very windy night in the tent. It was so windy that at least one party had to hike out that night with a broken pole. We later heard that winds were easily 30 knots during our nights up there. A nap was in order before our hike out.

The skies cleared and things warmed up a bunch during our hike out, and we passed no fewer than 30 people headed up for an apparent 2-3 day window. We had to explain to a number of folks why we were headed out. It was a bit frustrating, but we'd had a great time. We learned a lot and we made it through some tough conditions, which helped us put things in perspective for the rest of the trip.