Jan

January 17th, 2009

Hey Everyone!

Here’s the latest update from the Woolly Crew Patagonia Expedition 2008/2009.
After festering in town for a couple weeks during the incessant mal tiempo, a few promising days appeared on the forecast. A one-day window appeared followed a few days later by a 40 hour window of warm temps and low winds. Our initial plan was a bit optimistic and called for us to hike up to Paso Superior and climb the Whillans Route on Aguja Poincenot during the 1-day window, hike down town and rest for a few days and then go to the Torre Valley for the longer window and try a big rock climb. Well, the reality was that we hiked up the 5000′ vertical feet from town to Paso Superior and were way too tired to climb the next day. The weather really didn’t look too promising anyway and we learned that 2 of the other 3 parties going for Poincenot bailed with only the Welsh hardmen summiting. All 5 of the parties going for the Franco-Argentine on Fitz Roy bailed complaining about iced up cracks and temps too cold for climbing. The only person besides the Welsh to climb that day was Colin Haley putting in an incredible effort to solo the Super Canaleta on Fitz Roy – awesome! We resigend ourselves to just scope out the approach to Poincenot and stash our gear for a proper attempt a few days later.

Well, our plan worked. We hiked back up to Paso Superior with light packs and actually felt still somewhat rested when we arrived. We settled in to our bivy with the promising view of stars overhead and great climbing conditions the following morning. Erik had the alarm set for 2am and we even remembered to bring the coffee and french press. Of course we still managed to forget our sweet loaf of breakfast bread and had to get psyched up to go by sharing a package of Frutigran cookies instead. We set off across the glacier a little after 3am under a bright moonlight that rendered our headlamps unnecessary. We made good time to the bergshrund near the base of the route and got there before dawn, but that’s when the disappointment of seeing all the climbers ahead of us damped our spirits. There were 2 parties ahead of us, which normally might not be a bad situation, but one party was composed of (I think) 5 members and the other party had 4 climbers. These parties were not moving eficiently as smaller groups of leaders and followers, but as large masses composed of one leader each followed by several others in differeng methods of ascension. Some were climbing, others jugging, and always there remained large groups at the belays. We were definitely disappointed and considered bailing since passing this many people seemed impossible unless we soloed through them all. But with the forecast being good for up to 40 hours we decided to stick it out and see what happened.

The climbing started with an exposed traverse onto the bottom of the snow ramp that composed the first part of the route. The ramp itself was fantastic with mostly good neve occasionally interspersed with some good, solid ice in which to place ice screws. We belayed the 1st 2 pitches and then simul-climbed the rest of the ramp getting solid rock gear for most of the protection. In this fashion we caught up to the other parties quickly at the top of the ramp. The next part of the route is the crux and is supposed to follow a mixed chimney for 1 or 2 pitches. We were stuck below the larger groups and could not see around the corner into the route. We were puzzled by the fact that they said the regular route was not in and they both chose 2 different variations. One group chose to go up a steep water-ice pitch further to the left. This looked like good climbing, but the sun was warming and deteriorationg the ice faster than the leader could scratch up it. He eventually made it but his followers completely hacked the pitch to death so that it didn’t even exist after they got through with it. The other party chose to rock climb up between the regular route and the ice pitch. Even with rock shoes on, it took 2 different leaders aid and free-climbing to make it through this section. One of the followers on this variation, climbing in boots crampons took a fall and scratched himself up a bit. We waited patiently while watching the gong-show until enough people had left the belay that we could move up and see what our options would be. We were shocked to peer around the corner and see the regular route in great mixed-climbing conditions. Erik managed a few tenuous slab moves in his boots before re-donning his crampons and tackling the super fun chimney. The warm temps made it a bit drippy but still a blast. I took over for the steep finish through the chimney which required a short tension traverse around some verglased blocks. Finally we were throught he crux and could now see the long traverse onto the South Face that continues to the upper part of the route.

At the start of the traverse we stashed the 2nd rope, ice screws, a set of crampons, and one set of ice tools. We had heard that the upper part of the route followed mostly broken rock and that shorter rappels were preferable. With an incredible view of the Torres to inspire us we put our fears at the late hour away and continued up. The climbing went quickly and was really fun. Most pitches were composed of short, boulder problems on good granite interspersed with easier rubble scrambling. Unfortunately, we could still never get by the other parties stretched all over the route. That was ok though, we were truly revelling in the experience that is climbing in patagonia. The route continued to get better with some great pitches higher up. Twice I had to use crampons while leading but Erik managed to sneak by in his boots while seconding. We had brought a pair of rock shoes but opted to leave them in the pack since our boots were climbing well and the climbing never seemed to exceed 5.9.

Finally the top appeared and we got our first glimple of Fitz Roy. We took turns climbing up and down to the tiny blade of perfect granite that is the summit. It was shortly before sunset and the massive, pyramidal shadow of Poincenot spread out before us as we stood on top. The view to the west was unreal as we saw pink clouds above the Southern Patagonian Icecap stretch into Chile. We celebrated for a brief moment and then commenced the innumerable rapplels.

The sun set about an hour into our descent and we broke out the puffy jackets and the headlamps. We were comforted by the fact that we could monitor the descent progress of our friends Joel & Neil on Aguja St. Exupery. Their headlamps shone back at ours as we all rappeled through the night. Our only break occured sometime around 2am as Erik´s alarm went off for again and we stopped to eat our salami sandwiches. We eventually reagained our gear cache and were relieved to start making 60m rappels down the chimney and onto the top of the ramp. Our second sunrise on the route caught us in nearly the exact same spot we had been 24 hours earlier-just at the bottom of the ramp. Unfortunately our exhaustion began to overcome us and the last few raps were exercises in patience as our 8mm tag line continued to tangle itself into a gigantic wad of spaghetti noodles. Finally we re-led the traverse back onto the glacier and could relax, or so we thought. Even though it was early in the morning, the intense sun was heating the glcier rapidly and we realized we had to get back to camp as quickly as we could.

The super-warm temps required us to take a far more circuitous path back to camp and we roasted on the glacier, but we were still super stoked nonetheless. We finally made it back to Paso Superior and rested a bit, yet there was no relief from the sun and we were totally parched. Ironically we still had to melt snow for water. Being thoroughly exhausted, all we wanted to do was crash out, but we knew the high winds would return that night and our descent still required us to negotiate an exposed ridge leading down to the Glacier de los Tres. So we packed up all our stuff and began the long trudge back to town. The first part on the glacier went smoothly, but we began to really notice our fatigue on the steep trail down frm Laguna de los Tres. The seemingly endless hike would normally have been passed in a satisfied blur, but even the ipod couldn’t block out the pain of the 50lbs on my back and the lack of a framesheet in my pack.
Unbelievably we made it back to Casa Blanca at about 11pm, right at the same time as Neil & Joel! We quickly downed a beer left in the fridge for us by our roommated Sam & Rob and proceeded directly to get a steak. Finally at 2am we slipped into our sleeping bags at the house a full 48 hours after waking from our bivy. By far the longest push we´ve ever done. Needless to say we slept most of the next day, waking only to drink water and eat a bit.

I hope you enjoyed the story. Here’s a few photos to bring it more to life.

The first one shows the East Face of Aguja Poincenot. The Whillans Route starts on the hanging glacier and follows the obvious leftward-rising snow ramp. The upper part continues on the South Face-roughly the left skyline.