MOUNTAINEERING
Leaving the tent one morning to have a pee, I was hit by such a strong gust of wind that I was messily pinned against a boulder for 20 seconds. The problem with the wind is that when it fi nally dies down, and you’re left with some semblance of tranquillity, all you feel like doing is sleeping and recovering. It’s diffi cult to convince yourself to come out of your reverie and get into action.
Sleet beginning to fall, a long jumar awaited us at the base of the wall. We got to the top of the ropes and I began leading the next pitch. The walls and cracks were covered in verglas whilst spindrift poured down from above. I reached a good ledge 60m higher up the wall and immediately descended: there would be no climbing in this blizzard. After two more days boxed up in our tents – beginning to get really fed up with our diets of noodles and porridge – we were faced with a fi nal opportunity to reach the summit on our last day. At the top of the ropes, Twid took over and reached a wide, easy-angled corner: the fi nal real pitch. But by this point the winds had picked up, blowing spindrift across the face and when I reached him, the only sensible decision was to descend. If the winds got any stronger it would become impossible to abseil down. It was the right call: the further we descended, the stronger the winds got and as we neared the ridge we were being blown sideways. We had been so close, but hadn’t reached the summit. Months of preparation and effort were poured into the fulfi lment of this dream and to be defeated, so near, was a bitter pill to swallow. Yet, at the same time, making the decision to descend had been easy: no summit is worth risking your life. And, anyway, I knew that I’d be returning to Patagonia in less than two months – surely I’d deserve some karmic payback?
In 2012, the controversial Compressor Route, on Cerro
Torre’s South-East Ridge, came full circle. Originally bolted by Cesari Maestri (an act famously described by Reinhold Messner as “the murder of the impossible”) the route was stripped of 102 original aid bolts by two Americans, Jason Kruk and Hayden Kennedy. Then, two days later, the route received its fi rst “fair means” ascent by David Lama and Peter Ortner: Lama managing a totally free ascent with just a couple of detours from the original line.
This route, in its new free state, up the most aesthetic mountain in the world, was my target this January, and Dave Macleod was to be my partner. The Fitzroy massif is the most popular destination
in Patagonia for the modern alpinist. At its base is the patchwork tourist town of El Chalten – a place littered with cafes, restaurants and enough steak to tempt most vegetarians from their path. It’s a far cry from what Rab Carrington experienced in 1973: “at the end of the dirt road there was a small concrete hut; the Park Ranger’s residence. We put up our tents on the grassy bank next to his hut. There nothing there: just the park ranger, ourselves and a few gauchos.” After our fi rst day in El Chalten, we felt well prepared
and keen to get cracking. Reports were that the face was covered in snow, but we were confi dent that in the coming month, a couple of days of sunshine would clear the face of the dreaded ‘white shite’. This hopeless optimism was swiftly checked when we bumped into David Lama out bouldering on our second day. “Forget about the Compressor this season” he said, in his laid- back Germanic tone. To be told so bluntly what our hopes were was a
signifi cant reality check, but we were soon greeted with a short, cold weather window – perfect conditions for
BMC member Calum Muskett (20) started climbing at 13 on the Idwal Slabs in Snowdonia. Since then, he’s travelled all over the world to climb diffi cult alpine routes, and is always planning the next adventure.
Dave MacLeod leading a very strenuous mixed pitch on the East Face of the Mermoz.
“IN PATAGONIA, YOU SHOULD NEVER COUNT YOUR CHICKENS UNTIL THEY’VE HATCHED…THE CHANCES ARE THEY’VE PROBABLY JUST BLOWN AWAY.”
Calum Muskett tackling some technical mixed ground whilst making the fi rst ascent of a new route on Aguja Guillaumet.
Ben Winston and Ally Swinton approach the East Face of the Mermoz from Paso Superior at sunrise.
It's a thumbs down for the weather from Dave MacLeod.
mixed climbing. We headed up to Pedra Negra where we took shelter beneath an inadequately overhung boulder as snow and sleet beat down upon us. Our plan A was to climb on the East Face of the Mermoz, however we were stopped in our tracks by dangerous avalanche conditions. With no idea what to do, we turned around and looked straight up at a wall covered in iced-up cracks and corners, the fact it still awaited a fi rst ascent was just a bonus. We followed a crack and corner system up the centre of the face; each pitch was followed by an even better one. The route held the full repertoire of winter climbing skills, from torquing axes to tenuous ice hooks. We reached the top feeling really chuffed and the bumslide back down to our camp was a good energy-saving technique for the long walk back.
A week later we were back on the same glacier, however, this time on its opposite side. We’d walked up to attempt to free climb an aid route on Aguja Poincenot, one of the pre-eminent rock pillars of the range fi rst climbed by Don Whillans and Frank Cochrane in 1962. Conditions, once again, were against our planned objective, but this time we knew of a neighbouring unclimbed line that lay on the daunting East Face of the Mermoz. We’d been led us to this face by Andy Parkin’s Vol de Nuit: a large and imposing technical mixed route. “I went to solo Vol de Nuit,” Andy had explained to me, “and it was a big one for me. Committing beyond what I thought was reasonable but I had no choice, free soloing, I even did one-arm pull ups to get off the worst, just before the ice fi eld.” Feeling a little less bold than Andy, we headed into a steep ice runnel up a gully. Having taken a short fall on a steep corner, I handed the lead over to Dave, who proved a much better suitor for it, smoothly climbing the pitch on his fi rst go. The climbing above barely relented in diffi culty and was amongst the fi nest mixed climbing I’ve ever done. We were both exhausted but felt like success was near until Dave reached an impasse. We lacked the right gear to protect what looked like the fi nal 20 metres of diffi cult climbing and were unwilling to push the boat out in such a committing environment.
Descending back to El Chalten, I wondered whether that would be our fi nal opportunity this trip and refl ected on my time in Patagonia over the previous months. I’d failed to reach any signifi cant summits, hadn’t repeated a single one of the many classic rock or mixed routes and had eaten my own body weight in noodles, beef and dulce du leche. Yet, despite all this, I was happy. Why? Because as Dave
observed so well: “Climbing under blue skies and warm, still air is great for getting things done. There are plenty of places in the world to do this. But it’s the storms, clouds and waiting for special moments that makes your memory of the mountains many times stronger. If you are lucky with the rare Patagonian weather windows, you’ll feel like the luckiest climber on earth. If you are not lucky, the storms will renew your respect for the power of the mountains.” Patagonia, I’ll be back.
48 | 70TH ANNIVERSARY | FOR BRITISH CLIMBING AND WALKING SINCE 1944
PHOTOS: CALUM MUSKETT/ BEN WINSTON.
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