Fin de la Temporada - Care Bear Traverse and Mermoz Solo

The weather here in El Chalten remained poor for all of January and most of February, with only the occasional one-day mediocre window. Fortunately, unlike an expedition to Alaska or the Himalaya, the time spent waiting in Patagonia is quite enjoyable - you can live indoors, eat fresh fruit and vegetables, and stay in shape with excellent hiking, sport climbing and bouldering around town. The weather in the alpine was so bad for so long that I even managed to climb my first 7C+ (5.13a) redpoint, and my first V8!

Finally, in late February, something changed in the weather patterns, and for the past couple weeks we have been getting several two to four day weather windows, divided by only minor periods of storm. Unfortunately, after such a long period of bad weather, the peaks were more rimed up than I have ever seen before, and conditions for rock climbing were extremely bad. For this reason Rolo and I passed up several decent weather days waiting for conditions to improve. During the first properly good weather window the most successful climbs were several ascents of Supercanaleta, which is climbable in worse conditions than most routes as it is usually climbed without rock shoes. During this window Rolo and I attempted Aguja Kakito. We were beaten back by the iced-up cracks, but nonetheless had a good day out, with nice photo opportunities!

Rolo following a pendulum on Aguja Kakito, with the Torres and Aguja Desmochada behind:


Rolo following a traversing pitch, with Aguja Desmochada behind:


High on Aguja Kakito, with the Glaciar Piedras Blancas below:


Bow down:


High on Aguja Kakito, with Mermoz and Guillaumet behind:


An evening reflection on Laguna Capri on a rest day afterwards:


During the next, better weather window, Rolo and I made the fourth ascent of the "Care Bear Traverse" (a ridge traverse of Aguja Guillaumet, Aguja Mermoz, and Fitz Roy, established in 2008 by Freddie Wilkinson and Dana Drummond). We had already made the second ascent of this traverse last year, and this year we had hoped to climb something more, but the remaining icy conditions for rock climbing made even just another "lap" on this traverse a tiring endeavor.

Myself and Rolo about to start the Brenner Ridge on Aguja Guillaumet:


Rolo battling snowy conditions on the ridge between Guillaumet and Mermoz:


Rolo on rappel and more snowy conditions between Mermoz and Fitz Roy:


On the ridge between Mermoz and Fitz Roy, with the northern aspects of Fitz Roy behind:


Rolo following a pitch high on Fitz Roy's North Pillar in the evening, with Mermoz below:


Sunset over the icecap from a bivy on the North Pillar:


Rolo following the last rock pitch on the Casarotto route. Note how rimed up the top of the North Pillar is below, even after several sunny days (melting seems to be much slower than in December, when the sun is stronger):


Rolo nearing the summit of Fitz Roy with the Torres and the icecap behind. Our third time summiting Fitz Roy together in tennis shoes (not necessarily reccommended!):


After the Care Bear Traverse Rolo had to drive north to Bariloche to participate in a guides' course. One last two-day weather window appeared, and so I made soloing plans in the Torre Valley. While trying to psyche up for a very difficult objective at the Niponino bivouac, I realized that I didn't feel mentally strong enough in the moment to make a solo attempt on what I had planned, and thus decided on an easier climb. But alas, in my pre-dawn stupor I forgot a few essential items in my tent while departing Niponino, and only realizing this a couple hours above Niponino, I had no choice but to descend, a bit disappointed in myself. I dried out my equipment for several hours at Niponino, and in the afternoon began the hike to town.

I reached El Chalten at 8pm, and immediately checked the weather forecast - The next day was still supposed to be good! I immediately re-packed, got a few hours of sleep, and at 6am caught a taxi out of town to Rio Electrico, bound for Aguja Mermoz. Despite the insufficient amount of rest, I felt good, and managed to solo the Argentine route on Mermoz in 16:15 car-to-car (3:45 base to summit), self-belaying on two pitches. I once again used my dorky helmet-cam, so you can expect another dorky soloing video once I find the time to edit the footage.

Now the days are getting short, the nights long and cold, and I'm packing my things.

Hasta el proximo año mi amor!!!

Guillaumet Solo

Aguja Guillaumet from the east, showing the Amy Route.

Much of my time in Patagonia is spent waiting for a large weather window to try a difficult objective, and I often let pass many mediocre but nonetheless climbable days, which are suitable only for smaller objectives. However, after festering for a while, and with no properly good weather in sight that could be potentially compromised by not being well rested, I figured I might as well head up to Aguja Guillaumet with a mediocre forecast for Dec. 20th. I had already climbed Guillaumet, one of the easiest summits in the range, three times before, so to make it more challenging I opted to head out alone. I chose to attempt the Amy Route because the first half is a snow, ice and mixed gully, and there was no doubt in the forecast that it would be far too cold to wear rock shoes.

Thus, I left El Chalten in a taxi to Rio Electrico early in the morning, and started the approach up to Paso Guillaumet. After spending a while at Paso Guillamet to eat, drink, and rack up, I finally walked up the short bit of glacier to the bergschrund, and started climbing around 10am. The bergshrund was gaping, and required a bit of tricky climbing up some snow and ice plastered to the right wall of the couloir. The couloir itself was easy, however, with a bit of steep snow, easy ice and blocky mixed climbing.

From the notch at the top of the couloir, I took off crampons and headed up the easy rock ridge above, occasionally taking off my gloves for harder moves. The crux pitch is a short 5.9 dihedral, which with rock shoes I would have been happy to free-solo, but with boots and gloves I decided here to use a rudimentary self-belay. Since I knew I would be rappelling down the same route, I could leave several nuts and cams on this pitch for my self-belay and retrieve them on the descent. I re-donned crampons half-way up the last rock pitch because a wide crack was ice up, and soon was walking up the summit snowfield.

I topped out at about noon, and made quick work of the descent - on schedule for an afternoon return to El Chalten, and a nice, relaxing day in total... However, at the notch at the top of the couloir I found an inexperienced climber, by himself, who was very confused as to the whereabouts of his partner, and did not have means to descend, considering that he had with him only two carabiners, a belay device, a single 50m rope, but no hardware whatsoever. After a lot of shenanigans looking for his missing partner, we rappelled the couloir together and began the hike out. His missing partner was soon found, and no harm done except that I ate a much later dinner!

On this climb I experimented with a new toy: a helmet cam. Through my first, laborious experience of editing video footage, I put together a video of the climb for the Black Diamond website: http://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en-us/journal/climb/all/video-bd-athlete-colin-haley-wears-a-helmet-camera-during-a-solo-ascent-of-aguja-guillaumet-in-patagonia

Poincenot Solo

I arrived in El Chalten, Patagonia at the start of a several-day good weather window. Unfortunately, the cold that I had caught right before leaving Seattle had not been cured by four days of stressful travel, and I was forced to pass two good weather days in town. Since I wasn't healthy to take advantage of the full weather window I told Rolo he ought to find another partner, and I made solo plans for myself to use what remained of the good weather. The Whillans Route (650m, 5.9, M4) on Aguja Poincenot was the first route I ever climbed in Patagonia, and would make a good solo I thought. It is an elegant and classic route, winding up an amazing spire but with moderate climbing.

On Monday I hiked from town to a bivy at Laguna de los Tres. It is typical to hike up the glacier and bivy at Paso Superior, but temperatures were much higher than normal, and I hoped that if I waited until early morning the glacier would re-freeze from the sloppy condition it was in. Thus, I left Laguna de los Tres at 4:30am yesterday morning, but to my dismay the glacier was still in terrible condition, with lots of slushy post-holing. I arrived at Paso Superior at 6:00am, and rushed up the glacier above as quickly as I could, because the 300m meter snow ramp that comprises the first half of the Whillans Route was already bathed in sun.

I decided to attempt the route in what I call "Yosemite Style" - that is, without a backpack and instead just a few bare essentials clipped to my harness. Thus, with one liter of water, six GU packets and a windbreaker I crossed the first of three bergshrunds at 7:30am, in rapidly deteriorating snow conditions. The ramp was in terrible shape, with knee-deep slush on an exposed 60-degree angle. From climbing in the Cascades I am very familiar with all sorts of bad snow conditions, so I still felt comfortable with the climbing, but nonetheless the ramp was much slower and more tiring than normal. At the end of the ramp is a mixed chimney, that was dripping with water in the exceptionally hot conditions. It is also the crux of the route, and in this section I made two "back-loops" (a rudimentary form of self-belaying).

Above the mixed chimney the route follows broken rock for about 300m to the summit. Conditions were just barely dry enough to climb entirely in rock shoes, and this allowed me to comfortably free-solo sections that would've required a self-belay in boots. I reached the summit at 11:30am and began the long descent. I had hoped to down-climb most of the ramp, particularly since I had brought only one rope, but given the increasingly slushy snow conditions I was concerned about getting swept off in a wet-slide, and opted to rappel all of it. After rappelling and jumping over the bergshrunds, all that was left was to swim down-glacier through the slush and then batter my knees on the hike back to town. Fortunately I arrived just in time for an asado de cordero...


My moment of fame - an interview on Radio FM Chalten. It seems that at 7pm on a Sunday the radio is run and listened to exclusively by teenage girls.


Aguja Poincenot from Laguna de Los Tres. The Whillans Route climbs the diagonal snow ramp across the East Face, a mixed chimney to gain the left-hand skyline, and then broken rock just around the skyline to the summit.


Looking down from half-way up the ramp:


At the entrance of the mixed chimney:


Looking down from the top of the mixed chimney:


Splitter 5.9 on the upper rock portion:


On the summit, with the Torres behind:

Fall in Yosemite and the Halloween Linkup

I'm posting this a bit late, but here is a summary I wrote a few weeks ago of my fall pilgrimage to Yosemite:

When most climbers ask me what they should do to prepare for a Patagonia trip, I recommend winter climbing in the Cascades. However, because I come from a snow, ice and bad-weather climbing background, the best preparation I can do is to climb a lot of steep granite, and Yosemite is a perfect training ground. I drove down to Yosemite in early October, and first spent a couple weeks free-climbing. I soon decided though that it was time to finally climb my first El Cap big-wall route. As a warm-up, and to refresh my memory on short-fixing techniques, I first climbed the West Face of Leaning Tower with a friend from Squamish, Nick Elson. Next up was an enjoyable day-trip up Lurking Fear with fellow Seattle-ite, Graham Zimmerman.

Lurking Fear had gone quite smoothly, and so I decided I ought to finally climb "the best rock climb in the world," The Nose. Several of my friends had already just recently climbed The Nose and thus weren't interested, so I scanned the Yosemite Lodge cafeteria in search of a partner. Big-wall soloist Dave Turner has already climbed El Cap countless times, and rarely climbs with a partner at all, so I doubted he would be interested, but nonetheless I offhandedly asked, "Hey Dave, wanna climb The Nose tomorrow?" A pleasant surprise, Dave agreed immediately, and a few hours later we were racking up.

To take full advantage of Dave's superb aid-climbing skills, we decided to break the climb in two lead blocks: mine the longer but technically easier block to the base of the Great Roof, and Dave's the steeper block from there to the top. Starting by headlamp at 4am, we weren't dilly-dallying but also weren't especially trying to climb fast. Thus we were nicely surprised to top out in bright afternoon sun eleven-and-a-half hours later. Considering how easily the route had gone by, Dave suggested on the hike off that we try the Half Dome - Nose linkup a few days later. I hadn't ever heard of anyone doing the linkup so late in the season, with such short, chilly days - but what the hell, at least it'd be good Patagonia training! I agreed it was an excellent idea, and a few mornings later, on the last day of October, we were hiking up the "Death Slabs" to the base of Half Dome's Northwest Face.

There were spots of water-ice on the "Death Slabs," and so considering the chilly air we decided to start Half Dome at the warmest time of the day, and started our linkup at 3:58 pm. Like on El Cap, I led the first half, and Dave took the trickier upper half. I had only climbed Half Dome once, four years ago, but Dave knew the route well. Topping out at 9:30 pm, we were enthused to be ahead of schedule, and scurried down the cables, back down the "Death Slabs," and to our bikes at Mirror Lake.

By midnight we were parked in El Cap meadow, blasting Ace of Base, MC Hammer and other appropriately cheesy music to psyche up for The Nose. After cramming in some food and chugging water, we walked up to El Cap, and started The Nose at 12:30 am. Since our previous climb of The Nose was my first I had taken some extra time to find the route, but now that I knew where to go I could climb a bit faster, even by headlamp. I finished my last pitch, to the base of The Great Roof, at 6:30 am, thankful to finally take off my rock shoes and headlamp.

Dave blasted off, efficient-as-ever, and soon I was jugging up behind him. As the upper pitches flowed by, I began to look at the watch more often - Our intention was to complete the linkup in under 24 hours, but I began to make 20 hours the new goal in my mind, and yelled up to Dave that it ought to be our new goal, although it was hard to say if it would be realistic or not. As Dave started up the final bolt ladder I yelled something like, "Fifteen minutes to twenty hours!," and he yelled back, "Well, I'll make it under twenty, but I don't know about you!" When the rope was fixed I jugged as fast as possible, and then ran up the final slab with a huge cluster of rope and gear hanging off me. At the tree I immediately pulled out the watch: 11:58 am - 20 hours to the minute!

Serious climbing? NO. Are these Yosemite linkups and speedclimbing just fun and games? YES. But it's certainly good Patagonia training! Dave is en route to El Chalten right now, and I will be a couple weeks later...

Climbing "Butterballs" at the Cookie Cliff.


Butterballs is a spectacular splitter finger crack. Still though, the Cookie Cliff is no comparison to The Lower Town Wall at Index.


Tom Evans shot some photos from El Cap meadow while Dave and I were making our first Nose warm-up. This is me leading near the end of my block, in the grey bands.


The beauty of short-fixing: Dave already thirty feet up the next pitch as I finish the last lower-out on the Great Roof.


Dave beginning the third pitch of his block, as I'm jugging the second.


Powered by MC Hammer, Dave in El Cap Meadow, half-way through the linkup.

Slesse, East Face Attempt (or why Sean Easton is badass)

On Wednesday through Friday Dylan Johnson and I made an attempt on Slesse's East Face route. Established in July 1997 by Sean Easton and Dave Edgar, the East Face of Slesse is most likely the hardest route in the Cascades, and like most of the Cascades hardest routes (pretty much all the rest were established by Pete Doorish), it remains unrepeated, despite several subsequent attempts. The most recent attempt was by Squamish climbers Will Stanhope and Andrew Boyd, who decided after 3.5 pitches that the rock quality wasn't up to snuff for their free-climbing ambitions. Dylan and I similarly made it only a whopping 7 pitches up the wall. Hat's off to Sean and Dave for climbing this beast! (And for those who aren't familiar with it, check out the 2003 AAJ for another Sean Easton route, Blood from the Stone, which, in my opinion, is the best route ever climbed in Alaska).

The mighty eastern walls and buttresses of Slesse, from the trailhead:


Dylan on the polished granite slabs of the Pocket Glacier cirque:


Further up the slabs, with the East Face directly above:


Dylan starting up the second pitch:


And starting the fourth pitch, which gained a bivy terrace:


After arriving at the bivy terrace, I headed up the most obvious feature above, which we thought to be the route. I led and fixed one long pitch, which was the hardest aid pitch I've ever led (a scary basalt dyke), then returned to the terrace for the night's bivy:


Colin jugging back up the fixed pitch the following morning:


I led another aid pitch up the basalt dyke feature, which turned out to be technically easier than the first, but even more terrifying. After gingerly negotiating many loose obelisks of basalt directly above Dylan's belay, I finally found an anchor worthy of lowering off of, and headed back down. Starting up this scary pitch:


Realizing we were off route for sure, we rappelled back down to the bivy terrace, and decided it was time to bail (although on our way down we found where the correct route continues, on a much less obvious feature, but on better rock):

Another Expedition Fails on the Choktoi...

Despite 30 years of expeditions by many of the world's best alpinists, Pakistan's Choktoi Glacier maintains a 0.0% success rate on the magnificent objectives that are accessed there (Latok 3, Latok I, Latok 2, Ogre 2, Ogre I). The snowpack this year in the Karakorum was the biggest since 1976 according to the locals, which made glacier-travel easy and ridge-climbing difficult. Here is a report on the most recent Choktoi failure, in the words of Dylan Johnson:

______________________________________________
Funded in part by a Mugs Stump Award, Josh Wharton (with his fiancé Erinn Kelly who would stay in base camp), Colin Haley and I left the States on 9 June to attempt the North ridge of Latok 1 in Pakistan’s Karakorum. After a week of traveling in Pakistan, we arrived at base camp on the upper Choktoi Glacier at 4560m, below the North Ridge.

We completed three acclimatization trips on nearby ridges and peaks. First we spent one night at 5000m on a ridge immediately above base camp. Our second trip involved three days retrieving Colin’s gear cache at 5700m at the Ogre/Ogre II col, left behind during his 2008 attempt on the Southeast Buttress of the Ogre with Maxime Turgeon. Our third and final acclimatization mission took us to the summit of the High Sister at 5800m and an adjacent high glacial plateau where we spent two nights at 5850m.

At midnight on 8 July, with a forecast for three good days followed by a minor 24 hour storm, we started toward the base of the north ridge with three 32 pound packs. Our intended line climbed snow and ice on the east side of the ridge, intersecting the ridge at 6000m above the lower sections of heavily corniced and mushroomed ridge. We reached the base of the technical climbing at dawn and began belaying a 250m water ice step. Colin led the first block of grade 3 and 4 ice topping out on steep snow at 5450m. I led the following block of 60 degree snow and ice to the base of a steep mixed step at 5750m where Josh would take over. Our intended line continued up the steep mixed terrain above, which looked reasonable from base camp, but now appeared exceedingly difficult. We opted to climb a short mixed pitch followed by an arduous snow pitch (courtesy Colin, our unconsolidated snow master) to reach the ridge and a bivi near 5830m.

After stamping out a platform on the narrow double-corniced ridge we discussed our options. The ridge itself was impassable due to the sugary mushrooms and cornices, our only option for ascent was to traverse west off the ridge. From his 2008 attempt, Josh knew the terrain to the west was complex and difficult as well. We decided the climbing was too slow and difficult and the chances of summiting were too slim to justify continuing. We rappelled the lower northwest face the following day and returned to base camp and called in the porters. On our trek out from base camp, we met the Spanish alpinists, Alvaro Novellon and Oscar Perez hiking in to attempt the North ridge as well. May they have better luck than we did, inshallah!

We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the Mugs Stump grant program for their generous support of our expedition.
________________________________________________

The North Faces of Latok 3 (left) and Latok I (center), taken from our basecamp in 2008. The red line shows where we climbed to on our 2009 attempt. We descended on the northwest face (out of the photo, past the North Ridge).


Our awesome and amazing cook, Abdul Ghafoor, who is from the Hunza Valley.


Dylan and Josh during our first acclimatization venture, at 5,000 meters. The words at the top of the Scrabble board are indicative of Expeditionary DSB (Deadly Semen Buildup).


Colin bouldering on the glacier near basecamp. Photo by Dylan.


The Ogre 2 (left) and Ogre I (right) from the Choktoi glacier. Our second acclimatization venture took Dylan and I to the col between the two. Photo by Dylan.


Dylan and Josh hiking up a tributary glacier during our third acclimatization venture.


Acclimatization camping with Latok 3 and Latok I behind.


Josh and Dylan nearing the summit of the highest of the "Three Sisters."


A massive serac avalanche pouring onto the Choktoi Glacier from more than 2,000 meters above on the north face of Latok 3. It dusted our basecamp, on the opposite side of the glacier and past several moraines.


Josh and Dylan following the opening ice pitch during our attempt on Latok I.


Dylan arriving at the top of the ice runnel, a couple hundred meters higher.


Dylan leading a pitch of snow flutings and easy mixed.


Josh on a tiresome 60-degree ice field.


Colin filling bottles during our brew stop at the top of the tiresome 60-degree ice field. Photo by Dylan.


Dylan traversing towards the North Ridge.


Josh arriving on the crest of the North Ridge after the unconsolidated snow pitch.


Dylan belaying as Josh starts stamping a bivy platform.


Our bivy the following morning. We started rappelling towards the left.