The 1st time I came to Patagonia, in 2015, I was practically a beginner in mountaineering. I arrived here hitchhiking, with no fixed climbing partner and little equipment in my backpack, so I didn’t know what to expect. With no specific objective in mind, any ascent was something of a surprise, and felt like the most extraordinary thing in the world. One thing was certain, however: this was a magical place that beckoned me to return.
Ever since, my dreams of Patagonian ascents have expanded, and I’ve returned a good number of times already. This is the 2nd season in a row that we’ve spent here with Lise and Fanny, and for the first time we’ve dared to express an objective, a dream on which to focus: the SE filo at Cerro Torre!
Even saying it impressed us, but we decided to work on our insecurities and embrace the fact that we wanted to try. Instead of walking from one valley to the next, chasing good-weather slots, we chose to concentrate on one project and one valley. And in the end, it saved us a bit of the classic decision-making brainstorm!
Season after season, and despite a goal set in advance, all 3 of us are more relaxed about what we’ll manage to climb or not. We know there’s not much we can control here, and that is the most enticing thing is probably to enjoy the process, to take advantage of village life, to find the balance to stay in shape, to enjoy the long walks even when there’s little climbing, to manage to get some positive emotion out of all that frustration, or at least to laugh about it… Just being up there, the 3 of us, seems incredible! And maybe that’s the key to this trip: letting go and embracing what Patagonia has to offer.
Of course, it’s easier to say that when patience finally pays off! But how good is it when, after 6 weeks of waiting, when we’d already accepted that we’d come home empty-handed, the right time finally arrives! Especially when we each have a fine collection of bailing on our objectives to our credit, and we know how difficult it is to get everything to line up for an expedition. For once, we feel that everything is in the right place at the right time, and that we’ve made the right decisions.
Here is the more time lined story:
We arrived in mid January and made a gear cache in Niponino, the starting camp for Cerro Torre SE ridge. After a month of mostly bad weather, finally, ten days before our flight departure, a good window came.
With all the new snow that had fallen in the previous weeks and after seeing the conditions in the mountains, we were unsure about how far we’d make it on route. The weather window was good but cold and snowy. We left our camp in Niponino on February 22 with the idea of taking it one pitch at a time. It took us 11 hours to get to the Col de la Paciencia from camp, what is usually considered as the “approach”. Breaking trail with fresh snow on the glacier and cleaning the pitches while climbing was time consuming. Fortunately, we shared the task with two other parties.
After arriving at the Col de la Paciencia we could see very snowy cracks above and a really frozen headwall. We planned a leisurely morning and to be ready by 8am so the temperature could rise a bit and the rock could dry. One of the teams decided to bail, as they were not optimistic about the conditions.
The first pitches were still quite cold and took us quite a while to get through. However, after three pitches, the terrain changed to a lower angle and the temperature rose, so we managed to get back in the flow. We could hear the other team ahead of us cheering, which helped a lot.
It was still daylight when we reached our bivy spot on pitch 15. It took us an hour and a half to set up an adequate ledge on the ice, where our shoulders could barely fit while lying down.
On the 25th, we opted for the same strategy as the day before, not too early. The whole time we didn’t know how far we would get and just tried to enjoy the moment. The ice chimney pitch above was absolutely unique; 60m of steep climbing in a narrow corridor which barely allowed you to swing your axes and crampons into the ice. This pitch led us to the base of the headwall, still in the sun! What a relief to be there already. The hardest was still to come.
We changed boots for climbing shoes, and nervously started up. The first 5c pitch was a good warming up for the 6c: wet, flaky, and intimidating. We made it to the anchor and there, finally we slowly started to believe that we would make it to the summit…
And then came the last two hard pitches. We opted for the right variation which climbs up and slightly right to a belay. Is at this point that we were to the right and level with the famous compressor that Maestri famously used during his ascent (See the AAJ for more info about this controversy). Leading up to this moment, there had been a lot of fear and we had made many projections about being unable to climb them. Yet somehow, those pitches didn’t even feel that hard.
It was 7pm on the 25th of February when we stood on top of Cerro Torre and reached our common dream. Some tears were shed, some laughs were shared and a selfie was made. No wind, so calm and quiet. We started rappelling down soon after as our goal was to make it to our previous bivy. Going down the headwall, we watched the freezing process of the water. The path we had taken up was now closed. We made it to the summit just at the right time.
When we reached our bivy ledge at pitch 15, the platform had been shortened by the heat of the sun. But it was a good call to set up the tent that night. The small snowfall only predicted by one model forecast was much more than expected. We felt lucky to be already on our way down and thought of all the lights we could see in the Fitz Roy range and about our friends up there, who would have to deal with this unexpected precipitation.
We took it easy on the 26th to descend as we had good weather all day. Going down through the Col de la Paciencia, we couldn’t recognize the way we came up. There was no snow anymore, but all loose rock.
When we reached Niponino by 6pm, the call of our comfy beds was too strong so we decided to hike back to Chalten. And as always, the way back from the Torre Valley felt quite long, but this time, it had a slightly different taste.
