Playing in Patagonia

Playing in Patagonia

After getting totally shut down by the weather in 2010 I vowed with a passion never to return to the stupid place of beautiful granite spires ever, ever, ever again.

But the key to a good alpinist they say is forgetfulness, so in November I packed my climbing kit and dancing shoes and headed southwards again.

The trip started off with an aborted attempt on Exocet the day we arrived in El Chalten (an outstanding ice line right up the guts of Cerro Standhardt) followed by possibly the most horrendous bivi of my life a week later at the base of Fitz Roy and I was definitely beginning to think that I was cursed in this god forsaken place.

Then suddenly it all changed, I would love to say that I had learned from my previous experiences and come out a more knowledgeable experienced alpinist but to be honest we just got lucky. With two weeks to go we managed super couloir one of the most beautiful ice and mixed routes I have ever been on, 1700m of incredibly varied climbing finishing on Cerro Fitz Roy the highest peak in the region(finally on my 6th attempt at the line…).

We then went on some adventures to try and get a first ascent. This is all thanks to Rolando Garibotti’s work at documenting the area which had really opened up the more obscure locations out there so that people realize there is more to go at than the uber classics of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre.

We hiked into the lesser visited Marconi glacier with an idea of putting up a new line on the North face of Cerro Domo Blanco where the late Jonathan Copp put up the only line on the face but then soon spotted an unclimbed un named pillar.

We named the summit Los Tres Mousqueteros which translates to the three musketeers in Spanish as there are three obvious mini peaks which make p the summit. The face had been attempted by a local Argentinean and Eneko and Iker Pou but they bailed just under half height. We named the route D’Artagnan after the 4th Musketeer as we bailed on our first attempt and our partner couldn’t join us on the second successful ascent (had to go see about a girl…)

The climbing was sustained hand to finger cracks and corners which we followed to a ledge just below the summit. We did one section of C1 and 1 pendulum connecting a crack to a corner on pitch 8 then followed this to the ledge.

From here it was a great bit of Scottish climbing. It would probably get a nice Scottish grade of VI/VII or a totally out of condition M6 + bit of C1 anywhere else in the world as it was pouring with water.

Two of us summited and then after pouring water out of our boots and wringing out our clothes we spent the descent generally suffering in the cold slurring words and forgetting simple things. We arrived back at camp very relieved 19 hours after setting off.

Maybe Patagonia’s not that bad after all……………