First Dave and I, in conjunction with Mark and Steve, climbed the Whillans Route on Poincenot in a 29-hour roundtrip push from Paso Superior. The route was plastered with snow and ice from a recent storm, which added some enjoyable mixed climbing to the ascent.
Poincenot as seen during the approach. Fitz Roy is hidden in the clouds to the right.
The initial ice ramp:
Steve aid climbing iced-up cracks higher on the route:
Dave, with Cerro Torre and the continental icecap beyond:
The summit:
We topped out around 9pm and rappelled all night. We experienced several inches of snowfall during the descent.
Next Yuko and I hiked our gear into the Torre valley (about 20 miles round-trip) in a windstorm:
A few days later, a brief weather window arrived!
We climbed Torre de la Media Luna with Mark via the route "Rubio y Azul". The temperature was around freezing and some of the cracks were iced up. This route took us around 18 hours from camp.
Yuko leading splitter cracks low on the route:
Me belaying, with awesome views in all directions:
Mark leads the amazing headwall cracks:
Yuko and Mark on the summit plateau:
The following week, we had yet another brief weather window. Yuko and I climbed the North Ridge of Aguja de la S in 16 hours round trip. We encountered cold temperatures, occasionally strong winds and snow flurries, all of which added to the ambiance of our ascent.
The upper pitches of the route:
Yuko leading on amazing granite flakes:
Yuko on the summit:
In addition to climbing some great routes, we met many cool people in Chalten, which was perhaps the best part of the trip. Celebrating our ascents in town:
We stopped by Buenos Aires on our way back. It's a cool city, reminiscent of Chicago but bigger and perhaps cleaner & safer:
This trip was amazing and we will hopefully return to Patagonia soon! Maybe we will even get a "real" weather window next time...
