Guillot-Conqueugniot Route on Aguja Guillaumet

January 31, 2014

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

Coming off the high from our home-to-home success on Mojon Rojo, we wanted to squeak out one more trip into the mountains before having to fly home. Conditions hadn't changed and the weather forecast didn't look terribly inspiring, but we had to give it a shot.

There was much debate about our final objective. Both Dale and I wanted a shot at redemption on Exocet, but the weather did not appear commensurate with the magnitude and commitment of the route. Our other challenge was time—to climb something as far back there as Exocet would have required a nearly continuous output and very short bivy. We eventually settled on a return trip to Aguja Guillaumet.

Our approach day started out better than our previous soirée at Piedra Negra, but quickly caused a little PTSD and flashbacks when sideways snow began to whip our faces on the hike up from Piedra del Fraile. We ended up waiting out the worst of it (or so we thought) with a couple of lovely ladies from Buenos Aires in the last tree-protected area before camp. It was a lovely way to spend an hour that would have otherwise been pretty grim.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't calm down much and we experienced a bunch more whipping wind carrying face-buffing particulates. At times, the gusts would literally push us uphill. We simply had to keep moving our feet forwards and the wind was strong enough to carry us. This awkward and challenging hike finally brought us back to Piedra Negra where we quickly pitched the tent and experienced a wonderful progression of first dinner, a nap, and a second dinner.

To save some weight after lugging heavy packs around for most of the trip, we decided to try sleeping in the tent with just puffy jackets and pants. As we settled in for the night after our second dinner and blood rushing to our stomachs to deal with 1,600 calories of Backpackers' Pantry deliciousness, I was glad that I'd brought an emergency blanket. We tucked ourselves in under our crinkly sheet and shivered our way to sleep, listening to a roaring wind outside and watching ice form on the inside of the tent.

Nearing the top of the couloir.  Photo by Dale Apgar. — Nearing the top of the couloir. Photo by Dale Apgar.

The wind had calmed a bit by our 4am wakeup and we quickly ascended the glacier and scree up to Paso Guillaumet. As we reached the pass, I experienced, for the first time, wind rushing up both sides of a pass, meeting in the middle, and shooting straight up in the air. It was too windy and cold to climb, so we waited for the sunrise; Dale stomping around to keep warm and me donning my puffy pants. Thankfully, the wind subsided a bit after the sun came up and we headed for our route—the Guillot.

The coulor was more consistent than the Amy, maintaining a similar width and set of conditions throughout. There were some steps of steep ice, but most of the climb was steep snow and off-angle ice. We climbed it in about 4 pitches with our 70m rope, topping out on the ridge after a short mixed section. It took a few minutes to confirm our next pitch along the ridge line, which ended up feeling a lot like 5.8 climbing since we were doing it with gloves and mountaineering boots on. Perhaps on a sunny day and with approach shoes, it would have felt much more casual.

The rest of the ridge after that point eased up a bit. There was an easy traverse, followed by one more 5th class section that was less exposed and quite a bit easier. I decided to use one tool and one glove for that section and it seemed to be a much better approach. The wind had kicked up again when we had gained the ridge, and these last two pitches were quite blustery, but still safe. All that stood between us and the summit at that point was a bit of steep snow.

The summit was in a full whiteout, but we could not have been much happier. In our last week, we'd gone from a big goose egg on our summit to a slightly more respectable 2. We didn't hang out for very long, knowing that the wind was only getting stronger and that the weather was moving in. We rappelled the route quickly, got back to the col, and booked it down the scree and snow slopes to camp where we made ourselves a hot lunch and packed things up to get ourselves back to town.

I'm not sure if it was a desire to stop the sand-blasting of my face by the wind, the magic of the whisky we drank, or something inside me that wanted to make the most of my last day in Patagonia, but I ended up moving quickly on the trail back out, propelling my tired legs with my upper body and trekking poles, making it from Piedra Negra to the road at Rio Electrico in 2.5 hours. A bus picked us up minutes after we started hitchhiking and carried us back to El Chalten for a final night of merriment.

During our first two weeks in Patagonia, especially during the second week when the festering really set in, I wasn't sure that I would return to this wind-scoured, wintry, real-deal mountain paradise. After the successes and experiences of our last week and after taking some time to reflect on the trip as a whole, I can say confidently that I'd like to make it back to El Chalten one day.

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.