Never Stop Relaxing

Excellent view into the Torre Valley

Packing session in SLC, thanks Amber!

Waking up for the Supercanaleta

Emaciated after the Supercanaleta
(notice splitter weather)

Never stop relaxing!

Here´s some photos I just pulled off the camera, hope ya like em!

Viento, Mucho Viento!

Clouds rake the Fitz Massif, while condors float effortlessly on the gusts.
Guillamet is the icy peak on the right.

Climbers headed toward the Amy Couiour, the Brenner Ridge is the right buttress.

Joel sinks his tools into an amazing runnel of ice.

Psyched!!

Hitchiking back from Aguja Guillamet

Joel finds Patagonian splitter cracks, with ice.

High on the Brenner Ridge

Super tranquilo!

The highs are the 1020 circles, just need them to move down a bit!
(courtesy metvuw.com)

So far the weather this season in Patagonia has been challenging for climbing larger objectives, with the exception 0f the 12 day window in early December. Since then, there has been 5 or 6 one-day climbable windows. Geographically situated at -49 degrees south latitude, the Fitz Roy Range is sandwiched between the high pressure systems typical of the northern Chile coast and the low pressure storm systems which blast Tierra del Fuego and Antartica. The opposite rotations of these global weather systems is what makes Patagonia the windiest place on Earth. I believe the large windows of perfect weather occur when high pressure systems from the north settle over the southern tip of the continent, thus diverting all low pressure to the south.

Although one of the smallest Agujas in the Fitz Roy group, Guillamet is packed with ice and mixed climbs all over its east face. If one is motivated, there are endless ascents of this neat mountain to be realized; likewise, it is often the best option for short cold and snowy weather windows.

A few weeks ago, while I stayed in town with some serious stomach funk, Joel and Tim rallied to base camp at Piedra Negra and climbed a beautiful ice runnel on Guillamet's east face, basically a variation to the Guillot Couliour.
A week later, another short window appeared during which Joel and Tim climbed the Brenner Ridge to the junction with the Amy couliour.

Now that my immune system is recovered, we have been sport climbing around El Chalten and keeping it tranquilo. Joel has left town to guide Aconcagua, we have plans to meet in Bariloche in a few weeks and climb in the sun for the remainder of our trip. While some become more impatient as the weather churns, I have settled into the reality of life in El Chalten. Patience is tested; one can dissolve mental obscurity formed by a society of immediate satisfaction, the clouds swirl and the view is incredible. For me, this is Patagonia´s finest lesson, and the power never wavers. These golden towers of rime and rock stand vigilant sentinels to the saga of time; we are left pondering our all too brief passage.

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!!

Supercanaleta memories

Supercanaleta remembered...
the snow and ice you can see is about 1000m,
the route then exits the couliour right onto rock, gaining the ridge, 600m to the TOP of Fitz Roy

The crew on the upper ridge of the Supercanaleta
Joel, Santiago, Luis, Neil, and Jim

.
Neil, Joel, and Jim
brewing water and waiting..

The Gringos waiting on the upper ridge...

Looking down the Supercanaleta

Jim on the last rappel off the Franco-Argentine route

Relaxin on the Brecca de los Italianos, after rappeling the Franco

Sunset from Piedras Negras

West side: Guillamet, Mermoz, and Fitz
Splitter cracks are on the radar...

A ghost, a bird, what do you see?
The rock towers are...
St. Exuperey, Innominata (little one (relatively)), Poincenot, and Fitz Roy

It's raining in Patagonia. Today is the solstice, which means about 18 hours of light here at -49 degrees south. Conversations have become pretty interesting among the Gringos as we mob between panaderias, restaurants, and houses. This is a necessary phase as the hunger builds and builds until you can no longer contain your energies, then wait some more...maybe there is a climbable weather window coming in a few days, perhaps it will once again change.
The challenge is maintaining the physical ability and mental psyche during the down time. We've been good boys, maybe a Patagonian Christmas present?

Bienvenidos El Chalten!!

The West Face of Fitz Roy and Supercanaleta

Me climbing a great ice pitch

The whole crew, traversing out of the couloir

Jim and I climbing a traversing rock pitch high on Fitz Roy

Luis on the ridge with the summit behind

Looking along the ridge at Luis

Jim led an interesting rime chimney on the ridge

Jim leads the final ridge pitch at sunset

Me finishing the ridge terrain

Topping out at 11pm
Jim, Neil, Joel...worked but happy!!

This is the summit of Fitz Roy!!!

Rappelling the Franco with Poincenot behind Jim

Los Hermanos
the Italian Bench is the snowfield on the left, the Franco starts there and takes the left skyline
Supercanaleta climbs the other side of Fitz

The shadows of Fitz Roy and Poincenot

Descending off Paso Superior

The Supercanaleta crew at the Rio Blanco Hut, 1am?

Joel and I are back in El Chalten and the splitter 7-day weather window has just closed on the Fitz/Torre Massifs. No doubt there has been a flurry of activity between here and the Torres del Paine to the south. After 3 full days of travel from the USA, we arrived in this rapidly growing tourist town in Southern Patagonia to an extraordinary scene: perfectly calm blue skies and a stable forcast for the foreseeable future. Our new friend Jim Turner was partnerless and psyched to climb the Supercanaleta route on Fitz Roy, we were psyched to have him on board as another strong ice and mixed climber who has been dialing the skillz living in Ouray, CO.

We spent one day resting in town and getting our gear together, then launched the adventure, taking a taxi to the west side of the Fitz Roy Range. After hiking through lush beech forest along the river, we gained elevation to Paso Cuadrado and entered the snow level under the imposing west face of Fitz Roy. Along the way we met two groups of our Argentine friends also heading to the route, this was definately the time to tag the ¨SuperCouloir¨ as it often melts out quickly during good weather.

We rested at the base for a few hours then started up the snow cone at 1130pm. The climbing was mostly steep snow but fortunately an earlier team had kicked steps in the couloir. We cruised through short steps of ice interspersed with more snow terrrain for a few hours, then got into a rock and mixed ice variation that slowed things down as we roped up. At this point the teams behind us took the easier path and passed, doh! We rejoined them as the route exits the coulior and climbs rock terrain for a few pitches. As one team was moving slowly, we ate food and brewed soup with the Jet-Boil as the sun rose. Re-energized we started climbing again through some awesome rock and great ice pitches! We bottlenecked again and waited for the teams to thin out; we tried passing on a variation to the left but still rejoined the other teams . At this time we had reached the upper ridge of the route where the California route joins. This section has amazingly exposed rock climbing high above the entire ice cap with unreal views of the land of snow, rock, and ice. After more waiting, we finished the ridge terrain and made a short rappel to the upper part of Fitz Roy, truly a trippy place to be as the sun was setting at 10pm! We scrambled over moderate snow and ice for another half hour and found or amigos preparing to bivy in a somewhat protected area near the summit. We tagged the top at around 11pm making our journey upwards close to the 23 hour mark.

So what do we do now? Its dark, we are on top of a giant mountain, and we have never been on the Franco-Argentine route, which is the standard descent off the east side of Fitz. The answer is....put on all yer clothes and bivy near the top of Fitz Roy with no sleeping gear, we had brought a tent fly and had the Jet-Boil, nevertheless, sleep was hard to come by!

We stirred at 7am as the sun hit us, yes! The whole crew went back to the top to revel in our achievement, the weather was still great but seemed to be changing as clouds rolled in off the ice cap. But as everyone knows going up is only half the climb. We were apprehensive about rappelling the Franco, but now had one person who had done the route before. We teamed up and left the top at 8am, the gringos brought up the rear pulling the ropes and delivering to the team in front. It all went pretty smooth and most importantly no stuck ropes! We made it off Fitz Roy and onto the Italian Bench and gathered some energy. A sick place to be!
At this point our friend Manuel¨who lives in town aks Jim ¨How many times have you been to Patagonia?¨Well this is my first time here!¨¨Fuck you!¨A lucky charm??? 5 more rappels brought us onto the glacier, psyched!!!! We hiked through deep snow to Paso Superior, the base camp for this side of the mountain, it was odd to see other climbers after two full days on Fitz Roy. Now its dark again and we are still hiking down, down, down. We made it back to Chalten about 3am and had to celebrate with some cerveza, crazy enough the bar is still open and there´s only two people there! We swill some booze and we´re all totally wiped out, delerious. We make it back to our casita and eat a few eggs, the pass out for a long time. When we wake up, the weather is still splitter!

Today is day four off, and we are feeling strong! However, the weather has temporarily shut down today (finally!), possibly looks okay for the next couple days, so we are heading back to the hills!

Climbing Fitz was an incredible experience none of us will ever forget!