Fitz Roy - The Journey

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

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 approximately follows 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.

Cerro Torre is so small! Could probably climb it with just a few bolts wouldn't ya think?!

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.



Cumbre!!

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!

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

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

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

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!

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