Life in the Vertical

Fitz Roy - The Journey

2012-01-29T07:25:00.000-08:00

I first came down to El Chalten 4 years ago, in 2008. On that trip I was just scoping things out, making more of a total Argentinian climbing trip than a Patagonian specific one. I climbed in some of the "escuelas clasicas", like los Arenales and Frey on my way south, learning much about the climbing culture and history of the country.
When I made it to Chalten, I didn't have a clue (or a partner!). I hooked up with a local named Marcos and we climbed the normal route up Cerro Solo, more of a mountain scramble than a Patagonian peak, but from the summit you can look up both the Cordon Torre and Fitz Roy, and see the massive walls on each side of the Torre Valley. I was stunned. The power of this range was indescribable.

The next season I came down, together with my partner Josh Garrison, but this time to climb in the Torres del Paine, hoping to climb the North and Central Towers. It seemed to me like the Paine was a good stepping stone before commiting to the Chalten massif. Shorter approaches, smaller climbs, a bit easier to wrap our minds around. We climbed the North Tower that season, and that was it. We sat out 11 weeks of unforgiving weather before bailing to warmer latitudes.

Last season, we returned to the Paine, climbed a cold route on Peineta, and then turned our attention to a massive project; first ascents in an incredibly remote zone in the Northern Patagonian Andes. This would be the most committing thing either Josh or I had undertaken, and we were very lucky to make it out both successfully and safely. When I returned from that trip, I was happy, but also kind of nervous. I felt like I had been building towards something, ever bigger and badder, but wasn't sure what it was yet. By mid summer, I knew. I had to go back to Chalten. I wanted to climb Fitz.

Only a short 7 months later, I was again flying into Buenos Aires, this time to work some early season mountaineering courses for Outward Bound Patagonia before meeting up with my good friend Geoff for the month of January, but after only a short trip had the rest of my season cancelled due to low enrollment. Instead of moping around Bariloche, I took the first bus down to Chalten to get a jump on the season. I didn't have a partner, but I figured I could wrangle one up when I got there, and besides, the weather was probably just going to suck anyway right?
I lined up a partner, who spoke English and had visited the zone before, and seemed a good fit. We began ticking off classic routes during the several fantastic weather windows that came during December, but I never felt comfortable considering the bigger committing objectives of the range with this partner, and hoped that I wasn't squandering all the good windows of the season on moderate climbs. This gap in trust created an unresolvable rift, and in the end I ended up climbing Aguja de la S solo because of it.

Geoff arrived in early January, after a guiding gig on Aconcagua, and before that a major Himalayan expedition on which he climbed his first 8000m peak, Shishapangma. He was fit and ready to go, never having visited Patagonia before. After sport climbing and making pizzas for a week or so in town, a phenomenal high pressure system showed up on the NOAA Meteogram, one that looked like it could develop into a week long window, interrupted by a couple days of high winds in the middle. We started scheming...

Continued in a following post.

Fitz Roy - The Climb

2012-01-29T07:22:00.000-08:00

After climbing de la S, I had cached the majority of my gear far up in the Torre Valley, thinking that climbing a rock route up there would be a great intro for Geoff into Patagonian climbing. With the forecast of the season, we decided that we would head up into the Torre, climb a route on Aguja Rafael Juarez (Innominata), descend to town, relax for 2 days and then hike around to the Northwest side of Fitz Roy. It was going to be a lot of hiking, and I was starting to get sick.

Our attempt on Rafael Juarez was short-lived; a party above us initiated a large rockfall, which missed both Geoff and I by only a couple meters. We were sufficiently spooked that we took it as a sign and decided to return to town early so that I could have an extra couple days to recover. Once back in town I began chugging cough syrup and popping anti-flu pills like they were candy, in an effort to purge the sickness out of my body, but as the weather forecast kept on improving, and I kept on hacking, I realized that the only way was to bite the bullet and go for it. The forecast showed 5 days of splitter weather, and so we decided on our course of action. Not only would we be going for the Fitz, but we would be going for the longest route in the whole massif- the Afanasieff (French Northwest Ridge) Route, a 1600m 5.10+ monster alpine rock climb. We received helpful beta, and another half rope from Rolo Garibotti, who with Colin made the second ascent of the route in 2006. Pretty crazy considering it was first climbed in 1979! We knew we would have to go light in order to climb fast and decend the Franco Argentine route, so we took a single sleeping bag, no bivy sack, a titanium Jetboil, 2.5 days of food, one ice axe and aluminum crampons with approach shoes. I was nervous about only taking light approach shoes on an ascent of Fitz, but Rolo assured us that we would otherwise be far too encumbered. More on that later...

Photo: Jon Byers

Guillamet Mermoz and paso Cuadrado. JB photo.

Our route is the skyline above us. JB photo

JB photo.

At 4 am on the morning of January 20th our friend Malu dropped us off at Rio Electrico to begin the 7 hour hike to the base of the route. Jon Byers, another long time friend of mine who was in the area repeating glacier photographs accompanied us as far as Paso Cuadrado. Geoff and I made it to the base of the route, just left of the ejection cone from the bone dry Supercanaleta, at just after noon. Simul-climbing and pitching out the first 10 pitches to the 3-star bivy Rolo recommended went quick, and we were there by 5.15 pm, with a lot of daylight left, so we kept chugging, intending to make our first bivy 9 more pitches up.

Geoff Schellens, starting pitch 1 of about 40.

These were some of the cooler pitches on the route, featured slabs with slightly bottomed out cracks which forced you to place gear when you could and run it out when you couldn't. Often there was would be no belay gear at the end of the rope, and we would simul climb another 20 meters until better gear appeared.
The bivy we made it to just before dark was definitely 1/2-star, with just enough room to sit side by side and cover ourselves with our single 20 degree sleeping bag, but as we settled in and watched the last light fade over the Torre Massif, we relaxed and enjoyed our candy bars for
desert.

One more to go before the bivy!

The night was cold, and I kept Geoff awake with my constant and violent hacking. I was getting sicker, develeping some sort of respiratory infection, but when the morning broke and we got some coffee in us, the stoke was uncontainable. I began leading out first, as we worked our way towards the crux, a difficult wide crack which is made more difficult wearing a pack. The climbing eased after this, and we were able to finally find a ledge with some snow with which to make some water. Around this point, I peeked behind a flake to see where the next pitch went, and found the tattered orange rucksack which Jean Afanasieff left behind during the first ascent. Pitch after pitch of moderate rock got us to the last of the hard pitches- a crack which ended at a fingertip traverse, taking me around the corner, wildly exposed above the sweeping North Face below my feet. I had an ear to ear smile as I swung around and pinched the granite fins taking the rope up and around to the belay.

Geoff follows the incredible exposed step around.

We soon put a rope away and began climbing together in the orange evening sun, weaving our way between icy blocks towards the summit. At 9.30 pm, all the noise stopped. No more calls of "off belay", or "get that anchor down I need you to start simuling!". No more clinking of gear on our harness. Not even a breath of wind in the air. Just silence as we stepped onto the summit block, and watched the sun cast a long shadow down onto the steppe far below. We took our time enjoying the moment, savoring our reward, before stepping down and finding a good spot to bivy for the night. The Franco-Argentine is a complex rap route, and we didn't want to on-sight it at night.

Jon Byers timelapse. We are sleeping on top, parties are climbing on the Franco Argentine.

Another JB photo. A "Coronal Mass Ejection" was the reason for the Southern Lights

The descent the next day was long and involved. We made around 25 semi-eventful rappels to make it back to the Fitz Roy glacier, and then trudged hours back down in soggy shoes to the dry trail. The jury is still out on the approach shoe tactic- a week later and I still have limited feeling in 6 toes. Like most things in alpine climbing, I will probably forget this fact and focus on the fact we went light and fast, and we sent. Same with the fact that I went up on this route with fully entrenched bronchitis and had to take a hefty series of antibiotics after returning to town.

Sunrise over the Hielo Continental. Fitz's shadow off in the distance.

This climb was for Geoff an amazing whirlwind first trip into the range, and I am sure he will be coming back. For me, it was the culmination of 4 seasons of hard work, dreaming and working towards a goal that wasn't always very well defined. I feel very lucky to have had all the variables turn out in my favor, this is not typical for Patagonia. I am indebted to my friends in Chalten, gringos and Argentinos alike, who contributed to such an amazing atmosphere of STOKE this season. Jason and Hayden for crushing the Torre, Rolo for the never ending beta sessions and giving us a rope, Joel for the pizzas and empanadas at Capa Bar, and everyone else. Props to Jon Byers for taking great photos.

Thank you Patagonia, see you next year.

Patagonia sin Pare!

2011-12-29T08:47:00.000-08:00

The sending spree continues! December in Patagonia has seen unprecedented amounts of hot weather and beautiful windless days in the mountains, with windows coming every week it seems like barely enough time to refuel relax and catch your breath before turning around and marching back to new objectives.
After the Brenner Route on Guillamet, I vowed that postholing and bergshrunds were a thing of the past, and got stoked on rock climbing in the Torre Valley. The approach is pretty long to get up to the basecamp at Niponino or Polacos, but so worth it for the sheer amount of spectacular clean rock on the west side of the Fitzroy Massif.
With legs about ready to fall off, got up to the bivy below Aguja St. Exupery, named after the famous author of the Little Prince and early Patagonian pilot Antoine St. Exupery, to climb the stellar uber-classic mega good never ending 5 star route Chiaro de Luna (800m 5.11b). This route just goes on forever, finger cracks, wild flakes, chimney of cracks... We got a bit hung up on some rappels and ended up not touching back down to the ground until 7am the next day, but what a killer route!

Ahgooha St. Exooperee

With a big asado to recharge the batteries back in town, I hiked back into the Torre Valley, solo this time, to climb a route on Aguja Rafael Juaraz, for another warm window scheduled for Christmas Day. But the miserable hike in with a death-load tired me out more than I expected, and I snoozed through my alarm! So leaving camp a bit later than planned, I changed the game plan to the Austrian Ridge on Aguja de la S, a more manageable and mellow outing.
After a funky little rock step, I booted up about an hour towards the St. Exupery-de la S col, where I busted out the rope to make it up to a wild alpine bowl perched up below the summit tower. On the tower proper I followed a really cool chimney feature full of hand cracks and up to the wierd windswept fins right below the summit, climbing 5 roped pitches in all. What a rad way to spend Christmas afternoon, alone on a Patagonian summit, sun in the face, no worries.
I rapped back down with no hassles and made it back to my cave by 7pm for a nice dinner while watching the sun drop over Cerro Torre.

Awesomeness on de la S

Summit tower

Now I hang out in Puerto Natales, Chile, to enjoy the New Year´s with friends here, and to renew my visa before heading back to Chalten for another month of getting after it, this time with my good friend Geoff who is making his first trip here. Stoked!!

Patagonicos Desperados

2011-12-09T14:05:00.000-08:00

Greetings from the hot and cramped internet cabanas of El Chalten! For the last 3 weeks I have been getting after it as much as could be hoped for here in the land of the worst weather in the world. Despite being just off the couch from a chest injury that threatened to put my season on hold, I got into town, met up with my climbing partner, and headed straight for the hills.

The forecast looked chilly, so we racked up ice screws and tools instead of rock shoes and cams, heading for the Guillot couloir on Guillamet, a nice ice and mixed outing. Instead, we got super warm weather and waist deep snow. We did not send. Next week we got a great 4 day window, and headed up towards Paso Superior to attempt the Franco Argentine Route on Fitz Roy. Intending to go all the way to la Brecha, we had to break trail through knee deep snow for hours, then climbing about 200 meters of steep snow and mixed climbing before arriving at the bivy at 11pm. After 17 hours approaching, we were obviously not set up for success, and I reached my fatigue point after only 6 pitches up the Franco.

We descended the next morning back to Paso and slept all day in the sun, recouperating for the Whillians route on Aguja Poincenot (600m 5.9 60deg). Leaving at 2am from Paso, we wallowed for hours up the glacier, managing to cross the bergshrund easily, and headed towards the snow ramp which defines the route. Simul-climbing and briefly pitching out the long steep snow ramp, we made it to the shoulder in the mid morning, but not until after passing two funky mixed pitches whose belays were conveniently located beneath a torrent of cold water. The day was getting warm. We left the ice kit at the shoulder and started I began leading pitch after 70m pitch of rock, trending up and left around the formation, picking the line that offered the best mixture of fun and speed. After several hours we arrived at the summit block, took our turns straddling the narrow perch, and began the first of 17 rappels to make it back down the route. Lucky for us the rappels were pretty uneventful by Patagonian standards, despite being at times completely engulfed in the super thick cloud cover sweeping over from the west. Finally we got back onto the snow below the ramp, and had to confront our next big obstacle: the ´schrund. The bergschrund had melted out considerably during the heat of the day, and our nice and easy step across was now a 8-9 foot wall. With an incredibly unstable snowpack we couldn´t build a deadman to rap off, so I figured the best idea, at 3am and thinking only of the sleeping bag and water that waited for me at Paso was...to jump. So off came my crampons, slack was given to me, and I went for it. Sounds crazier than it was, but enough to get my heart pumping! The descent after that was miserable-postholing for another couple of hours through hard crust over powder, the wind knocking you down ever few steps. Ugg.

Whillians Route on poincenot.

Rapping into the mist!

A few days of good solid rest down in Chalten was all we needed before gearing back up and going back up through Piedra Negra to climb the Brenner Ridge on Guillamet (350m 5.10+) during a one day window the day before last. There were a LOT of other parties on the route, and we managed to pass some of them, hang out with others, and generally have a nice little party train moving up the route. We summited in great weather, rapped back down the Guillot couloir and hitched back to town just in time to catch the empanada place before it closed.

Kind of a junk show. Moments later there were parties on all 4 crack systems...

Token summit alfajor pic.

Mermoz, Fotz Roy and the Torre Massiff

Now what? Lucky for me there is at least 5 days of crap weather on the horizon, so I can finally get a solid rest and do some laundry! ryan

Thar She Blows! Volcano Season in South America

2011-10-27T16:41:00.000-07:00

There have been highs and lows in the past 3 weeks of being back in my basecamp town of Bariloche in Northern Patagonia, but it feels great to be back visiting with old friends and planning another big season in the Southlands.

With close to no time to decompress after arriving, which I barely did because of a bunch of BS with Argentine Immigration, I began an 11 day Alpine Training for the Outward Bound Patagonia Program. We drove over to Chile to spend some time working on snow skills and glacier travel before making a successful summit climb of Volcan Villarica. Heading to the west was a good idea, because the ash and sand is still a major deal in Bariloche after the Volcan Peyehue eruption in June, and it is still causing lots of air quality issues.

Villarica is pretty active. We have to call in for a go ahead every time we climb it. The lava glows as you approach in the early morning!

Anyway, we sent Villarica, packed up our camp and resupplied in a small town near the border called Currarehue, and made our way to the flanks of Volcan Lanin, a much bigger hunk of a mountain, rising almost 10,000 vertical feet off the pampa on the Argentine side. We climbed it from a camp at the base of the northern (Chilean) aspect, leaving early from our tents at 3 am. The winds steadily increased as we gained the large bench which normally serves as a high camp, and which was in the middle of a mega lenticular cloud, and we hunkered down for some evaluation time. We kept on going, moving in rope teams to manage big fall potential, and wending through halfpipes of rime ice reminicent of the mushrooms you experience atop many Patagonian spires, eventually reaching the summit at 3,770 meters after 11 hours on the move.

Lanin. Pretty massive hill...

Our teams headed back down and we drifted into camp at around 8pm, fairly wasted after a 15,500 ft. quad and calf busting elevation day. The training was a success, giving a lot of awesome instructors some more tools to use in the mountains, and in typical fashion, we had a great (wild) post trip at the Roxy nightclub in Bari.

The only major bummer during the trip was taking a hard fall being knocked over by severe winds while traveling over rock, and fracturing a rib. So now I hang out in Bariloche, staying out of the dust, waiting for it to heal so I can get to the next task at hand, heading back to the big spires in the south and visiting some of the less traveled corners of the parks.

Want a great way to spend your upcoming holday vacation? Come trek the W or full Circuit in Torres del Paine National Park, one of the most iconic hikes in the world!

ps...not my photos. our pics to come later...

Sierra Ice Climbing- North Peak Couloir

2011-09-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

It has been a little while since plugging in any updates or trip reports, mainly because I haven't had a free moment since around June! The fall guiding season on the Eastside was pretty heavy, with a lot of time spent going up and down the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek to access Mt. Whitney and Mt. Russell. But in late August, what seems like an eternity ago now, I had a precious few days of R&R which I spent bolt clipping in Mammoth, hot-tubbing in the Owens Valley, and convincing my friend Mateo to come over and sink some front-points into the North Couloir on North Peak.

North Peak has really easy access compared to everything else in the Sierra, which is good, because we met early, and I only had time to drink one cup of coffee. The approach is mellow, winding around Saddlebag Lake and then cuts a beeline through the 20 Lakes Basin. Kinda pretty.

Then you get to the couloir and you are stoked! Tools? Check. Crampons? Check. Bluebird sky and sun on your back? Double check. This ain't ice climbing in winter folks. No need for a thermos of cocoa or triple puffy parkas.

The climb itself is about 800 feet long and around 45-50 degrees, of which we pitched out the initial bergschrund zone and simul-climbed the remainder.

A little rock scramble puts you on the top, and voila! Killer views for as far as the eyes can see.
It's too bad that after climbing such a bitchin' little couloir you can't end it with a romp up one of the finest alpine ridge runs in the Sierra...

Mateo, posing down hard.

Wait! You can! Immediately after decending from North Peak, you have 2 options: Go down, and slog your way back to the car like some fool, or continue up along the ridge to climb the North Ridge on Mt. Conness (5.6). If you choose option 1, God help you.
The North Ridge is a mellow, cruiser outing on bullet granite, with a couple fun downclimbs thown in to spice things up a bit.
Moving quickly through this varied terrain on such a gorgeous day is THE reason I climb mountains.

We got back down to the car at Saddlebag in the afternoon, and Mateo had to jet so that he could go continue working on his Master's Thesis on why youth need to reconnect with nature for health and well-being. I think we discoved the answers.

A couple days later I was waking up at the Shepard Hot Springs outside of Mammoth and was lucky enough to take some shots of a hot air ballooninst taking off on an Eastside scenic flight. Pretty cool place to drink your morning coffee.

For now, over and out. Ryan.

Sierra Art Cards For Sale!

2011-09-01T11:48:00.001-07:00

At the beginning of the spring, after a long season of sitting around waiting for weather windows in Patagonia, I decided to go sport climbing. This was a bad choice. I got severe tendonitis in both elbows and had to give up on a lot of big summer climbing plans. But there was a flipside; the amount of free time I was allowed gave me a chance to get back into a passion which I have ignored for the sake of climbing over the past years.

Since early summer, I have completed around 25 or 30 postcard sized watercolor and pen landscapes, from Ahwahnee Meadow down to the talus below Black Kaweah. I have shared them with only a few people, wanting to build up a small collection that could be shown as a whole. A few days ago I chose 5 of my personal favorites and have begun making them into greeting cards.

As I begin preparation for yet another season getting blown off the towers at the end of the world, I hope to sell these sets of cards to help get me down there, as well as to share this stuff with a larger community.

Set of 5 4"x6" cards including envelopes will be sold for $15 shipped, and as I get more established, more of the other cards will be printed and made available. Paypal works great. To order contact ryanahuetter@gmail.com
Thanks for the support! Ryan

Sequoia-Kings Oddysey

2011-08-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

Yosemite has the big granite walls of El Cap and Half Dome. The coast of Northern California hosts the towering redwood giants. The Eastside has easy access to some of the highest peaks in the lower 48. Sequioa-Kings Canyon National Park has all of these things, as well as the deepest canyon in the the country (Kings, at 9,000ft), the largest living organism in the world (Giant Sequoia), and everything in between. California is truely a land of superlatives, and an extended visit to SEKI will make that very apparent.

Mt. Silliman reflected in Ranger Lake.

With 7 college-aged students from Boston to San Diego, I set out on a 22 day oddysey which would place us at the foot of hidden Sequioa groves, atop breathtaking mountain passes, swimming and sunbathing next to crystal clear (and mostly frozen) alpine lakes, and on craggy summits which reward the mountaineer with seldom viewed panoramas.

Evening in Big Arroyo.

The storm arrives!

An emphasis was put on curriculum based in natural history, ecology and geology of the Sierra Nevada, but many of my lessons taught themselves as we traveled through the many bio-regions of the Western Slope of the Sierra. Our program was also grounded in a leadership development curriculum, and our students took on more and more responsibility as they grew more confident after living and traveling in the alpine environment for so many days.

Dylan Pritel builds another rock garden below Blackrock Pass

Finished rock garden framing the Black Kaweah

A big thanks to Leia Berg with whom I had the fortune of instructing this program with and whose hard work helped make this trip a success.

West Ridge of Mount Conness

2011-08-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

With a dwindling number of days before having to work a 22 day backpacking course in the Southern Sierra, and a dark and ominous forecast of mega thunderclouds and deadly lightening bolts threatening to unleash certain doom, Jonathan Cooper and I decided that the best course of action would be to climb to one of the highest points in Northern Yosemite, Mount Conness. Coop is a young gun who I have had the pleasure of working with recently, and who was coming directly off of an all-you-cn-eat cruise in the Caribbean, where he was not exactly getting into mountain-shape...
The West Ridge is super dooper classic. You cannot help but have a smile on your face the entire time as you hand traverse the wild granite wave which sweeps over the massive Southwest Face of Conness.
We climbed it in a mellow day from the trailhead at Lembert Dome and decended down to Saddlebag Lake and hitchhiked back into the park to get my truck.
The day was capped off by Coop's mom coming to town and treating us to a feast of fish tacos at the Mobil Station in Lee Vining.

The Youth, Coop.

Kinda cool position...

White Mountains Traverse

2011-07-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

I have gotten pretty good at burning the candle at both ends, and this summer has been no exception. Hours after returning to the front-country from Blackcap Mountain, I packed up again and drove over to Bishop to head out on a traverse of the White Mountain Range, with the Sierra Mountain Center.

This is an incredible 5 day off-trail trip that goes from the ancient bristlecone forests (which date back over 4,600 years!), up the lush and tranquil Cottonwood Creek, over the 14,246ft. White Mountain, and continues on over miles of rolling alpine tundra though Chiatovich and Pellesier Flats towards Boundary Peak at the far end of the range.

Can you count the rings? This tree is thousands of years old.

The White Mountains are often overlooked despite their proximity to Bishop, perhaps due to the lack of exposed white granite which the Sierra Nevada is renown for, but the Whites have a wild and unique feel to them as you coast along wind swept high alpine meadows, pick up old pieces of obsidian and chert arrowheads, imagine the Indian hunting grounds of long ago and look across your shoulder at the entirety of the Sierra Range laid out beside you.

Looking up at the summit of White Mountain

Luke contemplates the Pellesier Flats. Or is wondering how long til dinner...

A pair of bighorn sheep make the traverse look easy.

After 4 days at altitude which slowed our pace, we made the decision to head down on the east side into Nevada and opt out of Bounday and Montgomery peaks to the north. Dropping close to 4,000ft of elevation in several hours was laborious, but it gave us the opportunity to really see the changes in ecosystems as we dropped down into the desert.

After another hot day in Bishop, I drove up to Mammoth Lakes to visit with my friend Mike, and we were able to climb the super classic North Arete on Crystal Crag. I head out to Mount Conness tomorrow for a quick last minute alpine fix before beginning another 22 day course for the Outward Bound School in Sequioa-Kings National Parks.

Hasta la vista Alpinistas!

Blackcap Mountain, Northwest Couloir

2011-07-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

I am recently back from a 14 day mountaineering course run for the Outward Bound School. For those of you not familiar with this year's snowpack, it was massive. And remains massive. This is normally a pretty fun course that goes out of the Courtright Resevoir area on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and receives a mid-point horse-packed resupply, but with 4 to 5 feet of snow on the ground even at our 7,500ft trailhead, we ended up having to do a 12 day unsupported carry, and depart from a lower and farther trailhead. Pretty burly for 10 students who had not done much if any backpacking before, 3 of whom had never walked on snow! It was a steep learning curve to say the least. The objective of the trip was to climb the Northwest Couloir (1,200ft. 45-50 degree snow) on Blackcap Mountain, which is waaaay out there. With a crew any less strong, this would have been a bit of an overly ambitious goal, but our students rallied, and put down some serious off-trail, suncupped snow, sun-battered miles to get up to the McGuire Lakes basecamp.

My instructors, Rafi and Coop, did a great job of moving the students quickly over technical snow and rock, putting up six full fixed pitches as they gunned for the summit. With a camp to camp time of just over 9 hours, our group was worked, but very satisfied.

A lightening fast glissade back through the West Bowl got us back to camp and we hiked out in record time to the 4th of July crazyness at the Wishon resevoir. Special thanks to Dan and Stefan for the unbelievable pistachio encrusted rainbow trout at Woodchuck Lake!

Alpine Skills in the Clark Range

2011-05-28T14:54:00.001-07:00

I just returned from instructing an alpine training program for the Outward Bound School, and it was a blast! There were six of us in total, and after leaving Yosemite Valley via the John Muir Trail, we made our way out Little Yosemite Valley and up into the Clark Range. The curriculum included snow travel and camping, and technical skills such as fixed lines and rock anchor-building. We made an attempt on the SE ridge of Mt. Clark but Patagonia-strength winds made us reconsider getting out onto the ridge proper. Big travel days and lots of information to cover made our days quite long, but it was a good chance to push it a bit and have some fun with other instructors.
For now I am figuring out what to do with some big chunks of time off, before the big work season starts in a little less than 2 weeks.

Mike Phillips leads us out of LYV.

South Face of Half Dome as seen in a pond of snow melt.

"Are we there yet?"

Chris Rogers gives a lesson on snow anchors, with Cathedral Peak and Mathes Crest in the distance.

Itamar Cohn builds an anchor during a fixed line drill.

Alisa Koyama takes backcountry cooking to the next level...

Moonset over Moraine Dome

Gnarled Juniper.

Hiking high above the valley floor.

Chris contemplates the immense South Face.

Evolution Traverse Video

2011-05-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

My climbing partner Josh Garrison made this video/slideshow last year, which chronicaled his long and tumultuous love affair with the Evolution Traverse. Cycling through 3 partners over 3 attempts before finally completing it with me (it was my second go at the thing as well...), he ended his Sierra season last year by putting that thing behind him.

Now we are looking forward to the summer, towards a bigger and burlier traverse...

Disfruta! http://vimeo.com/15555114

Smith Rock and AMGA Rock Course

2011-05-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

Lyle Haugsven on belay duty.

After more than 20 days of pulling down and shedding my fingertips on the sharp welded tuff of Smith Rock, Oregon, I can finally take a couple well-deserved rest days. The last 10 days I have been attending an AMGA (American Mountain Guides Association) Rock Instructor course, and have been spent absorbing lots of new industry standard guiding techniques and applying those in multi-pitch terrain. This will lead me down the path of certification in the Rock discipline, over the next year and a half.

Snowstorm!

Coils got a little too short during the Kiwi Coil Races! i was lucky to fit this over my head!

Super classic Cinnamon Crack

Blurry shot of our team on Lost in Space on the Smith Rock Group.

We were able to climb every day of the course, and climbed some of the most classic traditional pitches in the park, including the mega-cool Zebra to Zion on the Morning Glory Wall. After "school", we continued climbing, often until dusk, which was touch since class went from 8am to 4:30pm daily!
The weather has been fair to extremely hot, and on some of the days we had to resort to some Advanced Crowd Avoidance Techniques (ACATs)...

Super Slabbin'!

The MoonDog Himself.

But now I have to say goodbye to Smith and make the annual pilgrimage in the morning back to Yosemite where I will begin work in late May, starting with instructing an Alpine Skills Training for the Outward Bound School.

A Peek Inside the Sketchbook

2011-03-31T14:57:00.000-07:00

Here are just a few recent sketches done while on expedition in the Turbio Valley. All were done with a cheap Chilean ballpoint pen and are destined to become collector's pieces. Commision yours today!

From the Vault! More Pics from the Paine!

2011-03-31T14:24:00.000-07:00

As I am trying to clean out all the junk from my Mac, in the vain attempt to make it run any faster than it is now, I found a whole folder of photos (both mine and Josh's) which I hadn't even seen yet, all from this past November and December in Torres del Paine.
Disfruta!

Where's Waldo?

Expedition: Turbio IV- Now a FEATURE FILM!

2011-03-25T15:40:00.000-07:00

Here you go, a full length video from our recent trip into the Turbio Valley. Yes, it is long, but just grab a beer, sit back and relax, and enjoy the show. Best to click through and watch it right on the Vimeo site...

http://vimeo.com/21496708

Back from the Turbio!

2011-02-23T04:30:00.000-08:00

Full Moon rising over Piritas

After having just returned from 34 days in the Patagonian backcountry, seeing no one else and being alone to work harder than either of us had worked before, I am left thoughroughly depleted, mentally and physically. Now back in Bariloche for a week or so, before figuring out my next step. Here is a preliminary expedition report and a couple photos. More to come for sure.

Leeches, carniverous bees, hacking through thick bamboo jungle on the approach: these are not the things that come to mind when you talk about Patagonia. But the amount of mystery and secrecy I found surrounding the many hidden granite walls of the Turbio IV, or Valle Oscuro piqued my interest, and in late January 2011 I found myself back in Bariloche, Argentina with my partner Josh Garrison, preparing to go in virtually onsight with the exception of a decade old hand-drawn map.

After waiting several days for the river to go down from recent flooding, we began a difficult 60km horseride to transport us and our gear to the junction of the Turbio tributaries. From here we made our first trip into the Mariposa Valley. The trailfinding was the hardest either of has ever encountered, through dense forests of cane colihue jungle and over sketchy tyrolean crossings, but after a mid-approach bivy while hopelessly lost, we reached the open alpine meadow of the Mariposa which became our basecamp for the following 14 days. During this time we experienced lots of heavy rain, but in between managed to climb the second ascent of the Brazilian route “El Palito” (5.10+ 550m) on La Oreja, and simul-soled a Royal Arches type feature we named the Earlobe to the east of La Oreja (5.6 900m). We attempted new routes on a feature we named El Diente (5 new pitches, 200m), as well as on the Northeast Piller of La Oreja (9 pitches 400m), but were thwarted on both by closed out and vegetated cracks. While we found the rumor of “10 Half Domes” to be true, most of the walls are capped by large glaciars which sweep the faces more often than one would hope for.

Josh find clean fingerlocks on El Diente

La Oreja

Summit of Earlobe, looking downinto Piritas valley

After a final resupply at the Turbio junction, we moved our camp over into the lesser known Piritas Valley. Piritas Right has seen some action from two different teams in the last several years, and for good reason: it has the cleanest and most spectalular granite in either of the valleys. Again experiencing days on end of heavy rain, confining us to the tarp-shanty we constructed, we grew anxious and began slimming down our rations in hopes for a weather window before our food ran out.

At last, with 4 days left, our window arrived. Leaving camp under a cold and clear sky, we made it to the bottom of the approach slabs by day break. The approach to the main wall is long and involved, kind of like the Death Slabs with pitches up to 5.10. By late morning we reached the bottom of our intended route in the center of the face and began climbing pitch after pitch of rope-stretching clean laser-cut cracks, with some heady slab climbing and traversing connecting the near plumb feature. We topped out at dusk, to a brilliant orange sunset sweeping from the distant Pacific Ocean (only 30 miles away!) to the snowy flanks of Monte Tronodor to the north, before settling in for a very cold full moon lit open bivy on top. In the morning we decended for 7 hours down the shoulder and slabs, for a camp to camp time of 33 hours, having established Under a Southern Star (V 5.11 460m)

Line of Under a Southern Star

Ryan follows thin cracks low on the route

Josh, about to get cold.

Atfer making one last heavy carry down the Turbio IV to our low camp, we loaded all of our gear into 2 lightweight packrafts and decended the Rio Turbio back to Lago Puelo in a long, relaxing day, finally able to let the river do its share of the work after 34 days in the Alpine.

Arrrrgh, the PIRATES always SEND!

This has by fay been one of the most rewarding and enriching experiences of my life, and Josh and I would like to thank the American Alpine Club Mountain Fellowship Grant, Sterling Rope, Alpacka Rafts, Montbell, MSR and Evolv, as well as our hard working gauchos Cholo and Mikol, all of whom helped turn this pipe dream into reality.

2011 Turbio-Piritas Expedition Prep

2011-01-14T11:05:00.000-08:00

We have been in Bariloche for almost 10 days now, and after getting some great climbing in up at the Frey, we have turned all of our attention to the matter at hand, our upcoming expedition into the remote Turbio IV valley in Northern Patagonia. That and eating as much ice cream as humanly possible.

Home in Bariloche

Yesterday, we did all of the food shopping for the trip, which took all day, having to get things all across town. Luckily for us there are a couple good bulk food shops which were able to supply us with a lot of the items we are accustomed to taking into the backcountry with us. The rest of the day was spent weighing and packing it all, splitting it into 3 separate 8 day resupplys. Our block of cheese weighs more than 7 pounds, and is the perfect size for my alpine-pillow!

Josh weighs flour and watches Everybody Loves Raymond.

You don´t know what you´re missing. FrutiGran is the truth.

Should we take Rack A or Rack B? BOTH!

Ropes are heavy.

In 5 days, Josh and I travel south, to start the long process of getting to the Alpine Shangri-La. We have made contact with the gauchos at the end of the valley who will take us and our gear 50km up river, to where the Turbio IV drainage begins. We will say goodbye to them there, and start hiking loads up to the upper valley, where we hope to explore and climb some of the many mysterious walls that lurk in the hidden canyons for the next 25 days, before descending Rio Turbio in our lightweight packrafts filled to capacity with gear!

See ya´ll in a month!

Saludos Torres del Paine, Bienvenidos Bari-loco!

2011-01-14T10:16:00.001-08:00

A lot of time has passed since the last installment of the Patagonia Sufferfest 2010-2011 Series, but not too much has happened. After a cold climb on Peineta, Josh and I waited out 5 more weeks of very windy and wet weather, mostly in the comfort of Erratic Rock´s warm living room. One attempt on Almirante Nieto, and one attempt on the Aste Route on the South Tower, but both days collapsed before much could be done.

So we left Puerto Natales, and just in the nick of time, as the whole region is now completely shut down by a gasoline strike. We arrived to Bariloche quickly and easily, except for getting hassled by The Man at every turn. Besides being extorted for more than $200 in excess baggage fees, almost all of our freeze-dried and dehydrated meals we brought down for the Turbio expedition were confiscated by Argentine Customs.

Once we got here, we did not hesitate to make use of the unbelievable weather, so we packed up our kit and headed into the hills for several days of alpine cragging at the Frey. We were so giddy to go climbing, however, that we forgot about half of the food that we should have brought. Josh had never been there, so we toured some of the classic routes, topping it all off with Descansa en Paz, an amazing arete climb on the Slovenian Tower.

Camponile Esloveno and its little brother

Back in town we have just been hanging out, eating ice cream twice a day, and getting stoked for the Turbio!

Blown Away on La Peineta

2010-11-29T07:50:00.000-08:00

It isn´t usual to arrive in Puerto Natales and within a week have a small weather window with which to attempt one of Torres del Paine´s many elusive granite towers, but that is exactly what happened. After being in town for only about 5 days, Josh and I saw a brief opportunity to actually go climbing. Our friend (and Head Logistics Coordinator) from Outward Bound, Caitlin Brown, had decided to take a long weekend from her studies in Santiago to come down and hike in the park; little did she know she would be helping us carry in our tremendous load of gear! While the weather did not look stable enough to go for our main objective on the Central Tower, we took our full kit up to the Valle de Silencio so that we will be ready when it does come. Instead, we set our sights towards a route on La Peineta, a distinct tower accessed from the Silencio, called Durazno para Don Quijote (IV 5.10+ A1 or 5.11c).

Josh scopes the lines on the East Face of Central Tower

After getting a good sleep in our old home, the Italian Cave, we woke at 12.30am on November 27th...MY BIRTHDAY! That´s right, a spell of good weather on my birthday! Is that luck or what?! Anyway, starting from that far down the valley meant we had a very long approach in store for us. About 6 hours later, we were at the base of La Peineta, having just ascended the super-couloir. The wind was slack when we began the couloir ascent, but was begining to pick up as we donned our rock shoes.

Brr.

Beginning the "Red Ramp" pitch

No. 5 Camalot and gloves. Fun times!

The climbing was spectacular, up clean and featured white and red granite. Pitch after pitch of rope stretching splitter cracks led us further up the southwest buttress of Peineta, but the increasing force of the wind, together with the debilitating temperature drop, was beginning to take its toll. Below the 9th pitch, only 2 pitches from the summit, I was unable to warm my toes, which had become cold and wooden. Luckily for us, this is where the rappel line leaves the route and continues down the main corner system, so we hastily organized the rappels.

Having seen no more than a handful of ascents since its FA in 1997, the rap stations were pretty dire, but without too much donation of our own gear, we were able to re-equip the line and safely make it back to our boots which were waiting for us in the sunshine.

North Face of North Tower of Paine

A long descent and march back through the snow got us to the cave at just after 8pm. I can say with assurity that after having been on the move for 19 hours camp to camp, that this is the MOST of any of my birthdays which I have truly experienced!

Thanks to Mom and Dad for giving me this life that I am trying my hardest to live to its fullest.

With nothing but rain on the horizon, Josh and I sit and do what we do best. Wait.

2010-11-20T08:58:00.000-08:00

It is hard to believe that I have already been in Argentina for a month, but I have been kept so busy that the time has flown by. Bariloche has treated me very kindly, as have the many friends I have made since first coming here in 2008. A couple of days ago I finished up the last of my spanish courses, and I have been going up to the Frey to climb every weekend. With a ton of snow still up at the Refugio, it has made good training for the 3,000ft couloir approach to the Central Tower which is never far from my mind. My friedn Lissie is traveling here in South America, and she was lucky enough to come up for a visit on the nicest weekend we have had here. We managed to climb 17 fun pitches, and feast on homemade chocolate every night. While climbing the Torre Principal, two magnificent condors came and kept us company, flying within 20 ft of us at times.
I bought an old bike here, and it has been great to pedal around town and along the many lakes.

Tomorrow I leave for the Paine, where I will meet Josh and after reuniting with the crew in Puerto Natales, we will begin preparation to go back into the Valle de Silencio.

Fin del Mundo

2010-10-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

Gear is being sorted, bags are being filled and weighed, and carry-ons are being stuffed full of the heaviest items. This can only mean one thing: another season in Patagonia. I leave in a few short days for the Southern Hemisphere, my third trip in as many years. I would have thought that my lesson had been learned by now, but apparently not. There is something seductive and captivating about this land and the people who inhabit it.

So what is going down this year? I leave early to take some Spanish lessons and do some cragging with old friends in Bariloche, waiting for my partner Josh to finish up his relief work in Haiti and join me. Josh and I have some unfinished business with the Central Tower, which shut us down last season. After spending a month in Torres del Paine, hoping for a weather window during that time, we will travel back up north to the bustling little ski town of Bariloche, Argentina which will be our base-camp for the following months. Our plan is to ascend into the Rio Turbio drainage near the Chilean border, spend about one month attempting new routes in the Upper Turbio, and decend back down to civilization using lightweight pack rafts.

We may be spreading ourselves thin with such a varied itinerary, switching objectives so dramatically, but I think that by staying focused on the immediate, we will be rewarded with success. Either way, we can only do so much; we must still be granted passage by the God of Wind in Patagonia, Mwono.

Until the next one... Ryan

The objects of our obsession.

Zodiac Pictorial

2010-10-08T14:58:00.000-07:00

Despite our best efforts not to document our early summer ascent of Zodiac (VI 5.8 A3) on El Capitan by not bringing cameras with functional batteries, Tom Evans stepped up and hooked me up with a bunch of really high-quality telephoto shots taken during the climb. Here are some of the best ones.

"Yo Josh! Did you bring your swimsuit?" Waterfall early on the route.

As I said before, and will continue to preach, this route is AMAZING. The line, the exposure, the quality (and cleanliness) of the pitches- it all adds up to make one of the best routes I have ever climbed.

The spectacular Nipple.

Josh tackles the Mark of Zorro pitch.

BEST top-out on El Cap.

Peace.

Evolution Traverse

2010-09-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder here in the Sierra Nevada, and the cool winds of fall are sending climbers flocking back into the Valley. It has been a great season here, as I just wrapped up another season of instructing for the Outward Bound School, finishing with a string of amazing courses for the OEF/OIF Veterans Program.
I was fortunate to get into the mountains a lot this summer, climbing routes on Temple Crag to the Incredible Hulk- from long ropeless solos to tenuous technical pitches, the Sierras never disappoint.
But it was the Evolution Traverse, the Big Daddy, that overshadowed my whole season. I attempted it first in late July of this year, with my good friend Andy Esparza. Andy had just returned from an incredible bicycle journey through Central America (Click here to Check it Out!), but no amount of cardio endurance could have prepared him for this thing!
The Evolution Traverse hits 9 summits over 13,000 ft, and the elevation chart looks something like an EKG reading with well over 10,000 ft of gain and loss over its 8.5 mile ridge. Long, exposed and demanding, it is not for the faint of heart.
Andy and I had a decent go at it, but heavy packs and route finding issues slowed us down before a nasty weather system forced us to retreat. After a cold bivy on Mount Mendel (13,710), only having completed a meager section of the Traverse, we bailed down one of Mendel's steep western gullys.

Our home for the night on Mendel

This failure gnawed at me for the next two months, and gnawed even more so at my friend Josh, who had been stormed off on his 2nd attempt just a week after ours. While instructing our last OB course together, Josh and I devised a new strategy, and made plans to hike in for one more shot (both of us having vowed never again!).
The hike in over Lamarck Col is brutal, at 10 miles with 3,600 ft of gain. Yet at 4am the next morning we awoke to a cold and starry sky to begin the route. Moving quickly and only using the rope (a 60m Sterling 7.7mm Ice Thong) for one pitch of climbing and 4 rappels, we climbed past Mount Mendel, Darwin, and Peak 13,332 to reach a good bivy site at a small lake near Haeckel col. Josh's prior knowledge of the route past Darwin proved invaluable, and it took us only 11 hours the first day to reach Haeckel Col.

Summit block on Mount Darwin (13,831 ft)

The best part of the Traverse! Flawless golden granite on the way to Mt. Haeckel.

The forecasted wind arrived that night, with gusts of icy wind up to 30mph. This wind dampered our resolve a bit the next morning as it continued, but we pressed on to climb the remainder of the route. With difficult route finding and exposed climbing on Mount Warlow and Huxley, the Traverse does not let up until the very end. Nine hours after leaving our bivy, we were signing the summit register of Mount Huxley, proud of our reconciliation with the route, yet fully aware that we still had a lot of miles to go before we slept!

The Evolution has left me fully depleted, as I am now in serious calorie replenishment mode, but also very excited at the possibilities of more long days in the mountains. For now though, I rack for another trip up El Cap before packing it in for the season in California. Josh and I will return to Patagonia this fall, for another attempt of the Central Tower of Paine, as well as an exciting expedition into the Turbio Valley in Northen Patagonia, where big wall ascents and big river decents await us. Stay tuned!

Tangerine Tripping

2010-07-11T15:06:00.000-07:00

The summer season is in full effect here in the Sierra, bringing with it long cloudless days, granite ridges which stretch on for miles, and of course, the mosquitoes. Work has been keeping me busy, and with such a playground in my backyard I have scarcely had time to get the pictures off my camera and see what I have been up to! So here are some pictures I took on an early summer ascent of El Capitan's Tangerine Trip route.

My friend Taylor Lamoreaux and I have been looking for a route to climb together for a while now, as he was one of the first partners I linked up with in Camp 4 a few years back. Initially we planned to get on the mega-classic Zodiac, but after dodging extreme ice and water fall at the base, we decided to switch to the still cool and uber-steep Trip. To avoid seepage, slime and munge, we took the Lost in America/Virginia start to gain the 4th belay on the Trip. This move meant we could get a jump on the climb and get past the wet stuff down low, without having to jumar up steep fixed lines.

The rest of the route went smoothly, with several notable sections of "climbing", interspersed with long stretches mindless fixed gear seams or endless bolt ladders into the sky. Taylor and I made it a camping trip, bringing all the extras that could fit into the bag (and some that didn't!). Drinking tasty margaritas the whole way up, we really lived it up El Cap Style!

After three and a half days, we topped out, flopped over, and were met on the slabs by friends Roger and Jesse who had just cruised Lurking Fear in 12 hours or something stupid. Roger, ever-bounding ball of energy, notices we are pretty heavy and takes a rope off our hands, skipping off down towards the East Ledges!

Sweet! After getting our bags back down to terra firma, we made a bee-line to the Yosemite Bug Hostel down the road for some much needed hot tub and sauna action.

After getting down off the Trip, I headed down to San Diego to hang out with my old friend Dave Baker, whose hospitality (and wine cellar) really provided the ultimate recovery program. Fully saturated with salt water, I drove back up to the Valley for another El Cap mission, this time cruising up the Zodiac with my homie Josh Garrison.

Despite a couple issues, like breaking my portaledge, and taking a couple whippers making tiny clean gear stick, we sent, and Josh experienced his first El Cap top-out! The biggest news was getting down and discovering the chaos caused by a bear breaking into my truck. Everything was tossed around like a hurricane had come through, but the actual damage was minimal, and nothing was broken. Put your food in the bear lockers people!

Well that pretty much wraps it up! Since then it has just been work, and hanging out up in Tuolumne trying to avoid the heat. There are still a couple big ticks left on the list for the rest of summer, so stay tuned for more news! Over and out. Ryan.

Via Con Aqua, a Trip Up Lost Arrow Direct

2010-05-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

The season in Yosemite has started out great. Despite the weather showing complete contempt for all the climbers trying to attempt the routes they have been dreaming about all winter long, there have been enough short windows to allow trips up some of the shorter formations in the Valley.

Jon Byers and I were lucky to eek out a quick run up Southern Man on Washington Column, a slightly thinner sister route to the left of the popular South Face.

After heading out of the Valley for some work, I came back with my friend Geoff Schellens to climb the Lost Arrow Spire Direct, a route famed for its outstanding location, quality climbing, and above all, dee-luxe bivy ledges- big enough to pitch a tent on! We decided to forgo the tent, bringing bivy sacks instead. We would both regret this...

The Falls Wall, with the Spire on the right

Cold morning in the nylon cage!

The route was everything we had hoped for: burly chimney climbing, thin aid splitters, and a summit which cannot be matched for sheer exposure. We spent two cold and windy nights on the best ledges on the route, and during the days yelled ourselves hoarse over the Yosemite Falls which thundered by just 500 ft. to our left.

Captain America eat your heart out!

Looking up from the Second Error bivy

As we rappeled the route, the full moon rose over the Clark Range, and we were treated to a lavender sunset which reminded me of the epic topout storm I experienced during the North America Wall. Lucky for us the night was calm and mild as we hiked back out.

some photos courtesy geoff schellens.

North Tower Video!

2010-03-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

Pictures not doing it for you? Bored by my over melodramatic writing? Not to fear! Here is a new video showcasing Josh and I's recent trip to Torres del Paine.

North Tower of Paine from Ryan Huetter on Vimeo.

El Regalo de Poseidon

2010-02-14T05:55:00.000-08:00

In the long weeks since having climbed the North Tower of Paine, waiting in vain for the right day to climb the Central Tower, much time was spent fantasizing about warm weather routes and creating the ultimate Top 10 climbs for the coming season. But when the opportunity came for me to go back to El Cajon de los Arenales, to explore the inner canyon and attempt some new routes, I realized that the fantasy had become a reality.
With much haste I put together an itinerary that would allow my Brazilian friend, Wagner Machado, to take some time from his geology work in Rio and come down to help me realize this vision. From the start, however, we found that we were going to have to work hard just to get there. Wagner´s luggage was lost, forcing a delayed start, and when we tried to get in contact with the logistical support that I had met last year, the phone number was wrong. This led us to the crux of the trip...

Hiring a regular taxi driver to take us and all of our gear to the Gendarmeria Portinari (a border frontier Army outpost) was the biggest mistake we could have made. His taxi ran only on propane, and so had the horsepower of a lawn-mower. Unable to make it up the smallest of hills, we alternated getting out with walking with our gear to the tops of these hills, until finally, the "Little Engine That Could" stopped dead, leaving us and our mountain of climbing gear miles from where we needed to be. 5 hours of load ferrying later we finally could crash.

Waking up the next morning, I was struck by the strange lack of gale force winds, snow, or other climbing-prohibitive weather patterns: THIS ISN´T PATAGONIA! Being at almost 3000m at basecamp, and with my still persistant tendonitis in my foot, we decide to acclimate on a nearby spire, climbing Carlos Daniel (250m 5.10a) and taking some pictures of interesting features from the summit. The next day, we went for a long hike over the talus into the inner canyon to repeat a climb on El Marinero, a giant prow of rock rising steeply from the shore of the glacier-fed laguna, and see if it held the opportunity for a new route. We climbed 2 pitches, but failed to see any evidence of a route in existance. The terrain above us seemed steep and intimidating, unlike the route we were supposed to be on. Reaching a belay stance we decided to leave a gear anchor and fix our ropes down to the ground so we could scope out a line with the binoculars and come back with all the gear we would need to establish our climb.

Approaching through the morning mist.

Wagner scopes out El Marinero

Back on the ground Wagner and I were both amazed at what we saw: a perfect line going up a series of steep dihedrals just to the right of the vertical to overhanging South Face. We were stoked. After a day of taking some more gear to the base we were ready. Leaving at 8am (not the 12am alpine start I had been used to!), we hiked to the base of El Marinero, jumared up our lines, and I racked up to lead the 3rd pitch, hoping for the best.

Looking up at the South Face of El Marinero.

Ryan leading the crux 3rd pitch: OW with thin pro.

We hoped for the best, and we got it. The route opened itself in front of us. The climbing was difficult, and sustained, but never was there a question of where it would go: it was a natural line up a beautiful face on immaculate rock. The climbing and quality of the rock was very much like that of the High Sierra, and several times I had remind myself that I wasn´t on the Incredible Hulk, but in the Argentine backcountry! The steep corner systems offered up amazing and endless hand and finger cracks, through slots and over roofs, always ending in comfortable belay ledges, pitch after pitch.

Looking up through the "Birth Canal"

After 7 long pitches, we made it to the top of the wall, with no drama, onsight and all free aside from a tension traverse I made which Wagner eliminated following. As we rapped the face, sometimes following our route, sometimes to the left, we found no evidence of a previous route except for a single slung horn halfway up the wall. We installed all new rappel stations, only placing 2 pitons and one bolt. We assume the original route climbed to the top, but are unable to figure out where it would have gone, and are unsure if it had ever been repeated since its recorded ascent in 1993. Our route is for sure the second route on the face, and perhaps the second ascent of the formation overall. The route is comparable to the best of the other long hard free climbs in the canyon, and will become an area classic once more climbers start venturing a bit deeper into the canyon.

We named the route El Regalo de Poseidon (Poseidon´s Gift) 300m 5.11b 7 pitches.

The rest of the trip was relaxed and uneventful. We repeated several classic established routes in the Camponile Towers before returning to a sweltering hot Mendoza (this time hiring a 4wd vehicle to take us down!). Now I recover from being fever-stricken for the last couple days and wait to take a bus down to Bariloche for a few weeks of R & R before heading back home.

A big thanks goes out to the American Alpine Club and the Mountain Fellowship Award which made this trip possible!

Patagonian Marathon: A Wet and Wild Tour of Torres del Paine

2010-01-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

Now with our basecamp moved down to Campamento Torres, we have a lot more to occupy ouselves with during the long days spent waiting for our weather window. Our favorite pastimes include vicious slander, runs up to the Mirador, weather speculation, pull-up contests and practicing my horrible version of Spanish in the park ranger´s hut. Very much unlike Yosemite, the rangers here are way cool, and are always willing to help you out and give you a hot drink and a place to warm up.
But even all that will still lead to the inevitable cabin fever all too common in these parts. So Josh decided that he was going to run the Torres Circuit in a push. It takes normal people 7-10 days. It´s like 55-60 miles. No way am I doing that, I said. My knees are worth more that.
Well, stupid ideas tend to breed more stupid ideas, so within hours I was planning my own enduro-hike, which would not require as much mileage, but would take me on a sweet loop touring the frontside of the park.

Ascensio Valley

I left the cave at 5:15 am and started my stop watch at the edge of Torres Camp at 5:30. The early morning hike/run down the Ascensio Valley was rad. I was on the trail for about 4 hours before running into anybody else. The temps were cool, and I was comfortable in shorts.

Early morning atLago Nordenskjold

Morning light hits the Cuernos

Taking a couple short breaks at Campamento Cuernos and Italiano for food and stretching, I was well ahead of the time benchmarks I had set for myself, and after Italiano the terrain flattened out considerably. Near to Lago Pehoe, however, the weather closed in hard. The wind, which had been ever present but thus far benign, began picking up the water off the lake and hurling it sideways.

Patagonia or Serengeti?

I continued through this crap for another mind-altering 17 km to my end point at the Administration office at Lago Toro. I was wet. From here I waiting for the bus and caught a ride back into town to dry out.
My total point to point time was 10.5 hours over 29.5 miles (47.5 km). Josh crushed the full circuit in 17.5 hours. I said it before and I´ll say it again- running is stupid, unless you´re getting chased by a bear.

Basecamp Antics

2010-01-21T04:23:00.000-08:00

In the long weeks since anything resembling climbing here in Puta-gonia, we have made numerous trips up and down the Ascensio and Silencio Valleys, restocking food, retreating to town, and making half-hearted attempts on the Towers which never seem to be in condition.
Highlights have been New Year´s on the beach in Japones (before the Pisco got the better of us), baseball, and the 5 person frozen bivy in the Bonington Cave.

Batter up! Home run derby.

Wu Tang Clan ain´t nothin to f**k with!

La Peineta. Seen better days.

With the recent spike in temperature and precipitation, Japones came very close to flooding, and Josh and I were both pretty sure the river was going to break the banks and wash us downstream! So after another failed attempt (if you could even call it that) on the über-rimed out Peineta, we took our tents down and moved all our stuff back down valley and have taken up a new residence in the Italian cave near Campamento Torres. This means we are a bit farther away, but means there is a lot more to do when we are just sitting around on our thumbs waiting for that perfect window.

It looks like this for about 12 hours a month.

Success on North Tower of Paine

2009-12-07T08:58:00.000-08:00

As the sun shines in Puerto Natales, and we chop tomatos and avacados for a fajita feast tonight, I take a moment to realize how lucky I am to be here in Patagonia, climbing the towers that for so long have inspired, intimidated, and ultimately drawn me to their faces.

After the last attempt on the North Tower, Josh and I took several days of much needed rest in town, waiting for good weather. When the forecast looked good, we dashed back up to Campamento Japones, and after enduring a cold night with lots of snow, moved to our high camp up on the moraine in the Val de Silencio.

Approaching below Central Tower.

Waking at 3.30am to high winds, we went back to sleep. At 6.50 I awoke again to calm and clear skies, and we made a hasty breakfast and began the long and arduous slog up to the Torres. Our friend Matt showed up around this time, intent on solo climbing the North Tower. Harder snow made the gully much easier, and we made much better time than on our first attempt. At 11.30 we began the mixed snow and rock pitches up to Col Bich, and arrived there at 1.30pm.

Get psyched!

Josh climbs out of Col Bich.

After a short break for food and warming of feet, we began the harder climbing out of the Col. Josh led a fantastic thin splitter crack for a full 60m pitch, then we began swapping leads in blocks. The route-finding was a bit difficult at times, and the conditions were (d)icy, but manageable.

After many long but technically easy pitches, we stood at the base of the final summit block. The wind was beginning to pick up and the clouds were starting to envelop Fortaleza and Escudo. At 7.15pm we were standing on top of the summit of the North Tower of Paine. Matt joined us shortly thereafter, I fueled up with several espresso GU packs, and we began the long series of rappels together.

Josh follows on frozen blocks.

Below summit block.

Summit!

The term "Tat-agonia" is not a misnomer. Rappel anchors in Patagonia are shitty. And after the first ascent of the Tower of the season, we got a chance to see how badly ravaged they become after being subjected to the elements during winter here.

Sport climbing never looked so good.

Replacing most of the cord on all the rap anchors, we made many rappels down the circuitous ridge, dealing with some stuck ropes on the way, and put two major core-shots in Matt´s new rope. Darkness is falling, and the winds are escalating.

With two more rappels to go, we begin to pull my rope (still in one piece), when it becomes hopelessly stuck above us. The winds are reaching 50 or 60 miles an hour, and wind-driven spindrift is stinging our faces as we huddle on the exposed ledge. Unwilling to spend any more time to free the rope, we make a hasty anchor to bail from and make another series of shorter rappels on Matt´s damaged rope to the bottom of the gully. The rappels seem like a twisted version of Russian Roulette, placing one more bullet in the chamber the longer you stay in the game.

Brrrr.

Two long hours of plunge stepping take us down to the ice band bisecting the approach gully. Forced to downclimb this section of steep ice took patience and composure, and was certainly my personal crux of the day. At 3.00am we arrived at the bottom of the gully on the moraine and collapsed. Matt stayed to brew up some water, as Josh and I made the hour long drunken stumble back to our camp, post-holing through snow instead of staying on the moraine. Just before 4am we arrived back to camp and threw ourselves down, completely exhausted from so many hours spent too close to the edge. With a camp-to-camp time of 20 hours, ours was not the fastest ascent of the Monzino Route, but we are proud of making the first ascent of the season, in difficult conditions, and making it back to camp safe.

Junk show.

With good weather forecasted last this coming week, we hope to return to climb on the Central Tower, with a new respect for the power of the wind in this beautiful yet savage land.

ciao.

No Paine, No Gaine

2009-11-28T09:34:00.000-08:00

Alright, coming to your cubicle straight from the Ghetto Shanty itself at the head of the Ascensio Valley, is the first of the Patagonia Reports from Expeditiòn Fiebre de Cumbre (Summit Fever).
Josh Garrison and I arrived on November 15 to Puerto Natales, in Southern Chilean Patagonia to begin all the preperations to head into the Torres del Paine park to start climbing as many towers as we can before the real world calls back.

Beginning the hike past the Hosteria.

After securing our expedition´s permits with Park Administration we hiked with heavy loads up to Campomento Japonés, the climber´s camp used as a base for all of the west-side routes on the Torres. A 4 hour hike interrupted by a welcomed coffee break with the rangers in Campamento Las Torres got us to our home for the next 8 days.

Our first views of the Towers. Big.

The One, the Only, The Ghetto Shanty.

Packing.

For 6 days the weather Gods did not smile on us. Temps were cold, snow fell, and many jumping jacks were done to keep toes warm. The gin rummy score was in the thousands. But with a good weather window forecasted, we racked and packed to move to a high camp on the moraine below the Torres, with the intent to first climb the Monzino Route on Torre Norte. The walls which soar above us, Fortaleza and Escudo, are ominous and featureless, home of some of the hardest and most visionary routes in the world.

Waking up at 4am with beautiful clear skies and no wind, we began the long arduous slog up the gully to the base of the climbing. The recent powder accumulation made this quite a task. At the base of the roped climbing we got a bit off route trying to avoid snow, only to encounter serious and run-out climbing. Back on route, the conditions did not prove favorable to rock climbing. It sucked. What should have taken 30 minutes to simul-climb was pitched out in 4 funky mixed pitches.

Sunrise-towers silhouetted on Escudo.

Post-hole hero.

Ugh. Screaming Barfies are no fun.

Making it to Col Bich, the notch between the Torre Norte and Torre Central, at 2.45pm, thoroughly exhausted, frozen and wet, we made the regrettable decision to head back down instead of onwards. It was a good first run, and with the hope that warmer temps will bring the col pitches into better condition, we cached our gear high, glissaded down thousands of feet to camp and now wait in town getting ready (read: eating as many empanadas as possible).

Until the next one, Hasta Proximo!

Southwest Face of Liberty Cap

2009-09-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

With 10 days off in between a couple courses I am working, I headed into the Park to play on some big walls. My initial plan was to solo Ten Days After on Washington Column, but some major stuck rope issues forced me down after my second day on the wall.
After a couple days of getting my stuff down and decompressing at the El Cap Bridge, I teamed up with my buddy from El Portal, Andy Esparza, to go climb a route on Liberty Cap that had always captured my interest.

We racked up and hiked up the John Muir Trail, serving as amusement to the parched and dusty tourists who were amazed at the size of our packs (and that they weren't full of beer.) The best part though, was stopping for water along the trail, and several different people, thinking my open haulbag was a garbage can, threw their trash in it!
We made it up to the base, fixed a pitch, and went to hang out at a pool below Nevada Falls to relax and fill up our water bottles.
The next day came quick, and we started taking care of business pretty early. The second pitch featured a bitchin' 5.9 handcrack, and I got to lead the best pitch of the route, a super steep hook and rivet ladder out a steep corner.

The climbing overall was OK- a combination of decent climbing accompanied by some really low quality bush-grovelling. I likened it to Dante's Nine Circles of Hell, as experienced through shrubbery. The mini-epics were plentiful, including me leading a 5.6 chimney/c3 crack when my headlamp suddenly died, and one of Andy's approach shoes taking the plunge off the last pitch, leaving him to hike barefoot back down the trail, but the location was unbeatable.

Getting to look over at Nevada Falls all day long, looking at the tourists getting way to close to the edge and screaming, "YER GONNA DIE!!!" was priceless, and topping out and getting to look up into the Little Yosemite Valley was well worth our arboreal labors.

Sierra Summer Recap

2009-09-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

As the summer officially draws to a close, and the cool fall winds breathe new life into the Valley and the High Sierra peaks, I figured it would be a good chance to reflect on the amazing months spent in the High Country and some photos of a couple of world-class routes I have gotten to play on.
The first is the North Arete of Bear Creek Spire (III 5.8, 13,800ft), a classic alpine rock route which takes a clean line up the striking pillar.

My friend Lyn Williams and I left Midpines to climb a route in Tuolumne Meadows before making our way over to the Eastside in the morning. We had in mind an easy, fun route that would get us psyched and break up the 5 hour drive. We approached the climb with no problems, but as we neared the base, Lyn began complaining of some "strange feelings". As I pimped my way out this traverse to scope the first pitch, Lyn calls up, "Hey, I don't mean to alarm you, but I CAN"T REMEMBER YOUR NAME!" Needless to say, I was alarmed. With Lyn fully ataxic, we descended really quickly to the car, where he drank a bunch of water and started feeling himself again. Really strange.
We did end up climbing a little route after all, but took it easy the rest of the day and drove to the trailhead at Mosquito Flat to sleep before blasting off in the morning to climb on Bear Creek Spire.
We left the car at 5 am, and made really good time on the trail up through Little Lakes Basin, one of the best Sierra approaches I've ever done.
The route itself was spectacular: it seemed like Cathedral Peak stacked on top of Yosemite's Nutcracker. We pitched out some of the pitches and soloed a great deal of the exposed 4th class, with smiles on our faces the whole way. We made it back down to the car in time to pick up cold beers at tom's Place and make it to the Mammoth Hotsprings for a wicked sunset.

A week later, I was hanging out in Tuolumne, doing some easy solo climbing and relaxing in the Meadows when a friend came up and started talking about the Incredible Hulk. I had wanted to get out and see for myself what the Hulk had to offer, as it has the reputation for having the finest alpine granite int he whole range.
So Daniel and I hiked in during the afternoon, making our way through aspen groves and over beaver dams, up to a basecamp situated directly under the massive stone.

As luck would have it, I ran into a few friends out there (the only other people climbing!), namely Robin and Roger, who were kind enough to bring us over hot chocolate (we had only brought cold canned chili in the name of going light).
We got up in the morning, not an alpine start by any means, and got started on the climbing on the ultra-classic Red Dihedral (IV 5.10c). The route was outstanding. Laser cut splitter cracks led to airy and exciting bulges to overcome, and the top it all off finished with a birth-canal tunnel though to the summit!
We scrambled/hobbled back down to our basecamp and packed up all our things, making it back down to Bridgeport for a greasy meal at a local cowboy bar. Giddy up!

The Birth Canal

As always the weather in the Sierras is some of the best mountain weather in the world, with day after day of splitter blue bird skies. So as I get ready to pack it all up for the season and head back down to Patagonia for another bout with the wind-battered spires, I am always appreciative of what I have in my own backyard.
Thanks.

Ridge Running in the Palisades

2009-07-27T20:58:00.000-07:00

It ain't too often that you get to spend the entire day climbing, but never leaving the summit. I just spent a few days off in between courses out in the Palisades region of the Sierras, climbing one of the phenomenal ridges which string together FIVE 14,000ft. peaks over a 1.5 mile traverse.

I hiked in with my partner Matt, looking up at dark clouds which didn't give me a lot of confidence in our proposed itinerary, but kept my mouth shut as we pounded trail up past blue glacial lakes en route to our camp at Sam Mack Lake below the Palisade Glacier.

While I cooked our delicious Tasty Bite Punjab Choley, Matt landed a small brown trout from the lake and we loaded up for the long day to come.

Morning hits the Crest.

Waking up early in the a.m. got us moving up the glacier towards the North Couloir of Thunderbolt Peak, hoping to dispatch this first crux before the snow began to get too soft. This turned out to be a wise decision, as there was a large (but not recent) slab avalanche that had swept down the couloir, and which made crossing the bergschrund an interesting activity.

Looking out from the N Ridge of Thunderbolt.

A view of things to come

The rock quality on this route is surprisingly good.

My favorite section of the whole traverse, climbing down from the summit of Polemonium.

Once on the main ridge, the climbing just seemed to flow into a perfect mix of classic alpine rock (loose!), amazing exposure and breathtaking summits (Thunderbolt Peak, Starlight Peak, North Palisade, Polemonium Peak and Mount Sill), the tallest being North Palisade at

14, 242ft.

Obligatory posing atop Mount Sill. Our route directly behind me.

After 14 hours on the move, we made it back to our camp, thirsty and worn out. A quick hike out the next morning would reward us with hot springs and cold Tecates outside Mammoth as we watched a huge storm move in and enshroud the mountains in a blanket of dark clouds.

Thanks for checking this out. The summer ain't over yet though folks!

Peaks, Passes and Trails: 22 Days in the Heart of the Sierra

2009-07-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

Living and working in the beautiful Sierra Nevada has been a dream come true. This past month, I had the opportunity to instruct a 22 day mountaineering course in the heart of the High Country, located in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Every day brought us deeper into the wild and higher above the tree line. The peaks are high, the trails steep, and the distances are great. The beauty of this area is indescribable, and the amount of snow still present gave it that distinct alpine feel that the Sierra has always been able to capture for me. With any luck some of these photos will inspire others to take a personal journey and discover what lies amidst this range of light.

A cold view west from Twin Peaks after a snowstorm.

Taking it all in at Pear Lake.

Eagle Scout Peak

Suncups and Lawson Peak

Campsite in the Upper Nine Lakes Basin

Angel's Wings and Valhalla rising above Hamilton Lake

Lonely Peak aka the Scimitar

Tribal Rite, a Photo Trip Report

2009-05-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

Well friends, it has been a long time now since I made it back down to Yosemite for the 2009 season, and since getting here, things have been in full swing. With a lot of different friends showing up, and meeting a lot of new ones here in El Portal, I have been doing a bunch of free-climbing on formations that were totally new to me. The valley is a pretty magical place for exploration.

But the main draw, as always, is the Captain. My buddy Rob suggested a vertical camping trip in the most scenic, exposed, and steep section of the wall- a route called Tribal Rite which cuts a clean and beautiful line up the left margin of the Dawn Wall. To access the route, which starts 13 pitches up the wall after the Boot Flake, we climbed New Dawn. After 2 days spent fixing, we were on the route for 7 days.

Tribal Rite was difficult and sustained, but the reward was the beautiful climbing we encountered along our grande tour of El Cap ledges. Enjoy.

Grassy beginnings on New Dawn

There was quite a bit of cursing coming out of this flare.

Rob loves free climbing with the goon-rack.

Enter the Nose Superhighway. Fixed lines from El Cap Tower.

Boot Flake bolt ladder.

Don't mess with Texas!

The journey begins- pitch 1 of Tribal.

Steep!

Miles of heads and rivets get us to pitch 4.

The reason for it all...

Robbie enjoys Sun Ledge (pitch 4), while I tackle the Carrot first thing in the morning.

Another gorgeous open corner...

Which leads us to this strenuous and gently overhung A2 arrows corner.

Somewhere mid-route, Tom Evans started getting some pics of us from the bridge!

What does Robbie eat for breakfast? Hooking off the belay. Every time. Does a body good!

Beginning the RURP pitch.

Inside the beak, looking out.

Rob's best friend is his funkness.

Still lookin' fresh in our flair!

Top out haul ROCKS!

We topped out, packed up, and dispatched the East Ledges quickly to be met with cold beer and good food by Rob's wife Kendra. Now we rest, swim in the river, and hatch new plans.

After getting down, Rob has a Jim Morrison-locked in a bathroom-episode and decides that the past week was just another hallucination!

Later guys and gals. ryan.

Back to Life on 4 Wheels

2009-03-25T16:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been about 3 weeks since I have gotten back from Patagonia, and I have already managed to climb twice as many pitches since my return as I did down there! Although work has been slow (non-existent) around here, it has been nice to relax a bit and catch up with the family and some friends before heading back down to the madness that is Yosemite.

One of the greatest things about having so much time on my hands (and power tools at my disposal), is that I was able to finally tackle a project I had been planning: a sleeping platform/storage system for the back of my truck. I based it of of several other people's designs, and took what I liked from each, trying to keep things as simple as possible and easy for one person to remove. now it's finished and covered in a nice carpet, ready to hit the road down south in a couple weeks. This baby is like the Four Seasons compared to throwing down next to the rig in a dust bowl outside Mammoth! See you folks down there...

Aguja De la "S"oul

2009-02-27T06:38:00.000-08:00

It´s been a long time since my last post, mainly because I haven´t DONE anything in the last few weeks! After the last attempt on de la S, there was a 2 week storm that either forced people to pack up and bail or to wait it out and endure a strange brew of Patagonian cabin fever.

Our cabana

With swollen rivers and deep snow, I was held captive my my gear cache at my high camp below the Rio Blanco glacier, so we sat out the storm in epic Patagonian fashion. Two long weeks were filled with seemingly unending asados (BBQs) with a live band courtesy Nico Favresse, Mason and Sean Villanueva, baking marathons, brief bouldering sessions at the Madsen boulders in town, and by going for days impersonating Borat.

Nico, Mason and Sean

Beckett crooning. Notice lack of opposite gender.

Nico on Vaca Muerte
boulder

When the weather forecast finally did show a 2 day window for the 22nd and 23rd, Wagner and I made plans to go back up and complete the Austrian route on de la S and retrieve my cache. I changed my flight back to the States so that this would be my last attempt- my patience was already worn too thin to wait for another good window.

Bivy Cave below Rio Blanco Glacier

We hiked up to the cave in good time and with light packs, arriving to find more food than I had thought I left, so we had a nice meal and settled in early. Waking up at 4:30am, we were on the glacier at 5:10 and making tracks up to the base of the route. As the sun came up and covered Fitzroy and Poincenot with a ruby red glow, I could not believe how much snow had actually fallen during the storm. All the open crevasses had been filled or covered over, and the SE faces of de las S and St. Exupery were blasted with rime ice.

Sunrise on Poincenot and Fitzroy

Wagner looking up at the route

Once we were at the base of the snow ramp, we were confronted with the harsh reality of Patagonia: climbing rock routes after a huge storm is dumb. There were two large slab avalanches that had come down the ramp (probably the day before), and the upper dihedral pitches were choked with snow and ice. With our backup route (the Bulgarian direct) also out of condition, we headed down.

The Calm before the STORM

On the way, the "good" weather decided to pack up as well, and was replaced by a mixture of snow, rain, and the strongest winds I have ever been in. At one point while hiking down from the cave, it was coming in so strong that I was being lifted OFF my feet and moved a couple meters!
So back down in town I began to pack up, and I bailed yesterday, taking a flight out of Calafate to Buenos Aires, where I sit and write this note. You can´t win em all, and for a first trip to Patagonia feel like I may not have accomplished any of the ambitions I came down with, but did get to stand on top of Cerro Solo, and now have all the beta and ideas for how to make the next trip down here that much better.

I'm OUTTA here!

Los Vientos de Patagonia

2009-02-10T12:45:00.001-08:00

Hola chicos and chicas, Just got back down from an attempt on the Austrian Route on Aguja de la S, a peak next to the towering giants of Poincenot and Fitz Roy. The weather for the weekend was forecasted as being a good high-pressure system, but as it drew closer, looked as theough wind would play a large factor in determining the fates of most parties up in the mountains. Me and my partner hiked up from town to the Vivac de Cueva just underneath the glacier in about 7 hours, and made a camp just outside the cave due to high occupancy.

Despite getting an alpine start, making tracks across the glacier just as the sun was rising, and climbing the initial 150m 50/60 degree snow ramp in good time, we just weren´t able to make it happen with the weather window closing in on us.

The first half of the route, a clean dihedral system running up 300m to the col, is sheltered from the fierce westerly winds, but when it started snowing just as I finished leading the 4th rock pitch in boots, we decided to pull the plug as the summit was no longer an option. The storm continued to close in, and as we postholed out, we were repeatedly knocked off our feet by some of the strongest gusts I have ever felt.

I left all my gear cached up at the cave, and am planning on heading back up after this week of poor weather clears out. For now, David, Blake, Paul and I are cozy in our plush A-frame and are getting ready for the big party we are having tomorrow night complete with 2 30 kilo corderos (goat) we are roasting on the BBQ! More news and pics to come, stay tuned.

Cerro Solo

2009-02-05T06:46:00.000-08:00

With a short weather windown forecasted this week, and with a limited amount of time available due to the work commitments of my partner Marcos, we decided on a climb that would we be able to do in a short trip from town and without having to hike a big load up to one of the primary basecamps.

Sunrise as we begin the ice pitch

Cerro Solo seemed to fit the bill perfectly. With a bivy site only 4 hours hike from town, we were able to leave at around 3pm and make it up there with plenty of time for a relaxed evening, and even a chance to get some actual sleep (on an alpine climb?!).

After crossing the tyrolean to the other side of Laguna Torre, we made it up to camp and chowed down on some leftovers we had brought with us from town. With enough daylight left, we hiked further up to scout out the couloir that would take us to the corner of the hanging glacier.

The next morning we woke up at 4am and took this route up to the glacier, but found out it was the wrong one, and this one had deposited us underneath the middle of the glacier! Instead of wasting hours climbing down and around/bailing to go get some breakfast, we decided just to go straight up, which ended up being a 50-60 foot pitch of AI2.

Fitz Roy and Poincenot

Now on top of the lower glacier, we were able to traverse and get onto the normal route which ascends the safest terrain through the upper glacier. One more short section of steep snow and we were on the summit, at 8:15am.

Summit shot with Fitz and Poincenot in background

The views over to Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy were remarkable, but looking west towards the Hielo Sur, the largest non-polar ice cap in the world, and the distant peaks of the Cordon del Mariano Moreno makes you realize how great the scale of things is here.

We descended quickly, as the snow was beoming quite poor and the snow bridges were too poor to be walked over safely in most cases.

Just a short hike out, and we were back in town for homemade pizzas and a cold Quilmes.

The weather looks good for this coming week, so stay tuned for more!

...internet is unbelievably slow here, it has taken me over an hour to post these 6 pictures, so there are more to come...

El Chalten

2009-02-05T06:32:00.000-08:00

Some of you may be asking yourselves, "Is Ryan even IN Patagonia? He just posts pictures of himself climbing in great weather, with no snow, often in T-shirts!" Well I wasn´t too sure myself until now...

I am now (and for the rest of my trip) in El Chalten, a dusty frontier town which serves the springboard for all the major climbing expeditions to the Cerro Terro and Fitz Roy groups. With the free camping no longer available in town, most climbers are no forced to rent apartments or long-term rooms to serve a their base camp in town, while keeping a stash of gear and/or a high camp up at either Niponio or Paso Superior for when the weather looks promising. Luckily I ran into a friend of mine from WWU, Blake Herrington, so I am sharing a room (the Cave) with 3 other dirty climbers and a Rodesian ridgeback named Obie.

Since arriving on the Nightmare Dust Bus from Bariloche, roughly 8 days ago, I managed to hike up to Camp Niponino to learn the approach (it is a very circuitous 7 hour glacier approach), and watch a pretty nasty storm blow in and cover everything with ice.

There wa also the Festival de Boulders a few days ago, which has become an anual event held a tthe beginning of February to commemorate the first ascent of Fitz Roy. I competed in the bouldering competition, which was much more of a large gathering of pysched climbers ust out having fun for the day, and it all ended with a huge party.

So far so good, I am still waiting for my partner to materialize- with Amir back in the states I forgot what a drag it is to be in a climbing area without a partner when the weather is good!

Alpine Cragging at the Frey

2009-01-24T10:33:00.000-08:00

Rapping with Monte Tronodor in the background

Alright all you cubicle jockeys, dirtbag rock monkeys and other riff-raff out there- grab a beer, kick yer feet up, and enjoy the latest cheap thrills coming at you from the Fin del Mundo in Patagonia.

La Tapia

I just got down from 14 days of great tower climbing up in the alpine playground known as Frey. Just a 4 hour hike out of the town of Bariloche, this place has got it all to keep even the diehard crack addicts and slab masters happy. But what really gets this place on the worldwide climbing map is the sheer amount of towers which end in super small summit needles.

Camponile Esloveno

Amir and I did 2 separate trips up there, as the initial haulbag load of almost 90 lbs (food and gear for 7 days) nearly killed me.

Me climbing up the 5th pitch of Imaginate (Camponile)

We climbed on nearly every major formation, completing several long notable routes on the Camponile Esloveno, Torre Principal, and the Cohete Lunar. Frey is known for its sandbagged grades, and didnt disappoint in this regard. Much of the climbing is pretty heads up, which makes for quite an exciting experience on lead here.

The weather stayed pretty good for the most part: we only lost one full day to a storm that blew in, and had several late starts due to morning squalls. Some of the days definitely gave me some preperation for heading down south, the wind coming over the Andes on the Camponile and Principal was pretty intense.

The scene up there is much more hectic than Arenales, as there are many more non-climbers hiking through, and much more crowding on certain classic routes,. but the spread out nature of climbing at the Frey mitigates some of these downsides.

Over all, it was a great 2 weeks, getting a lot of routes ticked off with Amir before I take off in a couple days to head down south and he heads back to the states.

Hopefully I can figure out a way to get pics off my camera soon, so again, all the shots are from Amir.

Until the next one, which will be coming straight from the deep down south, the icebox of El Chalten.

Success on Cerro Rincon

2009-01-14T12:24:00.000-08:00

Cerro Colorado

Hola chicos and chicas, coming to you live from Bariloche, in the middle of the twister that just touched down, the newest installment of the Patagonia Sufferfest 2009!
After Arenales, I was unable to get a ticket down to Bariloche to climb at the Frey due to New Year´s crowds, so Amir and I went back up to the Cordon del Plata to do some more climbing at altitude, and I hoped to have a bit more success on some of the peaks in the back of the valley that I got too sick to climb earlier on last month.
We went out with light alpine packs and based ourselves out of Refugio San Bernardo where we could cook our food and sleep without having to take tents out with us. The trade-off is that the refugio is only at 9,000 ft. With three days out there to spend before needing to be back in Mendoza to catch our bus, we had limited options.
Day one we climbed Cerro Adolfo Calle (13,470 ft) for acclimazation, an easy trekking summit in the middle of the valley.

Summit of Cerro Adolfo Calle

The next day we just hung out around the refugio, sleeping and eating lots of food, as we planned to leave at 2am the next morning to attempt Cerro Rincon at the far end of the valley, in a single push. This would shape up to be a big day.
We left the refugio at 2:15am, hiking by headlamp. We reached Campo Salto (13,500 ft) at 7am, and rested for 30 minutes or so in the mess tent drinking hot tea and stretching, and trying to warm our cold fingers.

View towards Mendoza from below Campo Salto

Underneath the Supercanaleta on Rincon

The glacier and Cerro Rincon on the right, Cerro Plata in the background

We left shortly thereafter, crossing Stepanek Glacier, underneath the impressive but out of season Supercanaleta, to gain the East Ridge of Rincon. It was a long slog up the ridge to 15,500ft where we took our last break before the final push up to the summit ridge and to the top. The problem: this far into the season the normal snow couloir leading up to the summit ridge becomes a postholing nightmare through deep penitentes (suncups). We opted to flank the couoir through a series of rockbands. It took us 2.5 hours to routefind through some pretty nasty choss, but we finally hit the long summit ridge. I am feeling pretty toasted at this point, and am making a strong case for heading back, but it is purely physical exhaustion and not symptoms of AMS, so Amir pushes me on, and by 1:30pm, we are standing atop Cerro Rincon, at 17,017 ft. The views west towards Chile and unknown chains of peaks in the distance were breathtaking. The Andes are BIG.

The final summit ridge.

On the way down, negotiating the foul rock bands was no fun, and we got lost in a thick fog whiteout for 30 minutes or so before we navigated our way back onto the east ridge and down to Salto.
The clock stopped when we hit the refugio again, for a total time of 16 hours 25 minutes, 8,000 ft gained to the summit (16,000 total).

Amir on summit.

Me at summit

Sadly these are the only pictures I have for now, for some reason my camera isn´t working, so all photo credits go to Amir.
I am now in the Frey, having climbed sick granite spires for the last 6 days up there and leave tomorrow for another 8, so pictures and updates will soon follow.
Ciao...

Spires, Splitters and Cabernet Sauvignon

2008-12-30T13:03:00.000-08:00

Here it is, straight from the frontline, all the news that´s fit to print, coming to you live from the scorching cubicle in the heart of malbec country.
I just got back yesterday afternoon after 11 days in El Cajon de los Arenales, a deep canyon located in the "foothills" of the Andes Range at around 10,000ft, whose main claim to fame is a ridiculous number of steep granite spires split by record number of perfect splitter cracks. With just enough information to get me psyched, but not enough to give me any idea what was in store for me, I rallied out with my friend Amir to see what all the fuss was about.
We were not disappointed. What we found and climbed there during our stay equaled many of the 5 star free climbing routes in Yosemite.

Basecamp

The view.

The further you work up the canyon, the longer and more involved the routes become. Every single route we climbed was a classic in its own right, ascending laser cut splitters and exposed ridges leading to sometimes very small summit blocks on top of slender needles (agujas), the most memorable being Armonica (210m, 5.10b), El Escorpion (220m, 5.11a), and Mundo Interior (170m, 5.11b). The length of these routes might seem long just on their own, but also realize that the bases of these climbs were often more than 1,900 vertical feet away up a 45 degree scree and talus slope. So every day it was almost 4,000ft of gain and decent just to get to the climbing!

Me on crux pitch of Mundo Interior, Aguja Espina

Me on Summit of Aguja Espina

While we basecamped at the upper end of the canyon, near the upper climber´s refugio, Amir and I made a ton of great Argentine and Basque friends, and lived it up with the beverage of choice, a fine (or not-so-fine) wine passed around ring-of-fire style.

Summit shot on Aguja Charles Webis, after El Escorpion

Each route we climbed was a bit longer and harder, as we got a feel for the grades and climbing, in preparation for the granddaddy of the trip out to Arenales, an ascent of the route Mejor no Hablas ciertas cosas (500m, 5.11a) on the North Pillar of El Cohete, a massive granite pillar which captivates the imaginations of climbers in the Arenales.
So we racked, we hiked, and we sent. The route itself was rad- we simulclimbed 200m of rotten rock to get to the base of the pillar, where the hard climbing started right off the bat. Many pitches and several difficult cruxes later, with cold temps and numb hands we stood on the summit and let out a big monkey call to our friends up in the spires before beginning the many hours of rappels to get back down to the base.

Amir on the OW pitch 7 El Cohete

Pitch 9 El Cohete

Our Basque friend Jon climbing Pichulla de Caballo at night (5.13a)

El Cajon de los Arenales is an amazing place with an insane amount of potential, and I plan to make a return trip already. But for now, it is time for some New Year´s Fiestas, and then down to Bariloche to climb in the world-renowned Frey area.

¡Hasta Luego!

Cordon Del Plata

2008-12-15T03:28:00.000-08:00

Alright, here it is folks, the first installment of the long awaited, much debated, highly anticipated Patagonia Reports. But to be honest, the Cordon del Plata is in Mendoza, which is more central Argentina. The Cordon del PLata is a sub range of peaks within the Andes, the highest of which is Cerro Plata (around 20,000ft). My goal was Cerro Vallecitos (17,000), a really beautiful looking climb up a long summit ridge. So I get dropped off by my buddy Joe at the trailhead leading into the valley after staying with him at his house in Tupungato. The town is at 3,000ft and the trailhead is at 9,100ft. This alone is enough to give most people quite a little headache.
Mistake Number 1: I had only given myself 4 days to get up to basecamp and climb the peak, since I had to be down to Mendoza to meet a friend to go start getting on the real rock this trip is all about.
Mistake Number 2: In order to get this done, I chose to go all the way to Campo Salto (13,800 or so) on day one, passing a couple other lower camps. This would put me in much better position to climb the higher peaks at the end of the valley, but force my body to either put up or shut up. It chose the latter. At 13,100, well short of the steep scree ascent to Campo Salto, I was getting pounded by AMS, and decided to put up my tent a couple hundred feet lower along side a snowfilled moraine. Feeling quite shitty still and unable to sleep, I made the ultimate decision to leave most of my gear in my tent and hike out back down to the refugio (mountain hut) at 9,000ft to sleep. I got a decent sleep in side the refugio, but had to head back up the valley in the morning to either get my stuff and come down or push my camp up higher to Salto. Sadly, the weather forecasted was not looking good, and I was hammered after hiking 15 miles and ascending/decending over 16,000ft in 2 days. So I packed it in and am now down in the stifling heat of Mendoza getting ready to take a bus back to Tupungato after I get some topos of climbs in the los Arenales Canyon, which is where I am heading next as soon as I meet up with Amir.
Campo las Veguitas

Until the next one...

Packing and Racking

2008-12-05T19:26:00.001-08:00

Patagonia Sufferfest 08/09 is getting ready to kick things into high gear! Well, the days are getting shorter, nights are getting colder, and I am almost ready to go. The tent is seam sealed, crampons are sharpened, and the flask is ready to be filled! Leaving on Sunday morning for Buenos Aires to visit a friend for a few days, then off to Mendoza to climb in the Cordon del Plata, hoping to summit Cerro Plata (5,800 meters), as well as some lower peaks before going south and suffering on the real stuff.

Here is just a little taste of what's to come, a shot of the Cerro Torre group, and a foreshortened view of the route Rubio y Azul on the Torre de la Media Luna which I'll be getting on a little later in the trip... photo courtesy dave daly. I will be posting photos and updates here for the most part, so check here to get the buzz on Patagonia Sufferfest 08/09! Take care and have a kick ass winter, wherever you are, whatever you're doing.

The Big Stone

2008-11-27T15:53:00.000-08:00

Rack up and pick one already!

Slacking Off on the Lost Arrow Spire

2008-11-23T20:30:00.000-08:00

This spring I was hanging out at the top of Yosemite Falls, camping with a couple friends and staying away from the oppressive Valley heatwave (and tourons). Also hanging out with us in camp was the legendary Heinz Zak, who was in town to walk the Lost Arrow Spire Highline. Over 2000 feet above the Valley floor, this slackline is mind numbingly exposed, and actually gains 3 feet of elevation over its 70 foot length. It was super windy the first day, so with the help Brent and Jon he got his triple-line rigged and ready for the morning. Early morning brought splitter weather and no breeze, so after a couple of palm-sweating-heart-pounding-eye-popping falls, Heinz sent the thing.

Lurking Fear

2008-11-18T19:44:00.000-08:00

Lurking Fear
aka Fern Gully
aka Seeing a Man about a Horse

Me and Scott met up in early June to redeem ourselves on the Captain after getting spat off the Nose in a storm a couple of weeks prior. In the meantime we had cruised Skull Queen, I had stayed in the Valley and done a bunch of free climbing while Scott went to So-Cal to find a job, and I had also gone through a staff training trip in the Sierra for Outward Bound. With the help of my friends Drew and Mandy, I hiked a bunch of water, my portaledge and gear up to the base of Lurking Fear (VI 5.10 C2+). This was just the carrot I needed to hold in front of Scott! So he drove up, we racked up, and hiked up to the base again with a big load intent on blasting the next day.

While not a gimme-wall, Lurking Fear is one of the more moderate aid intensive routes on El Cap, so Scott and I planned on 3 days and 2 nights on the wall, taking a relaxed pace, and not fixing any pitches. We blasted in the morning, and got through the bolt intensive first pitches quickly. I led pitch 4 and ended up taking a 25 foot winger after blowing a brassy placement above a section I had just backcleaned. Stupid.
Anyway, we keeping cruising and make it to belay 7 right at dusk, set up the ledge, and rock out to Cypress Hill and the Beavis and Butthead soundtrack on Scott's Ipod/speaker combo. All is well...

Until we wake up in the morning, and Scott drops the haulbag for the ledge, AND the poop tube! Shit! Luckily no one is below when it hits and creates instant bio-hazard. There is nothing for us to do except rap down. The route isn't steep enough for us to flag the ledge without destroying it in one haul. So we tie 30 liters of water to the anchor, and bail, fixing ropes down from pitch 3. Scott cleans the BIO-hazard, and I find the bag.
The next day is a rest day, after which we come back up, without the portaledge, and blast. We take the pitches we already have led and know, and make it to pitch 11's natural ledge bivy (cramped for 2) just after dark. We are moving. The next day finds me leading awesome hooking and free climbing pitches, as well as some nasty junk. I yell to Scott that I propose a new route name: LURKING FERN!

After getting to Thanksgiving Ledge, we decided to just hang out and enjoy ourselves instead of pushing for the top. We drank booty water, watched people top out on the Salathe Headwall, and cranked up the tunes in celebration.

Topped out the next day and ran into Pass the Pitons Pete, who had just began burning 15 days worth of poo bags... Less than optimal odors! It seems that there was a common theme here...
Life back on the ground was full of cold beer and ice cream, until the next plans began to get hatched......

Tuolumne Summer

2008-11-09T19:26:00.000-08:00

This was a great summer, both for work and for play. And if you know me at all, you know that these two are inextricably linked! I worked several Outward Bound Courses in the Sierras, hoping that I would be spending every day off in the Valley climbing walls, but with the oppressive heat that summer brings to Yosemite, I had to look to the High Country for my climbing fix. From alpine routes with my buddy Jon to sitting out storms at the base of Temple Crag, I got a healthy serving of everything that the Sierra is famous for, I already have my sights on next year's prizes! Enjoy the pics...

Mathes Crest

Sending POWER!

Mathes Crest is this amazing mile-long traverse that follows a knife edged ridge for its entire length. The exposure is spectacular, and you are rewarded with fun climbing, views of the entire Sierra crest and Yosemite Valley.

Splitters leading us up the magnificent 3rd Pillar of Dana

A storm that would lure us closer, even allow us a few hundred feet up at a time before spitting me and my partner off with threats of thunder and lightening. Luckily to pass the time Jon had given me two small bags (yes, BAGS) of Ugandan Gin which we mixed with Gatorade. This does not make as good as a combo as you might think.

North America Wall 10/08

2008-11-09T19:04:00.000-08:00

Rob Dillon and myself were sitting around a couple weeks ago in the meadow, looking at all the great lines, and armed with the knowledge that the forecasted storm would scare everybody off the wall, we could get on just about anything we wanted. Knowing full well that there would be the post-storm surge of climbers on everything and anything, we fooled ourselves into planning to do the Zodiac on the Sunday after the one day of rain in the Valley.

We meet in the morning to rack up and go fix, but what do ya know? A small army of various parties had the same idea as us. So we sat on our thumbs, checked out the guidebook, considered Eagle's Way, but basically just racked up and started walking the base to find an empty line that somehow inspired us. We walked past several parties on New Dawn and Mescalito, crossing those off our list. Getting up to the base of the NA Wall, we look up, look around, and although there is some gear hanging at the base in between the NA and the Ranch, Rob and I look at each other and just go "Yee-Haw!"

Rob leading the first pitch, me belaying.

We get the first 2 pitches fixed, head down and pack up for the wall. We plan on 4 nights, 5 days on the wall- plenty of time to enjoy the pace, take it easy on the many traversing pitches and lower outs, and have the goal of never setting up the ledge after dark. This obviously sounds real good on the ground, but reality often has other plans.

Morning Day 1.

Day 1 is pretty relaxed. I climb pitches 3 and 4, having a good time on fun, kind of tricky aid with tons of scars and handplaced beaks. These pitches go clean easily only as a result of a double set of offset Aliens courtesy my buddy Dave!
Rob tackles the next pitch, after Mazatlan Ledge, grunting, swearing and getting fully worked in the squeeze chimney. This gets you to an amazing spot under the roof, featuring a cave inside the roof much bigger than I imagined!

Rob leading out the roof.

Looking from out of the roof/cave.

We set up the ledge at the pitch 6 anchors, and I fix the pitch above as well just as it gets dark.

Morning hits and Rob starts some heady free climbing to gain Calaveras Ledge.

Some more free climbing gets us up to Big Sur, a ledge fit for a king! Somebody bailed from here recently, but was kind enough to leave us some canned fruit, soup, 3 gallons of water and....drumroll please...THREE PBRs!!!
I climbed and fixed the Borderline traverse pitch, and came back to enjoy our booty beer.

Big air swinging back to the ledge! This is what climbing is all about!

The morning of Day 3 found us doing some funkiness to get ourselves and the bags out from the ledge. Thank God for Rob's little friend, Mr. Skinny, the 160ft. 7mm cord.

Rob getting it done, free climbing and backcleaning the HELL out of pitch 13/14!

We get it done though, and Rob gets us up through pitch 14 after an extensive backcleaning lesson. I was up next linking pitch 15/16 through the Black Dihedral. The rock texture up there is really cool, due to all the seeping there are calcium buildups which make it a lot easier to step out of the aiders and make some quasi-free moves.

Steeper than it looks!

Exfoliating flakes just hanging on.

Black Cave belay 16.

Rob, bringing the kitchen sink with him on the Black Cave pitch 17.

We get through pitch 18, to a nice little stance. Granted, the Cyclops Eye was only a pitch away, but it was dark, we were hungry, and felt like we were maintaining at a pretty good pace.

Morning 4, Rob gets busy and fires off the pitch to get us in the Eye, and I bitch a whole bunch having a do multiple lower offs some serious mank.
We get up to the ledge, relax for...5 minutes, then deal with having to get the bags across and down to the optional belay. We fashioned a pretty sweet zipline rig with a belay, and got them all over there pretty quick.
Rob started free climbing right off the belay, up some VERY loose and hollow rock, clipping mank which blows the other mank out of the water! Making the C3 Junk pitch look pretty cake, he makes it to the belay, under a nice seeping drip.

I link the next 2 pitches, which I think was the coolest of the route! Steep climbing up cool features, long reachy hooking and tensioning up good rock got me to belay 23 above the Cyclops Eye, and our bivy for the night. It got cold quick, so we set up the ledge with the fly, and hunkered down with all of our clothes, a flask of vodka (Rob smuggled it aboard!), and the biggest jar of Nutella ever.

So much happier now.

Rob taking his Nutella a bit too seriously...

Anyone in the Valley the next day (our Day 5), knows how F-ing cold it was. It was not much better up on the wall. Between me battling the freezing temps and Rob dealing with a seeping and dirty crack which kept spitting him out, we were not having the greatest day.

Rob doing his best to get through the pitch, me doing mine not to freeze to death.

We get to the Igloo after a few issues, and due to the impending bad weather we decide to leave the bags, grab our storm gear and climb up to the summit via the El Nino free variation. We may have cheated ourselves out of the full route by missing out on the top 2 pitches, but we made an executive decision to stay safe and get to the top so we could fix ropes back down and take another weather check.
Good decision. As soon as we topped out, we were greeted by David, who had just soloed the Reticent and hooked us up with some roll-your-owns, and had a brief moment of elation before realizing we still had to get our bags.

Not too exciting about the storm a'comin!
We got our storm gear on, and started rapping. Rob tied the bags on and no sooner than I started hauling did it begin to get nasty. An amazing cloudbank and entered filled the Valley from behind Half Dome, and within 10 minutes it was snowing sideways on us, coating our ropes in the white stuff. I jugged up to the top, carefully, and hauled up, getting a bit of help from the wet rock.

Rob wrestling with the pigs up top.

The weather passed, the skies cleared, and we were able to see the most beautiful purple sunset over the Clark and Cathedral ranges. Sadly my camera was still buried deep in the bag....

We pound a couple of Cobras in celebration, pack the bags, and head down. Along the way (around 8pm), we run into a couple of guys who had topped out at dusk off E. Buttress and got completely lost. Contemplating either the long walk down the Falls Trail or an open bivy, they were psyched to run into us! We got em down in exchange for grabbing our ledge!

The rest is just details. We went to ask Tom if he had any pics of us, even though we had forgotten to tell him we were going up. it was kind of disappointing that he didn't but writing up this TR made me realize what a great time Rob and I had on the route, and how much more it makes me psyched just looking at my own pics. This was my first REAL El Cap wall (not counting Lurking Fear), and it has inspired me to do all of the stuff I was more apprehensive of getting on before.

keep rocking everybody!

ryan