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.

The Wind, The Snow, The Amy Couloir

A small window was appearing in the forecast for Christmas Eve.  It was the only break in the weather for the foreseeable future, so we decided we should do something with it.

We hiked in the previous afternoon up to Piedras Negras and collected the ropes that we cached last time.  Last time we socialized in the sun, but this time we set up the tent and dove in to get out of the cold wind and blowing snow.

Camp at Piedras Negras, looking at the leaning summit of Guillamet.

Neale laments the wind and blowing snow.

 In the morning (1am) we continued to push back our start time as the weather continued to be unpleasant. When we finally decided at about 3am to at least fail standing up instead of fail from within our sleeping bags, Colin Haley and Joel Kauffman walked through camp.  We followed Colin and Joel up through shitty blowing snow to Paso Guillamet where we put on crampons.  Colin and Joel have climbed a lot in Patagonia, so we were essentially looking to them for an assessment of whether or not this was climbing weather. Colin and Joel seemed to be going for it, and so we did, too.

Colin crampons up just below Paso Guillamet in the blowing snow. 

The sun rises and the snow blows at looking east (ish) fom Paso Guillamet.

Lago Viedmar and the rising sun as seen from Paso Guillamet.

The Amy Couloir is an easy and short couloir (gully) rising from near the Paso to the Comsaña Ridge on Guillamet.  I led the snowy couloir in one pitch.

Looking down the couloir from the belay at the top.  Neale was being closely followed by an Italian guided team. The couloir itself was mostly sheltered from the howling wind.

Neale just finishes the fun crux, a move pulling over a short steep and rocky step into the snow.

 Neale reported that the Italians were planning (perhaps saying they were hellbent would be more accurate) on going to the summit. It was super windy at the ridge, but the belay was reasonably sheltered, so we decided to let them pass and then see what they did.
The guide screamed "to the summit!! We all go to the summit!!" as he simul-climbed past. His enthusiasm was indeed infectious, and we decided to take a crack at it.  I led the short, steep rock step in my crampons a few minutes behind their second, and got on top of the rock step to find that the guide had set his belay in the full blast of the wind. He was again leading, slowly scratching his way up 5.9 rock climbing in full ice gear. His client was standing in the wind, belaying and shivering. I immediately down climbed and Neale and I began the rappels. The Italians retreated not too long later.

Back at camp - the sky was clear, but it was still quite windy. We were hit by some gusts of wind at the base of the couloir that nearly took us off of our feet.

Fauna.

Neale walks out.  It was still very windy.

Flora in the Rio Electrico valley. 

We were able to hitchhike back to Chaltén by mid-afternoon. I actually hadn't realized that it was in fact Christmas Eve, thinking that it was the 23rd, and most stores were closed and it was tough to find food. 

For those that want to know how the high-end alpine team of Colin and Joel fared, they made it a couple of pitches up their goal, an ice chimney on Val Bois, a peak a couple peaks further along the ridge line.  They bailed due to the wind and the hot sun melting their route. They instead climbed Cerro Madsen, a small peak above Lago de los Tres. Colin said it was the windiest summit he'd ever been on and they had to hold themselves down to avoid being blown off the mountain.

The Whillans Ramp - Cerro Poincenot

After just a few days in El Chaltén, our first weather window appeared in the forecast.  It was the first window in a while, and the hordes of climbers in town started to buzz, mostly with pretty ambitious plans for what appeared to be a pretty decent window.
Neale and I discussed trying something small, but after consulting those more knowledgeable about Patagonia than we are, it was decided to take advantage of what appeared to be a multi-day window.  We prepared to attempt a route that was a fairly high priority for me on this visit, the Whillans Ramp on Cerro Poincenot.  As we packed up and discussed our ambitions, we were interrupted by the sound of sobbing.

From the bus ride into Chaltén. The biggest peak, just right of center, is the mighty Fitzroy. The peak just left of it is Poincenot.

We investigated to find a young man in the corner of the dorm room in our hostel, bawling his eyes out.  We asked him what was going on, and he revealed that he didn't have anyone to climb with for the coming window.
After a short discussion and an assessment of his skills, we determined that he was a better climber than either of us and that he could join us for the Whillans.  Drew immediately ceased his sobbing and began to stuff a backpack full of cams, crampons, and pride.  And with that, our intrepid duo became three.

(the world of climbing being a small place, after a few days of "I know I've met you before" we finally determined that Drew had come to a barbeque at my house in Squamish a few years back.)

We hiked in and setup camp at Piedras Negras, a bivy site that many other parties were using as well.  We socialized before we slept.

This is an actual photo I took during the hike in, but my camera has a cool mode where it re-renders the photo as a painting.  The image here was an actual output of my camera.  I think it's pretty fun (the original photo was nothing special).

This photo was taken in another special camera mode, HDR, where it takes three photos (at different exposures) and re-renders selecting the brightest colors (it also makes it look a little like a painting, but that isn't as obvious in this photo).

Janet, Drew and Sarah were colorful in camp.  Neale was standing there too, but I told him and his black jacket to "get the fuck out of my photo."

Not bad weather.

SarBear (one of my very good friends from when I lived in Squamish who is spending the season in Patagonia) and I posed for a photo in her partner Dorte's sunglasses.  Dorte is a Patagonian legend and a co-author of the guidebook to Patagonia climbing.

In the morning, about 2am, we launched.

Drew at Paso Guillamet

The Piedras Blancas Glacier.

Drew starts up the ramp part of the Whillans Route.  Below us is an enormous big wall, which would make a fall from this snow traverse a serious mistake.

Drew led the entire snow ramp in one pitch, while Neale and I simul-followed.

At the top of the ramp. This is not really a very great picture, but it's of me, so on the blog it goes.  Photo by Drew Thayer.

This was the crux pitch, which Drew led in fine style.  The climbing was absolutely excellent.

Continuing up the rock.

This next photo is where things began to wrong. We had route-finding decisions to make: left or right.  We also didn't know which bump was the summit. But straight ahead was this crack, which looked about 5.9 (but was probably low 5.10).  So we went up the middle, between the peaks, confident that due to the low angle of the slope, it would be a "slam dunk" to the summit.  So we harnessed Neale up, and sent him on his way....

And it was a dead-end.  Blank in both directions.  The summit was only a couple of hundred vertical feet above, but the wind was howling on the ridge, it was 5 o'clock, and it was clear that we were not going to go down and then back up.  We were done.

At our high point. This is our non-triumphant non-summit photo. Photo by Drew.

Rappelling. Photo by Drew.

Aguja De La S in the back and St. Exupery in the front.

When we wrapped back around to the south side we were treated to a Spectre of the Brocken - our shadows cast into a concentric rainbow formed by the sun shining into the swirling clouds below.

And if we looked in the opposite direction? The baddest mountains in the world.

Me in the middle, shooting the photo, Drew and Neale on either side with their hands up in wild celebration of beauty.

St. Exupery.

Look very closely at the small notch and there are two people bivied there, on Chiaro di Luna.  I heard from some Canadians that a couple of Argentines stumbled into Niponino hungry and exhausted the following day - I think that that was these guys.

Heading down in the fading daylight.

Look closely, you can see two headlamps on the ramp.  A (different) couple of Argentines were heading up to climb all night.

Our day went long. We were starting to get kindof tired...

Us, back at camp, as the sun was starting to come up. The descent from Paso Guillamet went on forever. Neale, bless his tired little heart, seemed to remember that one is supposed to smile for photos, and diligently did his best.

Back at the trailhead we ran into our friends Colin Haley and Rolando Garibotti (adorably, if you'll recall Sarah and Dorte from the sunglasses picture at the beginning of this post, Colin is Sarah's boyfriend and is friend from when I lived in Squamish, and Rolo is Dorte's boyfriend, is the other author of the guidebook, and is a Patagonian climbing legend.). Rolo's truck had had a tire slashed and he couldn't find his hidden key and was generally having one of those days (though he and Colin had made the first ascent of a peak called Cerro Marconi Central). He walked to a friend's house and was able to get a ride back to Chaltén, and I got to jump in the back of the truck.
This photo is once again using the HDR painting mode. But join me, please, in loving this picture.

Thanks Neale and Drew! We got close....