Friday:
Today was our worst day, weather-wise. It rained pretty steadily until 3 p.m. and lots of wind, too, of course. We hung out in the apartment chatting, reading our books, eating and drinking. It was disappointing that Sheri’s first day was so wet, but that’s the same thing that happened to Derek and I on our first day. If you are going to have bad weather, this is the day for it, since you are a bit beat from all the traveling.
At 3 p.m. all three of us went out to hike the Park HQ Loop. This went well until we started to hit the summits, then the wind hit us in all its glory. Sheri got to experience the legendary wind of Patagonia. It knocked us around pretty good, but we continued on to complete the loop.
After some resting back at the apartment, we walked the town so that Sheri could see all her dinner choices. A few of the restaurants were full and we settled on eating at the 24-hour restaurant at the hostel on the northern side of town. This placed served huge portions. Only Derek was able to finish his meal.
Saturday:
We had planned an attempt on Cerro Solo today, but the wind and moisture in the morning changed our minds. Plus, Derek has been fight a bit of a cold. So when Sheri and I headed out for a potentially long loop, Derek decided to stay and rest.
We hiked up, seeing no other people for an hour. Then we saw a group of five coming down. They said conditions weren’t that bad up there, but were getting worse. We knew the winds might thwart our plans and had vowed to turn around when things weren’t fun anymore.
After hiking in the open for the first 90 minutes, we entered a nice forest. Before entering it, we could see that the forest extended for quite a ways up the slope. We figured we’d be fine at least until the forest ended. After one short break, we burst out from the trees and find reasonable wind, so we continued. A number of people were coming down now. The wind picked up considerably as we crested a knoll. I stopped to put on my shell in the lee of a 5-foot tall boulder. Surprisingly, this small boulder gave me nearly complete shelter from the wind if I sat on the ground with my back against it. Sheri arrived a minute later and we took another short break.
This hike has two destinations. The first is a viewpoint on the rounded ridge. It looks down on Laguna del Torre and should have given us an excellent view of Cerro Torre, but it remained hidden in clouds, as it has since we got here. The second destination is the summit of Loma del Pliegue Tumbado. This is 650 feet higher up a steep, but reasonably good trail. As we approached the viewpoint the winds became so strong that it knocked us around and progress was made by leaning heavily into the wind. I stopped and asked Sheri want she wanted to do. She said, “This is stupid. Let’s just go to the viewpoint.” When I suggested going to the summit and seeing if we could descend the other side, she reminded me of my pledge to turn around if it wasn’t fun. I told her, “You believed that? I was just saying that to get us out the door.” The summit was so close, I couldn’t turn around without at least tagging it.
We agreed that we’d go to the viewpoint and then I’d take off for the summit and Sheri would head down, waiting for me at the start of the forest. Once at the viewpoint the wind was worse, if anything, and Sheri sat down to get some tiny shelter from the wind. I took off for the summit, hiking pretty fast, as the wind was mostly at my back. I felt like a sailboat, angling my backpack so that it would push me a bit up the slope, using my feet as a keel to maintain course. Once I intersected the trail I followed it. Going one direction I was pushed nicely and then struggled into the wind on the alternate switchbacks.
The trail was mostly dirt down below and smooth. I moved continuously, as I usually do, and perhaps a bit faster than normal to tag and get back to Sheri. I passed a party of two who were taking a break and then caught another two that were seated and resting. Just as I came upon them, they said, “Wow, you are amazing! You never stop and were way down there just a few minutes ago. We watched you climb up here.” That was a nice ego boost. I figure I’m the worst climber in El Chaltèn right now and maybe the slowest hiking climber, but I’m not the slowest hiker in the area! This couple was with the other two that I had passed and were from Georgia. Hiking mountains like this was unusual for them. Just continuing up in these winds was impressive. They just took lots of breaks and endured it.
I tagged the top and then explored the descent on the other side, just a tiny bit, to make sure our idea would go. I think it would and might try it before the trip is over. After a summit selfie I descended to find the Georgians about five minutes from the top, resting together. I bid them farewell and then did my first running of the trip. Well, scooting, anyway. I wanted to catch up to Sheri as soon as possible so that she wouldn’t get bored or cold waiting for me. I found here just inside the woods, sitting on a nice log in the sun, with her shell off, reading on her phone. Sweet.
We hiked two hours back to the apartment (5.5 total hours on this hike) and Sheri was pretty sore by the time we got there. She hasn’t done any hiking this long since her Colorado Trail trip in August. I cooked dinner for us all that night and we watched a movie on my laptop while eating it.
The weather is turning good. Tomorrow we will climb around town and pack up to approach Piedra Negra on Monday. We hope to climb the Brenner Route (6b, 5.10c) on the Aguja Guillamet on Tuesday, the best weather day. We are excited to finally be heading into the mountains for a major climb. Our loads will be heavy so we plan to start early (like 8 a.m.) so that we have time to get there, setup camp, and have time to rest. If the climb goes well, we could hike out on Tuesday as well, or spend another hike before hiking out. Unfortunately, the weather window ends on Wednesday. It would be a reasonable window to climb Fitz Roy, if any of the routes are in condition, but I suspect, after two weeks of bad weather, that most routes up there will be too snowy and icy. But it doesn’t matter, as we are not mentally ready for Fitz Roy. I know I had thought we might go directly for Fitz Roy, but talk like that is easy when you are six thousand miles away from it. In truth, we aren’t mentally ready for Fitz Roy, without any experience at the approaches and the climbing here. We need a smaller objective first.
The Guillamet is a major Patagonian summit, though looks almost insignificant next to Fitz Roy. After a glacier approach to a pass, we’ll do about 13 pitches of rock climbing (two of these pitches are long 5.10 crack climbing) before hitting the summit snowfields. We’ll carry boots, crampons, and an axe up the route for that part. We’ll then rappel the upper part of the route and then rappel down a snow/ice couloir to descend. At least that is the plan. Hopefully the cracks will be snow/ice free, but there is only one way to find out. Success is most definitely not assured.
No comments:
Post a Comment