Aguja Guillamet

Weathering the storm

Tentbound

Approaching below Guillamet

Looking up the Amy couliour

Me starting the Amy

Olov crossing the bergschrund

Me in the Amy

Anna climbs the snow pitch

Climbing over a gendarme on the ridge

Joel leading the crux icy corner

Joel crushing a challenging pitch

Looking down on the last pitch of the ridge

Mermoz and Fitz Roy

Hiking the summit snow slope

Cumbre!

Los Hermanos ¨summitting¨ Aguja Guillamet
The summit block is pretty sketchy!

Looking down the summit snowfield


Back at Piedra Negra

Camilo Lopez video of the climb

Feliz AÑo neuvo amigos!

After psyching up in town for about 3 weeks, we could no longer sit still and returned to the mountains with our friends Camilo Lopez, Anna Pfaff, and Olov from Sweden. Everyone was excited to get outta El Chalten and attempt Aguja Guillamet. The forecast showed a short colder window starting last Tuesday morning, just as the snow stopped falling.

We had been tent-bound the day before (monday) by snow and wind, so we were totally amped to move when the calm winds and lightly cloudy sky greeted us in the morn. Camilo and Anna took off and started breaking knee-deep trail up to Paso Guillamet. No wind at the col and sunny! We were all planning on climbing the Amy couliour, a snow and ice climb in a gully then joining the rock ridge to the summit, about 350meters in total. Steep snow started the couliour, then pinched down to shoulder width ice, super fun! Camilo had a great lead gaining the ridge as he tunneled and cleared deep snow above us. Though we had moved onto rock terrain, we wore our boots and crampons due to snow and colder temps. (I wanna go rock climbing!) Suddenly an easy handcrack becomes a lesson in crampon and glove jamming, with the occasional ice axe hook move thrown in for fun!

As we gained the summit snowfield, the clouds swirled around us revealing and obscuring the incredible views of granite spires everywhere! We enjoyed the summit for a while and had an awesome view of Mermoz, and the rock route we have been waiting to climb for a month! We are still amped to climb splitter Patagonian style cracks, and we might just get the chance!
The descent went smooth and quickly and we devoured the rest of our food at camp then slept soundly. The next day we had a nice hike back to El Chalten and a rewarding victory asado with all our friends, Patagonia at its finest!!