Patagonia 2023

The Power of Independent Trucking and other thoughts 

Here is a copy-paste of the trip report of Mateo Esposito and I's climbing season in El Chalten. I'll be hopefully writing something a bit more personal for the Canadian Alpine Journal, but for now here is that !

   In January 2023, Mateo Esposito and I met in El Chalten, Argentina to try and establish new routes somewhere on the Chalten massif. We had multiple objectives and came ready with everything from winter climbing gear to aid climbing equipment. Our main, and biggest objective was a new route on the North face of Aguja Poincenot where we knew we would likely find splitter crack systems and clean, steep climbing.

I arrived in Chalten on January 11th, a short weather window was forecasted and quickly I repacked my bags to go into the mountains. The next day saw us rushing toward Paso Superior with our sights on a potential new route on the East face of Aguja Mermoz. Unfortunately I felt terribly sick and was still completely exhausted from 72 hours of international travel. We decided to abort the mission so that I could go back to town and rest before the next good window appeared.

Once back in town we saw a big high pressure system starting on 17 January. All the climbers in town were very excited, this was most likely going to be a very long window. Mateo and I agreed to go big. I did the best I could to rest and be ready, our plan was to hike into Niponino on the 16th.

Once at Niponino we slept for about 6 hours and started up the long approach to the North face of Poincenot. Past Polacos camp, under Desmochada and finally up couloir Poincenot. We timed our approach so that we could climb the couloir in cold weather. It can be a bit of a loaded gun as we needed to cross under a serac and we were aware of the serious potential for rockfall. As it turned out, a rock came off while climbing the short 5.9 approach pitch and coreshot our tagline, not a big deal but it would force us to use a biner block on our descent.  We then made quick work of the rest of the couloir and were soon safely at the base of the wall. We agreed on a steep and direct line up to our planned bivouac site, 150 meters up the face. I took the first lead: a few face moves off the belay and onto a beautiful hand crack, this system brought us to our bivy in three long pitches. The ledge was large enough to untie and we had plenty of snow to melt for water. That night we were definitely feeling the 1450m of elevation gain from Niponino and agreed to sleep in and take the next day easy. The weather was incredibly good and was forecasted to last for a few more days.

Mateo leading the approach pitch, a few moments before a large rock came tumbling onto our tagline

Myself leading the first pitch

Day two ended up being the physical crux of our route. Mateo led a strenuous squeeze chimney that led us into another 150 meters long system of wide cracks. That day we had to haul our packs in order  to free climb the offwidths and chimneys. All this work made the climbing time consuming and tiring. Around 7pm we reached another, this time smaller, ledge. Although we had planned to climb the remaining 300-350 meters to the summit that day we decided against it. We knew we were at the last good ledge on the face and that if we kept going we would have to climb through the night.  We agreed to alpine start on day three and finish the climb, or at the very least the face, the next day. Our second bivouac was a bit less comfortable, but we still were able to untie and lay somewhat flat. A large hueco filled with water saved us the gas needed to melt that night.

Mateo making his way onto the squeeze. Pitch 4

Mateo following pitch 7. Our bivy ledge and it's huecos visible below.

We woke up before the sun, had a quick breakfast and started up. The climbing that day was without a doubt the best of the whole route. Whenever the crack system we were following petered out we could face climb or traverse into another one. All free and at a moderate grade. The stuff dreams are made of ! It took us all day to climb the face and we finally reached the summit ridge around 8pm. We took a short rest at the top and celebrated for a bit, we were ecstatic to have done it, but knew we had a long way to the summit and even further until we were off the mountain. The weather seemed to be deteriorating at that point and I was anxious to finish it off. Unfortunately our ropes got stuck while rappelling down into a notch on the ridge and by the time it was unstuck it was already getting dark. The sky was cloudy and the wind was picking up and so we decided to bivy for the night and continue to the summit at first light. Throughout the night I kept getting woken up by intermittent rain and wind but luckily it held just enough for us to continue with our plan.  

On the morning of day four we reached the summit. Snow was falling over the summit of Cerro Chalten and the Torres were slowly being engulfed in clouds. We started our descent. Firstly by downclimbing the upper section of the Whillans route and then onto the route Judgement Day down the West face. It took us a good amount of time to find the first rappel anchors and unfortunately I took us down a wrong turn and onto unknown terrain. Patagonian descents are always extremely stressful and this one was no different. Our tagline being coreshot we had to rely on a biner block in order to make full length rappels and unsurprisingly our rope got hopelessly stuck in a corner that was running with water. For a long time we tried every trick in the book to try and free the rope, until no other option was left but to climb back up into the freezing water. Mateo heroically went for it, putting on all his goretex and blasting his music, he attached himself to the stuck ropes and daisy soloed back up the pitch. During that time I rigged the next rappel and boiled some hot water to warm him up on his return. Once back, Mateo changed into dry clothes and I continued leading the rappels. As faith would have it we had a few more hanging stations in running water but we were soon in the sun and able to dry everything off. We finally reached the base of the west face around 8pm.

Myself leading pitch 9

Mateo belaying me on pitch 11

Mateo leading pitch 12

Mateo on the summit ridge

We bivied once again somewhere along the descent gully and slowly made our way back to El Chalten the next day. We learned that a number of our friends had been worried about us. We definitely took longer than anticipated, but they were glad to see us safely back in town.

Mandatory blurry summit photo

Our route, with the bivies marked.

We soon learned of the death of two Basque climbers during this weather window. Our friend Cassy had died on the window prior and another climber had passed during the one before that. It became very clear to me at that moment that this season was particularly deadly. Having completed the objective I had set for myself I now could not justify going back into the mountains. I felt Poincenot welcomed us with open arms, and now I needed time to reflect on what I had experienced. Over coffee in Chalten I told Mateo that I would not climb again this season. He said he had been thinking the same thing and so it was decided. I soon messaged my partner in Canada and they changed my flight so that I could return earlier.

Another window came while we were still in town. I decided to simply go trekking by myself, I have many more ideas for first ascents in Chalten and took advantage of the good weather to go explore those ideas. Now I'll just have to come back.

A sunrise I'll never forget.

I'd like to give a very warm thank you to the John Lauchlan Award and the Alpine club of Canada for their support on this trip. It could not have happened without them and I cannot say how grateful I am.