Los Hermanos have been stateside for 11 days sampling the Southeast’s finest granite, sandstone, and home-made pecan pie. Before gettin’ in-ta’ the nitty gritty, a quick recount of the Patagonian Summer.

6) IV 5.10 Donnini-Crouch, Tito Corrasco, Pier Giorgio Valle, Argentina

5) V 5.10 My Little Pony Traverse (Fonrouge, Guillomet to Argentine, Mermoz)

4) V 5.11 A0 M5 condition Donnini-Crouch, Aguja Rafael Juarez (Inominata).

Whit and "topo"...

Joel mixes it up with crampons on "approach" shoes for the frozen microcosm on the North side of Innominata.

Name that two tiered feature over Neil's left shoulder. Hint: an infamous Free-Baser linked this lower ridge to the Compressor Route on Cerro Torre. Speaking of the devil...

The Bone Crushing hasty team.

3) IV 5.10 Brenner Ridge, Aguja Guillomet

Trailer park party!

2) Amy Coulour, Guillomet

1) Supercanaleta, Fitz Roy

“Fitz Roy isn’t going anywhere.

You take what you can get in Patagonia

and then you go home.”

Jeremy Collins

Return to Estados

Neil and I arrived in the United States of America at 0545 on April 2. We spent the next two hours persuading a Delta employee to let us exit the final security check-point with our luggage and without a 400USD/person change fee. We were “breaching the contract by terminating the trip before arriving at the final destination.”

After four months in Argentina (the tourist visas last for 90 days; add an additional 300 pesos/person for visa extension) we had learned a lot about getting ripped off because we are “rubia y azul” from “yankeelandia.” This is the land of the free, if we want out of the airport, you can’t hold us captive! A quick repack solved the issue and we had the luxury of having our uselss-in-the-Southeast alpine climbing gear air lifted to SLC.

From the largest international airport in the world, we drove straight to Looking Glass in the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina. The North side of the Glass has been compared to Yosemite Valley...