On the first ascent of the Swamp Donkey Express, the South Face of the Moose's Tooth. Photo: Renan Ozturk.

Talkeetna in June feels like a slow afternoon at a forgotten country fair. The sky is alternatively bright and steamy, or dark and wet.  Typically a mosquito hatch is on and the kings are running.  Princess Tours pumps a continuous convoy of air-conditioned, 55 passenger buses down the spur road, buses teaming with anxious tourists behind high, tinted windows, depositing a fresh infusion of dollars into the town’s seasonal economic machine.  There’s not much to do. The tourists find a handful of bars, Nagley’s general store – with attached liquor establishment and the West Rib,  greasy-spoon deluxe, the park service building, river boat rides, overpriced pizzas and overloaded breakfasts. It’s a good place to celebrate. Or lick your wounds for a day or two…

Zack Smith, Renan Ozturk, and I flew into the Ruth Gorge on Monday, May 17th, psyched to find perfect conditions: hard freezes at night, but daytime temps that were warm enough to comfortably wear rock shoes. After taking a day to pack and scope in basecamp, we left camp at 6 a.m. the following morning in order to do the objectively exposed approach from the Gorge to the ‘Root Canal’ camp beneath the Southwest face of the Moose’s Tooth in the morning shade.  I had navigated this same ice fall seven years ago, and was surprised to note the amount of traffic it had apparently received this year. Several distinct boot tracks left by different parties criss-crossed up the glacial canyon – some more exposed to hanging seracs and avalanche slopes than others.

We arrived at the Root Canal by 1 p.m., and were soon ensconced in our friend Seth Hobby’s base-camp — Seth having arrived with two clients via the direct flight.  We waited out a day of squally weather, then crossed the bergshrund and began soloing up the snow slopes between Bear’s Tooth and Moose’s Tooth.  The South Face of the Moose’s Tooth is an obvious challenge that had been attempted sporadically for several decades. Badly rotten rock and a deceptive section of gendarmed ridge had defeated all teams within the first hundred vertical feet of climbing above the Bear’s Tooth / Moose’s Tooth col. The real challenge for our team was not letting these discouraging reports effect our morale before we even started the real business.

After two hours of soloing and simul-climbing, we arrived at the base of the South face proper. Zack transitioned to rock shoes and the show began. He found the rock loose and the climbing run out – but we were able to make progess. Then came a significant aid pitch that demanded the combined efforts of two men and one hand-drilled bolt six hours to overcome. Several more wet and loose pitches with challenging route finding followed. But then the angle of the climbing decreased and soon I was cramponing up for a few easy mixed pitches that lead eventually to the southern end of the M.T.’s summit ridge. Zack, Renan, and I stood just below the tip of the mountain’s highest dollop of cornice at approximately eight p.m.. We quickly rappelled Ham and Eggs (which, in it’s modern iteration, we found completely equipped with rappel anchors every thirty meters) to arrive back at the Root Canal camp around midnight. Though tired, we chose to press on and descend to the Gorge immediately in order to take advantage of the cooler night time temps. An hour after we had exited the canyon and skied out into the center of the Gorge, rockfall exploded off one wall, showering the glacier with debris.

“That was death on a stick,” Zack murmured.

Back down in base camp, the weather was good.  Then it got too good.  We started on our ultimate objective, a traverse of the entire Moose’s Tooth massif from Espresso Gap to Ruth Gap. Unfortunately, the glacier was barely freezing at night and we encountered deep, isothermic snow that made for frequent and frustrating transitions between rock shoes and mountain boots as we climbed the South Ridge (Ozturk/Smith, 2009) of the Sugar Tooth. Renan took an unexpected fall while seconding a bouldery gendarme, badly cutting our sole lead line. Then we dropped an ice tool. We eventually bivied very near the summit of the Sugar Tooth.  In the morning, somewhat disheartened by these setbacks and our generally slow progress in the sub-par conditions, we traversed across the summit and decided to rappel the couloir between the Sugar Tooth and the Eye Tooth to return to basecamp to re-supply and re-psyche.

The next day, as we were relaxing in camp and contemplating another attempt, something came down Hut Tower. Something big. I skied close enough to see flecks of color in a fresh debris field at the base of the ice climb Freezy Nuts. Later that evening, a NPS helicopter picked me up to confirm the worst: two climbers were dead. They had been camped a few hundred yards away from us and sadly, I realized, I never got their names. When we flew back to Talkeetna on June 2nd the Ruth Glacier had not experienced a hard freeze in over a week. We relaxed in town, drank more beer than was healthy, and enjoyed the company of old friends.  I don’t think any of us regretted our decision to leave the mountains early.

The tragedy happened almost exactly a year after we lost our good friends Micah Dash, Johnny Copp, and Wade Johnson in a similar event in China. Mountains become far more dangerous as the temperature rises – at an elevation of only five thousand feet, the Ruth Glacier is a temperate place despite its northern latitude. There is a definitive transition that occurs each and every spring when it simply becomes too dangerous to climb the Gorge’s gullies and couloirs. As individuals and a community, we should always remember to approach objectively threatened situations with vigilance and respect. For popular moderate mixed objectives like Freezy Nuts, Ham and Eggs, and the Japanese Couloir on Mount Braille, I strongly recommend the month of April as the optimal time to plan an expedition.

Sincere thanks go to The Copp/Dash Inspire Grant, The Lyman Spitzer Award, and the American Alpine Club for supporting this expedition, as well as Mountain Hardwear, Sterling Rope, Julbo, and La Sportiva for supporting me personally.

We’ll be back – hopefully in colder temperatures.

Summary of activity: First ascent of the South Face of the Moose’s Tooth via The Swamp Donkey Express: 5.9+ A2+ with some mixed. Climbed May 21st, 2010, by Renan Ozturk, Zack Smith, and Freddie Wilkinson.

Like most first-time visitors to Argentine Patagonia, I was lured south by the legendary reputation of its two greatest peaks, Cerro Torre and Fitzroy.

Beyond them, I knew next to nothing about the geography and climbing on the subsidiary summits beneath these giants. After three weeks of waiting, the wind gods mercifully provided a two day weather window that allowed my partner and I to make a quick dash up Cerro Torre’s infamous Compressor Route. But during the course of our climb, I found myself continually gazing across the Torre Valley at the ten kilometer ridge of needled summits that stretches south from Fitzroy: Aguja de la Silla, Desmochada and Poincenot, followed by Innominata (also called Rafael Juarez), Saint Exupery, and de la S. I didn’t even know all their names then, but it was precisely that element of the unknown that captivated my imagination.

Of course, there was established routes from the Torre Valley to all the summits of these peaks, but I was overwhelmed by the amount of climbable rock that remained unexplored. Most of the major faces had only a single established route on them, yet the crack systems that could yield a potential new line were too numerous to count. At the same time, the terrain looked intimidating: there were vast swaths of third and forth class terrain guarding the steep stuff, and many crack systems dead-ended on sub-towers below the main peaks. And because of the limited information, vague topos and inaccurate route photos available, just repeating an established route could be a hell of an adventure. For the next two seasons, I returned to Chalten, dutifully schlepped my equipment from town to the Polacos bivouac, and commenced to explore these intriguing towers for myself. I had some great days repeating a few of the established classics, and was lucky enough to establish three new lines of my own.

What follows is an abbreviated, unofficial and incomplete guide to the area based on my own experiences. For rookies, the established trade routes on Innominata, Saint Exupery, and de la S are a great way to get experience and become comfortable with the harsh demands of climbing in Patagonia. Hard-cores will gravitate towards the steep, splitter and often unclimbed features that still remain for future generations. Rather than try to supply the kind of minute beta for specific routes that people have come to expect in the age of Supertopo, I have instead focused on providing information about the general strategy and tactics that might help lay the groundwork for a successful ascent. Hopefully this approach will preserve an element of exploration and discovery for everyone’s experience, even if they are climbing on a well-traveled route. I make no claims that all the following info is accurate – be careful, be accountable for your own actions, but most of all be adventurous.

Travel Logistics:
The best way to get to Chalten is to fly through Buenos Aires to Calafate, and then take a bus (approximately 4 hours). As of this writing, round-trip plane tickets from New York to Calafate were going for 1200 – 1400 dollars. Ideally you can leave home around mid-day, have an overnight flight to B.A., a morning flight to Calafate, and catch an evening bus to Chalten. The travel is surprisingly straight forward and all necessary supplies can be bought in Chalten.

General Strategy: Accurate weather forecasts can be readily obtained via the internet in town. Most modern teams eschew the traditional basecamp-style expedition and opt to cache climbing gear, bivy equipment, and hill food at one of the high bivouacs and then wait in town for good weather. With a light load, most bivy sites are a 4-6 hour hike from town. Bring some heavy “contractor” trash bags from home to waterproof your cache and remember to discretely hide your equipment among the boulders. Some theft does occasionally occur.

Approach To Polacos: To reach the Polacos bivy, locate the major trail that begins at the southwest side of Chalten and leads towards the Torre Valley and Campo d’Agostini (formerly Camp Bridwell, about two hours from town). Just beyond d’Agostini, cross the Tyrolean traverse over the river that is the outlet for Lago Torre, and then follow a well established trail that skirts the lake to the left (south). Once beyond the lake, drop down onto the glacier and follow its left side, at one point negotiating a loose moraine trough to circumvent the first major icefall. Once above this obstacle, bear right and head across the glacier towards the upper valley, heading towards flat-topped El Mocho. Once you are directly beneath Saint Exupery, on your right, head right and climb talus off the floor of the valley. The Polacos bivy is located approximately 500 vertical feet above the glacier, beneath Poincenot and just up-valley of the gully between Innominata and Poincenot. Caution! The exact route of the final climb to Polacos is extremely loose and varies from year to year. Careful route-finding is important. Several injuries have resulted from falls and rockfall in the unstable talus. Take care to limit your exposure to rockfall from above.

There is plenty of room for numerous parties to camp at Polacos, though finding water can sometimes be an issue. If there is no running snowmelt available in camp, hike uphill — Small running trickles can normally be found at the base of the slabs approximately 20 minutes above camp.

Approaches Above Polacos: To access the south face of Poincenot, Innominata, Saint Exupery, and the north ridge of de la S, hike directly up hill from Polacos, then move left at the base of the lowest slab to the beginning of a giant fault-line feature that slashes up and right. Identifying the start of this approach gully in daylight before you make an alpine start will help. See photo for details. For Desmochada and the north face of Poincenot, hike up underneath the gully that separates Poincenot from Desmochada, then scramble up the rock buttress left of the gully (lots of 4th class with some short 5.6; consider breaking out the rope and simul-climbing if you are not comfortable soloing this kind of terrain).

Climbing Strategy:
Most teams choose to tackle routes on the smaller spires (Desmochada, Innominata, Saint Exupery, and de la S) in a single long day from Polacos. This strategy normally means that you will leave camp between 2 – 3 AM, do the approach by headlamp, start the technical climbing at first light, summit in the late afternoon, and hopefully have enough time to descend before it gets dark. Many teams do end up rappelling in the dark; total camp-to-camp efforts of around 24 hours are common. Having a warm belay parka and some espresso beans helps make the mid-night rappels go smoothly. Get an early start — those approach gullies are longer than you think.

Most teams will ditch extra crampons and ice gear, one pack, and all other superfluous gear at the start of the technical climbing, and pack all their stuff into a single backpack for the second to carry. The leader goes packless, or with a very light load. Climbing on a single rope gives the second the option to jug. While it is undoubtedly more enjoyable for the second to free-climb pitches, if you are carrying a heavy load of ice gear and/or bivy supplies it is quicker and more efficient to jug. Leading in blocks of 3-6 pitches helps everyone to stay warm.

Equipment:
Rack: A standard rack for most technical Patagonia routes consists of a double set of cams to #3 Camalot, and one each of #4 and #5, plus a full set of nuts, 8-10 slings and free biners, and 3-4 cordelettes. On the trade routes, you can normally get away with less. For establishing rappel anchors, I find doubles of large nuts (BD size 9-13) to be especially helpful, as well as lots of cord to sling horns and equalize gear.

Footwear: In favorable mid-season conditions, you can get away with wearing a lightweight gortex hiking boot or approach shoe — Last year I summited Fitzroy twice wearing a pair of the La Sportiva Onix GTX-XCRs. On most routes from the Polacos bivy, you will need a pair of lightweight aluminum crampons and one ice axe for the approach. Remember that at night temperatures are frequently below freezing and there is often very hard snow conditions in the approach gullies. Don’t try to get away with doing any of these approaches without the proper gear. If your route looks to be pure rock climbing, you can leave your ice gear and approach shoes at the bottom of your route. For rock shoes, I wear a pair of oversized Barracudas that I can comfortably wear with socks on.

Other equipment notes: A piece of surgical hosing is invaluable for siphoning water from small trickles or cracks in the rock. Consider investing in ultra-light aluminum crampons and a light ice-axe: conventional steel ice gear becomes very heavy when you have to carry it on your backpack up technical rock terrain. I like to have a light, tight fitting pair of gloves that I can rock climb moderate terrain in — either mixed climbing gloves, or neoprene work gloves from the hardware store, work great. Even if Bilbo taught you not to tape for cracks at the Creek, the coarse Joshua Tree granite of Patagonia will make you think again…

Selected Routes:

North Ridge of de la S: at only five technical pitches, this is one of the shortest routes in the range, with one of the longest approaches. Still, it is worth considering as a warm-up route or a reasonable objective on marginal weather days. Approach as for Claro de Luna, but continue moving south under Saint Exupery into the diagonal gully between Saint Exupery and de la S. At the top of the gully, move onto the east face and ascend easy snow and mixed terrain for one pitch. Then climb a beautiful 5.6 crack to reach the broad upper shoulder of de la S. Walk across the low angle talus to reach the upper spire. You can choose to either follow the true crest of the ridge (5.9) or climb one of several chimney features to its right (probably easier but less fun). Descend by rappelling the route – only one 60 meter rope is needed.

Claro de Luna, Saint Exupery: an all-time alpine classic, with twenty-odd pitches of rock climbing that goes at mid 5.10. Probably the technical crux is a thin corner on the second pitch (can be avoided by going around to the right), though expect some loose rock and route-finding challenges higher up. Simul-climbing the moderate terrain in the middle section of the route goes a long way to helping avoid the all-night rappel party. Rap the top part chimney portion of the route, then go fall-line over a steep face festooned with anchors to reach the bottom ramp of the Kearney-Harrington some 400 yards higher up the approach gully.

The west face of Saint Exupery, showing Claro de Luna (red); The Super Trek variation (yellow), and The Last Gringos Standing (green).

The Anglo-American Route, Innominata: A popular route, but bring a number 5 Camalot and beware of the stiff off-width lurking right below the summit.

The northwest pillar of Innominata, showing 1) Artezebella, 2) Blood on the Tracks, 3) Corallo, 4) the Anglo-American Route.

The Sound and the Fury, Desmochada: A really cool route, which perhaps got a bad reputation because Dave Sharratt and I epic-ed on the first ascent. The route ascends a beautiful crack system on the SW face, which nevertheless goes at a surprisingly moderate 5.11 A1, with loads of classic crack climbing and aid necessary on only two pitches (freed by Will Stanhope and Jason Kruk at 12b). Also check out its sister line Golden Eagle, and the properly burly looking El Falcon.

Enter the arena: Desmochada from the southwest, showing 1) El Condor, 2) Golden Eagle, 3) The Sound and the Fury, 4) Dieta del Lago, 5) El Facon.

The Future: Alpinists are often limited by an irrational desire to end their climb on a major summit. But if it’s adventure and new exploration you seek, consider the numerous unclimbed lines that end on the gendarmed ridges between and below the other peaks. Two good places to start looking: the sub-towers below the West Ridge of Poincenot, and the ridge in between Innominata and Saint Exupery.

Resources:
http://www.climbinginpatagonia.freeservers.com/ — an unbelievable resource, with many topos.
http://ktml.freeservers.com/Patagonia.htm — Kevin has some good stories, photos, and a few topos.
http://209.20.70.87/AAJO/ — the American Alpine Journal search engine. Searching for a specific route or peak name will yield lots of information. Make sure you have the spelling correct.

Please note: the following report was written by my friend Ben Gilmore and originally published in the 2008 American Alpine Club Journal…

Our shopping and packing had gone as smoothly as possible, and Maxime Turgeon, Freddie Wilkinson, and I were in Talkeetna ready to fly out to the Yentna Glacier with TAT two days after meeting each other in Anchorage.  We had twenty days to work with, and we were hoping to try one or several new mixed routes on the upper Yentna.  Freddie and I had climbed the Fin Wall with Peter Doucette in the same area last year, and now we were back with Max to try another new route on a nearby-unclimbed peak we had started calling the Bats Ears.

The approach to the Fin Wall in ’07 was difficult and loaded with objective hazard, but getting to a base camp on the upper Yentna and approaching many other climbing and skiing objectives in the area is relatively easy by most Alaska standards.  The longer flight to the Yentna at $600/person in ’08 is a bit more expensive than a regular Kahiltna base camp flight, but Paul Roderick at TAT has established a landing site on the eastern edge of the Yentna, right at the edge of the wilderness boundary and about four miles from where we made our base camp.  On some years the surface of the glacier may be too hard and bumpy to land due to high winds in the region.  This might necessitate a landing further down glacier and a much longer approach to base camp, but it is still fairly flat and easy skiing.  Given good firm snow conditions in both ’07 and ’08, we were able to ski sled loads from the wilderness boundary to our base camp in about an hour, and then coast back down to the landing strip in about fifteen minutes.

Skies were blue as we installed base camp and reveled in the quiet, remote feeling of the place.  We were lucky to have good weather for ferrying our gear and setting up camp, but soon the clouds were thick and snow was falling.  The weather shut down for about five days, giving us a chance to organize, rest, and develop a keen angst only motivating us more for getting out of the tent and up on a route.

On the first clear day we decided to explore the 3000ft approach to the Bats Ears and carry some gear up to the base of the wall.  The approach was a grunt, but it turned out to be straightforward and took us about four hours to the bergschrund below the south face.  It was tempting to just start climbing right then, but after caching some gear, we descended back to base camp.  Clouds were approaching, and it snowed on and off for another two days.  Our preview of the approach combined with more tent-boredom angst convinced us to try the route in a single push when the weather cleared.

Stars were out on May 1st, and we skied out of base camp at 1:30am to go for the Bats Ears.  The climbing was fun and hard enough to stay interesting, but not desperate.  The route follows mixed and thin-ice terrain up the obvious gully system in the middle of the south face.  It was mostly 60-80 degrees in the gully with several short vertical cruxes.  We switched leads after every two or three pitches for a total of about fifteen pitches and two sections of simul-climbing.  Rock quality on the sides of the gully was excellent fractured granite, but the gully seemed like a rotten dike feature.  A lot of the ice climbing felt like climbing frozen gravel, and our picks were constantly bouncing off rock.  On several of the mixed pitches, we found it easier to holster our tools and climb with our gloved hands.

Max kicked steps up the last section of simul-climbing and brought us to the summit at 6pm.  The panorama was amazing, especially the straight-on view of the Fin Wall right next to us.  It was tempting to start descending right away, but we had climbed almost 6000ft that day, and we were still unsure about what the way down would be like.  Freddie fired up the stove, and we had fluids and a meal that made a big difference for our energy later.  As we traversed the summit ridge, clouds started building again; intensifying both the views and our feeling that we should start down right away while we could still see our descent ridge.  Luckily, the descent turned out to be an easy walk-off down the southwest ridge with only one rappel in a short gully.  We were happy back in base camp at 12:30am, and it started snowing about an hour later.

We really couldn’t have asked for a better climb or a more straightforward descent.  Our weather window was perfectly timed.  Now we just had to decide what to do with our remaining week of time.  We entertained the idea of trying another route on the Fin Wall, but the weather just wasn’t stable enough to commit to going up into that avalanche-threatened cirque.  Instead, we used our satellite phone to arrange a bump flight over to the Kahiltna Glacier where, in 52hrs r/t from base camp, we climbed the Moonflower Buttress to the summit of Mt Hunter.

We’d like to express our deepest thanks to the American Alpine Club for supporting our climb with the Lyman Spitzer Award.

Day 1 of the Carebear Traverse, leaving the summit area of Guillamet. We arrived on the summit of Mermoz (middle background) the same afternoon, and reached the summit of Fitzroy (far background) two days after that.

Dana “Mad Dog” Drummond and I hit the soon-to-be-paved streets of Chalten on January 16th. With a promising forecast, we quickly repacked and hiked in the next day to the Piedras Negras bivy on the north side of the Fitzroy massif.  Following a tip from Colin Haley, we decided to try a new line on the west face of Guillamet that Colin had attempted the week before.

After a false start, we finally got going on the right line at 11 AM.  The climb went in eleven pitches, with a touch of 5.11 and a few aid moves around iced up cracks.  The highlight of the ascent was undoubtedly the final two pitches, where Dana navigated us up the Fissure Mad Dog, a burly offwidth and squeeze chimney system that topped out only fifteen meters south of Guillamet’s true summit.  On the pitch above Colin’s high point, we found a single European-style piton with some sun bleached bail tat tied to it.  On the same pitch I noticed a German candy bar rapper, expiration date 1993, wedged into a crack.  Perhaps we had joined with Padrijo, the only established route on the face (which was indeed established in 1993) — Although the topo and photo on climbinginpatagonia.freeservers.com clearly shows Padrijo taking a crack system right of our line.  A more likely scenario, given Padrijo’s traversing nature is that the team rappelled down our corner system.  The last possibility, though the resident experts in Chalten have no record of it, is that this line had received an undocumented ascent or attempt.  Anyhow, we’ve named the line The Lost Men (5.11a, A0, 550 meters) in honor of these unknown soldiers.  Perhaps someone out there will read this report and can shed light on the murky historical record.

The weather kept getting better – so Maddog and I packed for the main attraction: Fitzroy, the North Face of course.  Our vague plan was to investigate new terrain on near Tehuelche.  We left our high camp at 3AM, hoofed it over Paso Quadrado, and dropped down to the base of the face.  In the predawn light, we failed to see any compelling lines on the lower face, and ended up following the starting pitches of Theleuche to the Grand Hotel ledge.  From here, we followed a chimney system up the prominent headwall right of Tehuelche. This portion of the climb was dripping wet and offered 5.10 adventure climbing at its finest — with a surprise M5 chockstone pitch at the top.  We established about ten new pitches, before joining with the Affanasief Ridge a little before dark.  We brewed up, broke out our single sleeping bag and spooned until dawn, then scrambled the final few hundred meters to the summit of Fitzroy, arriving on top at 9:30 AM.  Our climb, The Hoser Chimney (5.10 A1 M5), should be considered a minor variation rather than any sort of major new route.  Still, we found it remarkable that such a long and complex face could be climbed at such a modest grade.  After rappelling Tehuelche in the blistering afternoon sun, we made it back to Piedras Negras at dark.  Several days later, Max Hasson and Crystal Davis established another line in the same neighborhood.  With an independent start and harder, better climbing, I think their effort produced the finer line.

A week later Mad Dog and I managed an onsight free ascent of the Red Pillar route on Mermoz.  A few of the pitches were wet, but the coarse granite still provided enough friction.  We found the route lived up to its reputation in terms of quality, though its technical grade is probably closer to Yosemite 5.11+.  Potential suitors of this classic should note that we carried a single 70 meter rope, which worked perfectly for descending the anchor bolt equipped line.

Having climbed Guillamet, Mermoz, and Fitzroy, we began to consider linking the three formations in a single skyline traverse.  Down in Chalten, we pored over photos on my computer of the gendarmed ridge that connects the summit of Guillamet over Mermoz to the start of the North Pillar of Fitzroy, identifying ledge systems, key rappels, and potential bivy spots.  We reckoned we’d need three days to pull of the enchainment – but the weather looked unsettled, with the forecast calling for two short 30 hour spells of high pressure separated by a short wind storm with colder temps.  Realizing that our only chance at the link-up was to sit out the unsettled weather somewhere in the middle of the traverse, we decided to go a little heavy on the bivy gear, borrowing a lightweight tent from our buddy Mark Postle.  We made up for this extra weight by carrying no pins or bolts, and just one axe and a single pair of aluminum crampons.

The first day we began climbing from Paso Guillamet at 8 AM and linked Guillamet’s Brenner Ridge to the West Face of Mermoz.  This enchainment is a fun objective in its own right and had been done at least once before.   The ridge connecting these two classic trade routes involved many 30 meter rappels and ledge traverses with a few moderate “mountaineering pitches” mixed in.  We reached the summit of Mermoz at around 6:30 PM and rather then press on, decided to take extra time to build a protected bivy.  As the wind increased that night and an endless line of vaporous freight trains rolled by outside, we were thankful for this decision.  The next day we waited until noon for the winds to abate before continuing.  Our goal was to reach the base of the North (Casoratto) Pillar in reasonable time to rest and psyche up for climbing Fitzroy the next day.  This section of ridge hadn’t been traversed before and in many ways seemed like it would be the crux of the link-up.   We found lots of committing rappelling, ledge-shuffling, and moderate climbing, but amazingly there were no stopper gendarmes or dead-end slabs.  Whenever the route seemed to blank out, an appealing option waited on the other side of the ridge.  We reached a talus slope sixty meters above the bloc importado at the start of the North Pillar by 6 PM and excavated another bivy ledge.

Mad Dog and I had divided the leading duties according to our relative strengths: with more alpine routefinding experience, I had lead the ridge traverse from the summit of Guillamet to the start of the North Pillar.  The next morning, I unleashed the Dog, who’s spent the last two years living in Yosemite, on the splitter cracks of Fitzroy.  From my perspective, the next ten hours passed in a blur of wind-sprint jugging, belaying, and fast action gear exchanges.  It felt like I was the member of some bizarre alpine pit crew as Maddog short fixed the entire route and delivered us onto the summit of Fitzroy by 5.30 PM. In a word, it was badass.

We had left the our bivy gear at the base of the pillar and were thus committed to rappelling the route.  The weather threatened, then our ropes gut stuck and I had to perform a mandatory “mystery jug” to free them.  Why do descents always have to be so fucking dramatic in Patagonia?  But just when it looked like we were on the verge of a full-blown epic, we reached the bloc and dropped to the lee side of the ridge.

Throughout the day we had watched my girlfriend Janet Bergman and Zack Shlosar successfully climb the Red Pillar.  Now, we watched their headlamps as we simultaneously rappelled through the darkness.  We touched down on the glacier at the same time, and shared a middle-of-the-night reunion before slogging back through Paso Guillamet and down to Piedras Negras in the spitting rain.  Mad Dog and I largely attribute our success to our willingness to carry a comfortable bivy set up.  Traditional bivies aren’t very stylish these days, but the extra comfort and rest it afforded us on route allowed us to chill out, and then attack.

Summary of Activity:

Aguji Guillamet, The Lost Men (5.11a, A0, 550 meters), new route.  Dana Drummond and Freddie Wilkinson, January 18, 2008.

Fitzroy, The Hoser Chimney (5.10 A1 M5 1300 meters), new variation to Tehuelche.  Dana Drummond and Freddie Wilkinson, January 21-22nd, 2008.

Aguji Mermoz, The Red Pillar (5.11+, 650 meters), onsight ascent.  Dana Drummond and Freddie Wilkinson, January 28th, 2008.

Aguji Guillamet, Aguji Mermoz, and Fitzroy, The Care Bear Traverse (5.11 A0, Grade VI).  Dana Drummond and Freddie Wilkinson, February 5-7, 2008.

The upshot of all this is that we slept through the alarm and I spent Christmas day nursing a hangover and watching as my partner Dave Sharratt pinkpointed the impressive 5.12+ crack splitting the Polackos boulder.  He’s soft spoken and cuddly, but we don’t call him “Monster” for nothing.  The 26th we went climbing:  Dave, Taki Miyamota, Paul Turecki and I established a new route on Torre Innominata. we named it Via Sin Nombre.  It follows the first continuous crack system left of the northwest arete.  All but two pitches were freed by the leader at 5.11+.  We later learned that we had missed a summit rendevous with the female contigent of our team, Janet Bergman, Sarah Garlick and Kirstin Kramer, by only an hour.  Special thanks go to Turecki, self proclaimed “big-wall janitor” who installed bomber, equalized 60 meter rap anchors down the route.  He brought us safely down to the packs by dark.  The easy-bail factor should make this route a popular choice.

A week later, Dave freed the two aid pitches at 5.12 in weather cold enough that the DAS parkas never came off.  “I guess I’ve climbed at Rumney in weather worse then this” was his only comment.  We rapped in sporty conditions three 5.10 pitches from the top.  Not the perfect free send, but a dazzling show of strength and cajones on the part of  Mr. Sharratt.

On January 21st, with two days left before our bus ride to Calafate, Dave and I made the trudge up to Polackos one more time.  We had spent most of the last month obsessing over a new line on Desmochada, a beautiful crack/corner system left of the Dieta del Lagarto variation to El Facon.  Unfortunately I flubbed a forecast and told everyone in camp it looked good (Dean, Marko, Stephen: I’m sorry about that bivy!), consequently putting us out of position when the good weather actually came….  Anyhow, this was our last chance and Dave was convinced we had to go down swinging.

It was raining when the alarm went off so we slept in and didn’t leave camp until 10 AM.  We fired up the approach to Desmochada and started the proper climbing around one.  Pitch after pitch of perfect granite cracks passed by. After weeks of psyching for the climb, to finally be up there was just surreal.  Darkness broke our trance three pitches from the top.  Luckily, this was why I had brought Monster with me.  Dave deftly navigated us around left of the final chimney section and on to the summit in total darkness.  The weather was definitely turning and we started to rappel immediately.  My memory of the descent is a flickering collage of stuck ropes, single-point anchors, and tandem rappelling down snowy slabs.  What counts is we made it, safe and sound, back in Chalten by midnight after 40 hours on the go.  Of course we missed our alarm and barely made the 6 AM bus the next morning…. We named our route “The Sound and the Fury”; it is 14 pitches long and goes at 5.11 A1.

This summary was published in the 2006 American Alpine Journal. For more beta, check out: Patagonia Unplugged.