Getting Blown Off Of Cerro Grande

A shitty looking weather window was appearing in the forecast. High winds, precip and sub-freezing temperatures (as low as -10C) made it a dubious proposition, but with a week of festering behind us, and another week of festering in the forecast for the future, we decided to gear up.

It was obviously too cold for rock climbing. We didn't have good objectives in mind for ice climbing, and we aren't rad ice climbers (when it comes to the pointy things, I am placed in the awkward position of being the team's rope-gun, a situation I typically avoid).

We poured over the guide book and settled on Cerro Grande - the east ridge was described as aesthetic and fun, and a non-technical objective, which meant no belaying in the wind and cold. This sounded pretty reasonable. So after an almost respectable amount of sleep on New Year's Day (Neale actually went to bed around 9, but I was up somewhat later) we hiked into the Torre Valley.

(as an aside, I was convinced to start shooting in raw - apparently the colors are ho-hum until you do some minor tweaks to the photos in Lightroom. I can't get Lightroom until I have faster internet, so you'll have to live with possibly less exciting photos at first.)

Chalten has some cragging just outside of town.

Looking at the mountains from the top of the crag.

Mountains and town.

Now I'm just playing games with my Cool New Camera's different settings and modes.

There is a tyrolean traverse over the outlet to Laguna Torre, who's true purpose, I believe is to filter out which people should be allowed onto the other side of the lake.

Looking back at the lake.

Where the Torre Glacier hits the lake. It's a pretty spot, and you'll see lots more pictures of it.

Neale takes a short break from being a douchebag, in order to photograph some pretty flowers.

Angling for sponsorship.

Heading up in the morning. We had to walk back down to go around some crevasses, which is why Neale appears to be going in the wrong direction.

The technical crux is actually a part of the approach, as this lands you on the glacial plateau before the route. It was suggested to camp up here, which would have been terribly unpleasant.

Traversing the glacier.

A spot where we stopped to regroup.

The wind was strong all day, but it was becoming increasingly distracting.

Eventually I became concerned that the vague things that I could barely see to my right were crevasses, and that I couldn't see the ridge line to my left well enough to see if it was corniced. It was time to go down.

This is reversing the steep gully that is really part of the approach. Above is a glacial plateau that seemed to serve to funnel the wind to the lip of the plateau. I have no pictures from the lip, but the wind was howling,maybe as strong as I've ever experienced. Neale and I were downclimbing, front-pointing and swinging tools, prone on the nearly flat ground as we worked our way to the lip. When the gusts kicked up we would put our heads down and wait them out. After a bit, when the lulls between howling gusts became shorter and the gusts got longer, I realized that we had to change our assessment of the baseline, and keep climbing through the gusts. I thought that I should shout to Neale to say that we couldn't stop because of the wind, because it was just continuing to get worse. Shouting was obviously hopeless, since I don't think you could communicate with someone next to you, but when I looked up I saw that Neale had already come to the same conclusion, and was down climbing. Once we got into the steeper terrain below the lip, shown in the above photo, the wind let off a little.  

Nearly back onto the lower glacier, where we could just walk back to camp, I triggered this wind slab. I'd had enough. 

At some point I gave climbing in Patagonia the thumbs-down: you sit on your ass in town for days on end, then periodically slog 10 miles into the mountains with a heavy pack, get chased off of your objectives, and you might die. My disposition became sunnier once I was out of the wind, but for a time I was not-excited. 

And then, it never fucking fails, the weather got perfect once we got off the mountain (though I believe it stayed windy up high). Cerro Torre is poking up left of the valley center.

Cerro Grande. Just left of the obvious summit there is a small pyramid. I think we made it to just below that pyramid, but there is no way to be sure.

The baddest mountain in the world.

Obviously I can't get enough of the HDR painting mode on my camera.

"geez, enough photos, Seth?" you're probably thinking. But if you had been there, would you have taken fewer? And if this was your blog, would you not post them?

Finally back, wandering into El Chalten in the afternoon.

Spoiler: in a lot of ways, I didn't enjoy this outing. It wasn't bad by itself, but I felt out-of-control during the descent, being forced off the mountain by the wind. The next window had me walking into the mountains, all winces, concern, and lack of stoke. Stay tuned to hear all about it.