Cerro Colorado - Fingers of Fate 5.10b & la cumbre
Aguja Saint Exupery - Chiaro de luna route 5.10d
Mojon Rojo - Class 5.4
january 2020
After my incredibly successful trip to New Zealand where I climbed Mount Cook among others, I travelled directly to Santiago Chile from Auckland where I met Matt there at the airport. For the next couple months we travelled around Patagonia, in what was his first trip to the area. We spent most of our time in El Chalten, however we enjoyed a week in Villa Cerro Castillo, and even made an attempt climbing the Castillo after doing some volunteer work for the trail crews to avoid the newly instated and expensive access fee to enter the Cerro Castillo park (which did not exist two years prior when Elaine and Itai climbed Cerro Palo and Puntado). We didn't make the summit due to icier than expected conditions at the 5.7 summit area. We stayed at the Camping Senderos Patagonia on the south end of town where many of the workers staying for the summer were doing various tasks to improve the park. One particular person named Mathias was really interested to hear about my previous trip up to Climb Cerro Palo, since he wasn't familiar about the route we had done. He also gave us some awesome beta for future attempts on Cerro Castillo. We did some sport climbing with the guys at one of the short walls right in town and they showed us what reallt good meat is! All around fun times.
We then moved a bit further south to Chile Chico where upon arroval after taking the ferry across Lago General Carerra, we walked to Campomento Nandu hostel where Juan and Kathy remembered me from a couple years prior. They were happy to host us again and Juan gave us a ride to the trailhead for Cerro Colorado. Matt and I had the place to ourselves for a few days which we did a few routes on the wall, the best of which was Fingers of Fate which went at 5.10b. Most of the best routes are very hard 5.11 and up some with less than desirable protection. On Christmas day it was incredibly windy as we hiked up to the base of the wall, so windy infact we could barely even walk so we called our folks on my phone which amazngly had service out there! Later that afternoon it didn't get any better but we did manage to find one short sheltered route to climb, and I scrambled around the cliffs on their east side to summit the formation via a class 3 route. The last day it was also windy but not as bad. We had to hitchhike back to town after hiking back to the gravel Chile Chico airport road (X-753). After waiting a couple hours we just decided to start walking north back towards the highway, and finally after a couple miles someone picked us up. We then noticed a stretch of good weather coming to Chalten so we got bus tickets and went back south.
Upon arriving to Chalten, Matthew was very excited to be seeing Fitz for the first time. It was as usual cloudy and windy when we arrived, and we pretty quickly befriended some other climbers and found a hostel to stay at. We more or less stayed in Chelten for 3 weeks or so before I left for what would have been a 10 day trip to northern Chile to meet up with Steven Song for some high elevation peaks, but just after I arrived in Copiapo, I had a bunch of things stolen and wasn't able to join him and his group for Ojos del Salado. Unfortunately that also included my camera with all the photos since I arrived in Chile so I only have a few photos from the whole trip displayed below, plus the ones Matthew got on his SLR.
During our stay in Chalten, I was only able to hit the first good weather window we had at New Years a few days after we arrived, and Matt and I decided on climbing Chiaro de Luna; a beautiful classic on the west side of Ste Exupery. We joined John and his friends for the approach hike to Niponino which took most of the day after leaving town around 10am. Weather was nice in town with a warm sunshine, and even reasonable at Laguna Torre (which was of course flooded with tourists). As soon as we started hiking around the lakeshore though we didn't see much of anyone else. We continued around the north side of Laguna Torre and beyond to the Torre Glacier, and this traverse is very tedious with a high rockfall danger from the huge moraine above. Rocks are all loose and unstable which with big packs on is slow going. Eventually though we were able to cut onto the ice above the terminus and utilize the rocky covered glacier to make a beeline towards Niponino camp, a mildly sheltered spot at the junction of where the Torre glacier meets coming down from the north, and its western form comes down from the south side of Cerro Torre. It was shortly before reaching Niponino we caught up with Melissa and her climbing partner, who were also going for Chiaro de Luna. After arriving to camp we set up the tent and figured we would make an attempt on Aguja De I's the next day since we would need a couple days of dry weather to melt off the ice that had formed on Chiaro de Luna.
We then moved a bit further south to Chile Chico where upon arroval after taking the ferry across Lago General Carerra, we walked to Campomento Nandu hostel where Juan and Kathy remembered me from a couple years prior. They were happy to host us again and Juan gave us a ride to the trailhead for Cerro Colorado. Matt and I had the place to ourselves for a few days which we did a few routes on the wall, the best of which was Fingers of Fate which went at 5.10b. Most of the best routes are very hard 5.11 and up some with less than desirable protection. On Christmas day it was incredibly windy as we hiked up to the base of the wall, so windy infact we could barely even walk so we called our folks on my phone which amazngly had service out there! Later that afternoon it didn't get any better but we did manage to find one short sheltered route to climb, and I scrambled around the cliffs on their east side to summit the formation via a class 3 route. The last day it was also windy but not as bad. We had to hitchhike back to town after hiking back to the gravel Chile Chico airport road (X-753). After waiting a couple hours we just decided to start walking north back towards the highway, and finally after a couple miles someone picked us up. We then noticed a stretch of good weather coming to Chalten so we got bus tickets and went back south.
Upon arriving to Chalten, Matthew was very excited to be seeing Fitz for the first time. It was as usual cloudy and windy when we arrived, and we pretty quickly befriended some other climbers and found a hostel to stay at. We more or less stayed in Chelten for 3 weeks or so before I left for what would have been a 10 day trip to northern Chile to meet up with Steven Song for some high elevation peaks, but just after I arrived in Copiapo, I had a bunch of things stolen and wasn't able to join him and his group for Ojos del Salado. Unfortunately that also included my camera with all the photos since I arrived in Chile so I only have a few photos from the whole trip displayed below, plus the ones Matthew got on his SLR.
During our stay in Chalten, I was only able to hit the first good weather window we had at New Years a few days after we arrived, and Matt and I decided on climbing Chiaro de Luna; a beautiful classic on the west side of Ste Exupery. We joined John and his friends for the approach hike to Niponino which took most of the day after leaving town around 10am. Weather was nice in town with a warm sunshine, and even reasonable at Laguna Torre (which was of course flooded with tourists). As soon as we started hiking around the lakeshore though we didn't see much of anyone else. We continued around the north side of Laguna Torre and beyond to the Torre Glacier, and this traverse is very tedious with a high rockfall danger from the huge moraine above. Rocks are all loose and unstable which with big packs on is slow going. Eventually though we were able to cut onto the ice above the terminus and utilize the rocky covered glacier to make a beeline towards Niponino camp, a mildly sheltered spot at the junction of where the Torre glacier meets coming down from the north, and its western form comes down from the south side of Cerro Torre. It was shortly before reaching Niponino we caught up with Melissa and her climbing partner, who were also going for Chiaro de Luna. After arriving to camp we set up the tent and figured we would make an attempt on Aguja De I's the next day since we would need a couple days of dry weather to melt off the ice that had formed on Chiaro de Luna.
Photos in the section just below all taken by my climbing partner Matthew
Hitchhiking to Villa Cerro Castillo
Camp just below Cerro Colorado
Hiking on the Torre Glacier with Fitz above and right
Matthew and I made the approach up the diagonal ramp to the base of the west side routes on Exupery and De I's, and reached the low notch between the two towers after climbing 40-45 degree snow up the gully. The imposing south face of Exupery demanded respect from this notch, and looking down the east side the gully was dry and didn't seem to offer any real passage down the other side. We turned south though and traversed over around a small gendarme to the base of a small steep slab. Matthew led up this 30 foot pitch and got the awesome phot of me following it with Cerro Pallone towering across the Torre Glacier valley shown to the right. We emerged onto a flat section of the tower and walked over the the base of the final tower where the 3 pitch standard climb on the peak begins. The normal route climbs the inset chimney just west of the actual spine of the range, however the comparable in difficulty variation to the east looked drier. Since the guibook didn't give a grade for the variation we figured we would just go for the normal route even though it looked very snowy and icy. After I led an easy first pitch, Matthew started up the second, and after fighting ice for over an hour decides it isn't in the cards and bails off a nut. Even though we didn't make the top, it was an incredible place to be, with both Fitz and Cerro Torre and all the surrounding world renound peaks all in view for a rare clear day.
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Climbing Cerro Castillo amidst questionable weather
Hiking to Niponino with Cerro Torre behind
Climbing on Aguja de I's with Cerro Pallone behind
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After returning to camp, we discussed for quite awhile how we wanted to go about climbing Chiaro de Luna. With the two crux pitches at the bottom of the route, on the west side they would be shaded and cold in the morning, something neither of us wated to deal with. However getting a later start would mean we couldn't climb the route in a single day and I did not want to be climbing at night. So we finally settled on bringing just our sleeping bags and minimal clothing to spend the night on a ledge that we were not certain we would find somewhere on the route, then finishing it the second day. That proved to be a good strategy for a handful of reasons, one of which being that I saw without a doubt the best sunrise in my life from our bivy when the glow of red and pink illuminated the Torre group across the valley from us. It was a sight I'll never forget.
The climb began by climbing up a soloing up a concave steepening basalt dike that went from 3rd to 4th to low 5th class. When it got vertical we roped up and Matthew took off leading up the first pitch, which after nearly a full rope led him to a nice ledge at the base of the crux pitches. We could see and hear Melissa and her climbing partner up just above the crux pitches and figured we may also be fighting for a bivy spot. The following two pitches were some of the best climbing I have ever done, and involved a sustained finger crack and some interesting moves. The rock was so featured and grippy however that feet stuck like glue alost everywhere, so I speculated the grade never actually reached into the 5.11 threshhold. I managed to follow them quickly and cleanly despite carrying a 20 pound pack as well which I know I couldn't have done if they were true 5.11 pitches. Easier 4th and 5th pitches (Class 5.9 and 5.8) took us up a long left facing corner and then around a bulge to a nice and exposed ledge with a lot of air below. Matthew then led our final pitch of the afternoon up a tricky 5.10a where routefinding and protection proved challenging, but just above that 6th pitch was a wide and perfectly flat ledge more than suitable for staying the night. I cleared out some snow and doctored up the spot as best as possible, however since neither of us had sleeping pads due to the dampness we realized it was probably going to be cold! To our surprise we did not see the other two, and figured they may have bivied on a higher ledge.
I used the pack we had and my thin nylon coat for a little separation between my sleeping bag and the ground, and while I managed to stay warm enough, I didn't really sleep much and really enjoyed star gazing up at the southern sky. It was new years eve and I stayed up until midnight to ring in the new year before getting maybe 2 hours of light sleep. Luckily, light came early with twilight starting around 4am. I watched for the next couple hours as the sun slowly rose and with jaw dropping beauty on New Yars morning. Matthew seemed to have been a bit colder than I overnight and wasn't wanting to leave the sleeping bag, but I took a ton of photos on my Sony camera (thankfully Matthew decided to extract a few when we got back to Chalten afterwards for his Instagram, before it was stolen so we were able to have some photos of the climb). By about 6:30am or so we started climbing again, continuing up the route.
The climb began by climbing up a soloing up a concave steepening basalt dike that went from 3rd to 4th to low 5th class. When it got vertical we roped up and Matthew took off leading up the first pitch, which after nearly a full rope led him to a nice ledge at the base of the crux pitches. We could see and hear Melissa and her climbing partner up just above the crux pitches and figured we may also be fighting for a bivy spot. The following two pitches were some of the best climbing I have ever done, and involved a sustained finger crack and some interesting moves. The rock was so featured and grippy however that feet stuck like glue alost everywhere, so I speculated the grade never actually reached into the 5.11 threshhold. I managed to follow them quickly and cleanly despite carrying a 20 pound pack as well which I know I couldn't have done if they were true 5.11 pitches. Easier 4th and 5th pitches (Class 5.9 and 5.8) took us up a long left facing corner and then around a bulge to a nice and exposed ledge with a lot of air below. Matthew then led our final pitch of the afternoon up a tricky 5.10a where routefinding and protection proved challenging, but just above that 6th pitch was a wide and perfectly flat ledge more than suitable for staying the night. I cleared out some snow and doctored up the spot as best as possible, however since neither of us had sleeping pads due to the dampness we realized it was probably going to be cold! To our surprise we did not see the other two, and figured they may have bivied on a higher ledge.
I used the pack we had and my thin nylon coat for a little separation between my sleeping bag and the ground, and while I managed to stay warm enough, I didn't really sleep much and really enjoyed star gazing up at the southern sky. It was new years eve and I stayed up until midnight to ring in the new year before getting maybe 2 hours of light sleep. Luckily, light came early with twilight starting around 4am. I watched for the next couple hours as the sun slowly rose and with jaw dropping beauty on New Yars morning. Matthew seemed to have been a bit colder than I overnight and wasn't wanting to leave the sleeping bag, but I took a ton of photos on my Sony camera (thankfully Matthew decided to extract a few when we got back to Chalten afterwards for his Instagram, before it was stolen so we were able to have some photos of the climb). By about 6:30am or so we started climbing again, continuing up the route.
Photos in the section below taken by myself that Matthew extraced from my camera before it was stolen
Matthew admiring the route above from our approach
Not a bad evening belay view
Sunrise over the Torre group from our bivy
Despite the shady cold morning, we continued climbing and after a short 5.8 pitch we arrived at the long low angled section in the middle of the route. Snow lingered on the general area though which had become ice overnight requiring us to rock climb on dry rock around it, delaying us a bit. Then I led up an ice 5.8 pitch to the left of the snow that topped out on the big ledge/bulge we could see from Niponino way below. Here I actually found an Italian piton laying on the rock likely from the first ascent team. I decided I didn't really want it so Matthew gladly kept it.
The next 3 pitches the quality and style of the climb changed quite a bit. Tricky/balancy and somewhat less solid looking flakes and ledges were the name of the game, along with very hard routefinding and difficult protection. We weaved our way up this section of the route, having to also negociate a section covered in rime ice, but Matthew led each of these 3 pitches very well. The final 15 feet of the 3rd pitch on this face was the second crux of the route, and actually we both agreed it was the hardest moves on the whole thing. He ended up aiding for a stretch of it and I was not able to cleanly follow it, requiring a rest to get one of the cams out...perhaps we were also getting tired not having eaten much nor drinking much weater. |
Matthew leading one of the crux pitches
Hoping those clouds go away!
Sunrise over Cerro Torre and the best sunrise I have ever seen
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By the time we topped out on that section of the route it was now about 2pm. The next pitch was the well known leftward traverse, which gained no elevation but takes you to the base of the final chimney leading to the summit, as well as the normal rappel route. At 3pm we both reached this spot, with only 3 easier pitches of chimney climbing between us and the summit that would feature little routefinding issues. However I knew that we were in our last day of the weather window, and based on my experience in this area before, I had a feeling the winds would start whipping by 5pm, despite being dead calm at that point. So we made the tough decision to start rapelling and forgo the summit. This turned out to be a very good decision though because as my hunch was telling me, right at 5pm the winds came out of nowhere, picking up from a mere draft to well over 60 miles per hour! The final 2-3 rappels were tough with rope management, and we even got the rope stuck while inside a deeply inset 50 meter high wide chimney totally filled with ice; all of which was delaminating from the rock. The warm air had it all melting and we were quickly getting wet in there with nothing but our rock shoes on trying to fight the rope. I realized that I could pull the rope from the other end just barely, so I yanked the entire rope through the other direction requiring a huge amount of energy but we finally got it out after 30 minutes in that cold wet chimney. From there it was just two more raps until we reached the snow gully, which in the afternoon was soft allowing us to plunge step quickly back to Matthews cached pack and gear. We wasted no time starting the hike back down to Niponino, as I knew my tent was not going to survive too much longer in these winds, which were only getting worse.
Just as we reached the top of the moraine at the base of the diagonal ramp (Polacos Camp), I could see my orange tent still there on the rocky glacier, but I had not tied it down well enough for 60 mph winds and told Matthew I was going to run ahead to hopefully get to it before it gets ripped off and blows away with the rest of our gear. The Torre glacier is huge and probably over a mile wide so it took me another 20 minutes to reach the tent, getting there around 9:30pm and just in time to secure it better before it blew away. One of the cords snapped and another from a different corner was about to as well. We quickly threw everything inside to weight it down and I re-secured the corners to be able to last the night. No dinner was cooked since we would never get a stove to stay lit in this and we just went straight to sleep. less than 15 minutes after we turned in for the night, rain started and continued through the night. To our dismay at this point, we still had not seen Melissa or her partner, and we started to worry about them.
Morning came but it was still raining. We decided to give it until 10am to try and wait out the rain before we would be forced to start hiking back. 10am came, and it was still raining so we bit the bullet and started packing. Luckily though, by 10:30 it doed down quite a bit. We started walking down the glacier and after just 15 minutes or so, out of nowhere our two companions show up! They were hiding under a rock apparently since her tent had been destroyed at some point the previous night and they had to move to find natural shelter. They told us about their climb, which we were amazed to head they continued climbing into the night, and made the entire descent in the dark during the night we bivied! Her partner, who was native to Argentina had climbed the route previously and knew the way allowing them to avoid the routefinding issues we had, but they had a pretty miserable time.
We hiked out back to town together though and agreed we would all grab dinner, drnks and Domo Blanco in town that evening, which was what kept be moving. The ice cream in Chalten is legendary if you weren't aware! By the time we reached Laguna Torre the sun was out and warming up quite a bit. The final 10 kilometers of trail back to town was filled with people, none of which I was too keen on chatting with, but when one person offered me a fresh orange I was thrilled to have it. You can imagine the dinner and beers at Fresca Bar, followed by ice cream at Domo Blanco was magical. I had a kilogram of ice cream!
Unfortunately the remainder of the trip we didn't succeed on anything else other than Mojon Rojo, the smaller red tower just south of Aguja de I's and commonly referred as the southernmost tower in the Fitz group. Hiking up the trail towards Laguna de los Tres, and branching off to the left just before the final switchbacks up we hiked to Laguna Sucia, which is a gorgeous blue lake in a deep down below the east side of the Fitz. Huge chunks of ice regulairly fall from the flacier abovedown the steep waterfall slabs down to the far end of the lake. Hiking around the south side of the lake a trail then takes off steeply leading up to the boulder camp where climbers can bivy in a large cave enough for 3-4 people. The continuing up onto the Rio Blanco Glacier it's a nice mellow walk to the base of the final scramble up Mojon Rojo. 500 feet of slightly snow covered class 3-4 scrambling led us to the final summit rock, where a 20 foot pitch of 5.4 climbing gets you to the top. We brought along a new friend we made in Chalten by this point from Australia who was thrilled to join for something more than just one of the tourist hikes. Each of us switched off tagging the summit, and I decided to explore a bit to the north to get a better view of the drop between Mojon Rojo and Aguja de I's when Matthew took the photo of me shown below, one of my favorites from the trip.
Just as we reached the top of the moraine at the base of the diagonal ramp (Polacos Camp), I could see my orange tent still there on the rocky glacier, but I had not tied it down well enough for 60 mph winds and told Matthew I was going to run ahead to hopefully get to it before it gets ripped off and blows away with the rest of our gear. The Torre glacier is huge and probably over a mile wide so it took me another 20 minutes to reach the tent, getting there around 9:30pm and just in time to secure it better before it blew away. One of the cords snapped and another from a different corner was about to as well. We quickly threw everything inside to weight it down and I re-secured the corners to be able to last the night. No dinner was cooked since we would never get a stove to stay lit in this and we just went straight to sleep. less than 15 minutes after we turned in for the night, rain started and continued through the night. To our dismay at this point, we still had not seen Melissa or her partner, and we started to worry about them.
Morning came but it was still raining. We decided to give it until 10am to try and wait out the rain before we would be forced to start hiking back. 10am came, and it was still raining so we bit the bullet and started packing. Luckily though, by 10:30 it doed down quite a bit. We started walking down the glacier and after just 15 minutes or so, out of nowhere our two companions show up! They were hiding under a rock apparently since her tent had been destroyed at some point the previous night and they had to move to find natural shelter. They told us about their climb, which we were amazed to head they continued climbing into the night, and made the entire descent in the dark during the night we bivied! Her partner, who was native to Argentina had climbed the route previously and knew the way allowing them to avoid the routefinding issues we had, but they had a pretty miserable time.
We hiked out back to town together though and agreed we would all grab dinner, drnks and Domo Blanco in town that evening, which was what kept be moving. The ice cream in Chalten is legendary if you weren't aware! By the time we reached Laguna Torre the sun was out and warming up quite a bit. The final 10 kilometers of trail back to town was filled with people, none of which I was too keen on chatting with, but when one person offered me a fresh orange I was thrilled to have it. You can imagine the dinner and beers at Fresca Bar, followed by ice cream at Domo Blanco was magical. I had a kilogram of ice cream!
Unfortunately the remainder of the trip we didn't succeed on anything else other than Mojon Rojo, the smaller red tower just south of Aguja de I's and commonly referred as the southernmost tower in the Fitz group. Hiking up the trail towards Laguna de los Tres, and branching off to the left just before the final switchbacks up we hiked to Laguna Sucia, which is a gorgeous blue lake in a deep down below the east side of the Fitz. Huge chunks of ice regulairly fall from the flacier abovedown the steep waterfall slabs down to the far end of the lake. Hiking around the south side of the lake a trail then takes off steeply leading up to the boulder camp where climbers can bivy in a large cave enough for 3-4 people. The continuing up onto the Rio Blanco Glacier it's a nice mellow walk to the base of the final scramble up Mojon Rojo. 500 feet of slightly snow covered class 3-4 scrambling led us to the final summit rock, where a 20 foot pitch of 5.4 climbing gets you to the top. We brought along a new friend we made in Chalten by this point from Australia who was thrilled to join for something more than just one of the tourist hikes. Each of us switched off tagging the summit, and I decided to explore a bit to the north to get a better view of the drop between Mojon Rojo and Aguja de I's when Matthew took the photo of me shown below, one of my favorites from the trip.
Enjoying the view with Fitz Roy behind me
After we returned to Chalten, and about 4-5 days later we jouned Scott, another Coloradoan and headed back up onto the Rio Blanca Glacier for another attempt on Aguja de I's but after realizing the route was wet and still icy, and seeing another party on the route bail, after hiking right to the base we decided to not continue, and just hiked back to Chalten. After a few more days waiting out weather, the rain and wind had no end in sight, so I decided to book a flight to northern Chile to hopefully meetup with some of my Canadian friends for Ojos del Saldo. When I arrived in Copiapo a couple days later as I was shopping for food at a grocery store my rental truck was broken into and a lot of my gear, including all my electronics and passport was stolen, so I was forced to bail returning to Chalten to meet back up with Matthew and fly back to Santiago and visit the US embassy for an emergency passport. I then had to change my flight back to the US since I was no longer able to climb any real objectives without most of my warm clothing, which is not replacable for me in South America. So I returned back to Denver in early February. To add insult to injury, there was a second 3 day weather window in Chalten a week after I returned to Denver, which Matthew was able to climb the Motocross traverse just before he headed back to the US as well. I was pretty jealous! In the end, while it was not as successful of a trip to Patagonia as the one I had two years earlier, it was still great and one I'll never forget, and I already started dreaming of my next trip down there as soon as I got back.