Patagonia, Part 11: Fitz Roy Attempt! (?)

Fitz Roy from Laguna de Los Tres. Our route ascends the glacier on the far side.

Photos

Strava - approach

Strava - retreat (somehow I stopped the first track by accident)

Thursday:

Today was the last good weather day of the trip. We would leave El Chaltén at 7 a.m. Saturday morning and Friday looked bad. If we were going to go for it, it would have to be today. Fitz Roy had not been climbed in under a day, roundtrip, from town before, though Colin Haley and Andy Wyatt only took 21h08m via the Supercanaleta from the bridge over the Rio Eléctrico. So here was our chance to get in the record book. Even if we failed, it would be an audacious attempt.

We started at 5:30 a.m. Already it doesn’t sound serious, but it gets better (worse?). We didn’t bring a rope. Or harnesses. Or rock shoes. Or any gear. So bold! Right? Actually, just the opposite. We are so intimidated by this peak that it was just a recon trip up to Paso Superior, where we’d bivy on a real attempt. We are also so inspired that we plan to return here, now that we know a little bit about the place and can train for another year.

We hiked into Laguna de Los Tres - probably the most popular destination in the entire park, and rightfully so. The view of the massif is beyond ridiculous. Since we went pretty early, we didn’t face the massive conga line that Sheri was forced to stand in. Still there were people to pass, but it wasn’t a problem.

Descending the first fixed line around Los Tres

Laguna de Los Tres is to Fitz Roy as Chasm Lake is to Longs Peak. The approach to Los Tres much longer, at 7.5 miles, but the vertical gain is similar (around 3000 feet for Los Tres and 2600 for Chasm). But then there are significant differences in the final ascent. From Chasm Lake you have 2400 feet to climb to the summit. From Los Tres you have 7700 feet left to climb. More than triple the height for Longs! Plus, on Fitz Roy, you have to negotiate glaciers, ice falls, ice climbing, multiple crevasses and bergschrunds and have a minimum of 16 pitches of rock climbing at minimum of 5.10b. That’s the equivalent of two North Chimney/Diamonds stacked on top of each other. And probably the most serious aspect of all is that this is the easiest line of ascent, meaning you have to rappel down the equivalent vertical of El Cap. So, yeah, this is by far the toughest mountain I’ve ever considered.

True, we didn’t even try this mountain, for all of the above reasons. We weren’t mentally ready to tackle such a mountain, nor did we get a weather window that was wide enough for us to attempt it with a reasonable degree of safety. But we’re putting in the necessary work to get our minds ready for a future attempt.

Fixed lines leading to Paso Inferior

Once at the lake, we traversed around the south side to a small stream crossing, where we re-filled our water bottles. We then had to traverse along the lake to the north, on the west side. This looks problematic from the end of the trail, but there are a number of fixed lines that make this more reasonable. The first drops straight down and was really intimidating to me, until I got to the edge. The terrain is steep, but probably just low 5th class. Hence, you don’t need to rappel these lines (and you probably couldn’t as they are strung pretty tight). We used them as a hand line and climbed down. One rope down, then a rope across, then another rope down. We then hiked/scrambled further north to a final line that went straight up. From there we were back to hiking, mostly across solid talus to the mini lake that is west of Los Tres.

At this higher lake, we found Javier and Juan. Two badasses from northern Spain. Javier Seinem, Juan told us, was the most prolific first ascensionist in Spain. It was his 55th birthday today. He’d previously climbed Cerro Torre via the Compressor Route, Fitz Roy via the Franco-Argentine, and Aguja Standhardt via Tomahawk (Conrad Anker’s route) to Exocet. Juan was his protege — “él es el futuro” as Javi put it. They were planning to do the Casorotta Route on the Goretta Pillar of Fitz Roy. They had already been up to Paso Superior once before with all their gear and had dug a snow cave up there. They were now headed up with food and clothes and hoped to give the route “a look” on Saturday, as the weather Friday was supposed to be bad. So, we stumbled upon a team to guide us up to Paso Superior. Nice.

Switching back into crampons at the top of the rock step above Paso Inferior

These two were super friendly and we followed them up the lower glacier. We briefly took the lead when they stopped to shed and they resumed the lead when we did the same. This is what we wanted anyway. While we could see the snowed-over track from their last trip, we couldn’t see the crevasses. The last time they were up there, they could see the crevasses, but now snow had hidden them. All four of us climbed unroped, as neither party carried a rope. I asked Rolo about this and he said he’s never roped up climbing to Paso Superior and does it “banzai” style. This seemed to suit us, as my partner was a Samurai packer.

The angle wasn’t too steep to begin with and we climbed up either hard snow or ice covered with an inch or two of snow up to the first steep section, where the snow was deeper and Juan was in front, probing for the bergschrund. He located it without falling into it and then carefully stepped over it. There was solid ice on the other side and he got solid sticks with his axe. Above we front-pointed for fifty feet before the angle eased and the snow returned.

At Paso Superior. Juan and Javi are trying to find the snow cave they previously dug.

We continued up towards a notch that was west and a bit higher than the low point on the ridge. This is called Paso Inferior. To get to the ridge we ascended fixed lines over rock. The difficulty of this rock is similar to the lines around the lake: 4th class to low 5th. We ascended up the lines hand-over-hand, our crampons scraping on the rock. At the top, we pulled off crampons and just carried them in our hands up 200 vertical feet of rock (class 2). We then put the crampons back on and made a rising traverse along the ridge, below Punta Velluda. We passed another bergschrund along here. Juan led, breaking trail through virgin snow.

Paso Superior is a serious place. It’s a tiny little bowl in a notch on the ridge, with hanging glaciers on both side of the ridge and an imposing rock wall directly to the west. The route up Fitz Roy descends, via a fixed line, fifty feet down to the north to gain the Glacier Piedras Blancas Superior. This is followed (frequently an energy sapping slog that sometimes requires floatation) up to the rock pyramid of Fitz Roy. Just as we got here, the clouds rolled in and we could no longer see most of this pyramid. The wind came up and it suddenly became cold, after being borderline hot on most of the way up. We declined to go further. Instead we had a little something to eat and drink and then bid farewell and good luck to Juan and Javi.

Fixed lines and descent down to the Glacier Piedras Blancas Superior from Paso Superior

I had originally hoped to climb Punta Velluda or Cerro Madsen (the peak east of Paso Inferior), but both looked a lot more challenging up close. With bad weather moving in and no rope or gear, we decided to leave those for another time. We reversed our route all the way back to Laguna de Los Tres, without incident, though taking special caution crossing the bergschrunds. I did manage to stab my right calf with my crampons. I didn’t break the skin but it gave me a serious Charlie horse. Pro tip: don’t do this.

When we changed out of our boots and back into our trail runners, we both put on shorts. It wasn’t the warmth that drove me to the shorts, but my pants were a bit wet from all the snow travel. Now, in the early afternoon, the crowd at the lake was prodigious. It was by far the most people I’ve seen congregated anywhere on this trip. I don’t blame anyone for wanting to come to this lake, but the crowds certainly diminish the appeal and we moved on without much delay. Besides, when we arrived in the morning, there was not a cloud in the sky. Now, Fitz Roy was back under its near-constant blanket of swirling mist. The crowds descending the very steep, rocky, loose trail below the lake were thick, but we managed to pass frequently, whenever a good option allowed. We were mostly able to move at our own pace via some aggressive rock hopping

Derek ascending the final fixed line used to traverse around Laguna de Los Tres

We hiked by Laguna Capri, hoping to meet up with Sheri there. It was a bit cold, windy, and overcast there, so I didn’t expect to see her waiting for us. The conditions were fine if you were moving, but you’d quickly get cold just sitting. We continued down and eventually ran into the worse trail traffic jam I’ve ever seen. Anyway. The only jam that comes close is the Mist Trail in Yosemite. In both cases the trail is so narrow and the line of people to pass so great, that there is nothing to do, but to sit in the line and creep along. It was frustrating to look ahead and see one person in front of the 100-person line and not stepping to the side. Of course, it wasn’t just that one person, as a number of people behind him were also fine with his pace, but when you have 100 people all clogged together, the pace is not right.

Massive crowds at the lake on our way out.

Some hikers did step off and when we were just thirty people from the front and the trail opened up a bit, I couldn’t take it any longer. I ran along the alternate paths that now appeared and in just a minute, I was ahead of everyone and able to settle into a reasonable pace. Derek did something similar, jogging through some shrubbery to catch me. With less than a kilometer to go, I noticed a familiar black shell in front of us. It was Sheri. We chatted the rest of the way down. Sheri had attempted to hike to Laguna Sucia, but was stopped by the sign that said “Danger. Proceed only with permit from the park.” Derek and I had hiked by a number of these signs throughout the trip, but we forgot about this one and failed to give Sheri all the beta she needed to ascend the imposing wall that gets around this apparent dead end. Hence, while she didn’t get to the lake, she made a valiant try.

The totals for this trip were just under 20 miles and 6500 vertical feet. Getting a full load of gear to Paso Superior would be a full-day of serious work. I couldn’t have done the fixed lines with the loads we carried to Piedra Negra. Probably taking multiple trips, like Juan and Javi, is the right approach. There were good bivy spots at the small lake above Los Tres where you could stage more supplies. We both felt just knowing this approach helped increase our confidence for a future Fitz Roy attempt. We think this is a necessary learning process for us. Others might just go at the peak, as I had originally hoped. But looking at this route in the guidebook and in person are two different things. Fitz Roy is no joke. It’s the real deal.