A few days ago, on September 7, I kneeled on the summit of Cerro Torre just before 10pm, by myself. In that moment I mostly felt only extremely anxious to get down the mountain safely, but it was the completion of a goal that I had set more than a decade ago. To say that the stars aligned is figurative, but to say that the Sun, Earth, and Moon aligned is in this case literal, and the gorgeous terrain of the Chaltén Massif was illuminated by a brilliantly bright full moon.
I had expended an incredible amount of energy and effort to arrive at the summit, and from that moment on I was simply focused on getting back home safely. 2.5 exhausting days later I reached the road at the Rio Eléctrico bridge, yesterday afternoon, and used my last remaining energy to enjoy an asado with friends in the town of El Chaltén. Today I am still completely worn out, with bruises on my arms, and my hands and feet still somewhat swollen, but I wanted to start writing about this experience while the memories and feelings are fresh in my mind.
In January 2007 I climbed Cerro Torre for the first time with my friend Kelly Cordes, fulfilling a dream that I had held since I was 12 years old, to climb Earth’s most spectacular mountain. We made the first, and still only*, complete ascent of Los Tiempos Perdidos to Cerro Torre’s summit. This superb route first climbs an 800m ice goulotte on the edge of the south face, and then continues another 600m from the Col de la Esperanza up the route of the mountain’s first ascent. This route, while historically often referred to as the “West Face” or the “Ferrari Route,” was first climbed in 1974 by a Ragni di Lecco team, and today is typically referred to as the “Ragni Route.” It is an absolutely fantastic route, and one of the most unique ice climbs on Earth, with amazing ice and rime features formed by the Patagonian winds. Surprisingly, Kelly’s and my ascent was only the 6th time that the Ragni Route had been climbed in completion to Cerro Torre’s summit.
*(Los Tiempos Perdidos was climbed to the summit of Cerro Torre in early 2020 by Korra Pesce and Jorge Ackermann, but on the crux pitch of the climb they opted to jumar the rope of a party in front of them, rather than climb the pitch themselves. Obviously this is a subjective and nuanced question, but personally I have never considered such tactics to make for a legitimate ascent. Los Tiempos Perdidos was also nearly climbed to the summit of Cerro Torre in 2017 by Quentin Roberts and Chris Willie, but they were forced to retreat because Chris was severely injured by falling ice.)
Nearly one year later, in late December of 2007, I was camped alone on the Torre Glacier, my climbing partner having just bailed a couple days before the start of a good weather window. I had set my mind on an idea that I doubt anyone had previously considered, to solo Cerro Torre by the Ragni Route. While the climb with Kelly the previous year had been far from easy, it suited my strengths well, as the hardest climbing was on rime, and I had an extensive background of tricky snow climbing from years of winter climbing in The Cascades. The next morning I departed the Niponino bivouac with a heavy pack, but already at the bergschrund below the Standhardt Col I decided that the goal was too ambitious (at the time I had never done any solo climbing in the Chaltén Massif), and turned around. I had bailed before even making it close to the base of the route, but the seed had been planted to solo Cerro Torre by the Ragni Route.
One year later, in December 2008, a strong Swiss alpinist, Walter Hungerbühler, was in Chaltén without a partner, and asked me if I wanted to go climb the Ragni Route with him. I told him that since I had just climbed it a couple years earlier, if I were to return to the route, it would be to climb it solo. I’m very confident that this idea had not occurred to Walter beforehand, but a handful of days later he made the first solo ascent of the route. I’ve never been the slightest bit upset that Walter “took” my idea, but it was an early lesson to perhaps not share every idea in my mind, as I think the creative aspect of envisioning something new and different is a cool aspect of the art of alpine climbing. Walter deserves full credit for making the first solo of the route, but it should be noted that the route was climbed by ten other people on the very same day, and ten other people a few days previously. This was the first season that the Ragni Route exploded in popularity, and with each team’s passing the route became easier for following teams, as the crux rime pitches get easier each time that a climber hacks and kicks his or her way up them. So, I also learned another lesson at this moment: that if I wanted a true solo experience on the route, I would have to start thinking about avoiding the best summer weather windows, when now there was a significant chance of other parties being on the route.
In early 2013 Austrian über-badass Markus Pucher made the second solo ascent of the route, and while the route was in well-trafficked conditions, he did the climb completely free-solo, in very fast time. He repeated the same incredible feat one year later in 2014.
Since my first time up Cerro Torre with Kelly in 2007, I have climbed the peak many other times with partners, with some of those ascents being among the most important in my life. The dream of climbing the most incredible mountain by myself always remained in the back of my mind, however. Over the years I envisioned different ways of attempting a solo ascent of the Ragni Route, and even a couple times during the spring season I left camp for an attempt only to decide that the weather or conditions weren’t good enough at that moment.
Eventually I decided that the most enticing plan was to attempt a solo ascent of the Ragni Route in the winter season. Doing so would nearly guarantee a true solo experience on the climb, and the additional difficulty of climbing in winter was also an exciting challenge. So, in August of 2013 I travelled to El Chaltén for my first time in the winter season. During this era El Chaltén was still quite deserted in the wintertime, so I saw very few people in town itself, and zero people during any of the forays that I made in the mountains.
During that winter of 2013 I climbed a few easier objectives, and made one real attempt on the Ragni Route on Sept. 14. My attempt ended quite low, only a short ways above the Col de la Esperenza. It was windier than I would have liked, and I was also caught off guard by a factor that I hadn’t anticipated: The Ragni Route, while historically referred to as “the West Face” in fact faces mostly south, which at this latitude means that in the winter season it receives almost zero sun. Being permanently shaded, combined with winter temperatures, means that the ice becomes extremely brittle in the winter season, and sections that I normally would’ve felt very comfortable free-soloing in summer conditions were much more insecure with ice that fractured so easily.
Even if not for the wind and brittle ice conditions, I don’t think that I would have succeeded in 2013. I had underestimated the difficulty of the objective in general. By this time I had already climbed the entirety of the Ragni Route three times, and the upper section of it another two times. I had grown accustomed to it feeling not that hard, and I had not properly anticipated how much harder it would feel solo, and in winter. One of the main lessons I learned in 2013 was that the long approach (the longest in the Chaltén Massif) was vastly more tiring and time-consuming in winter, so I needed to do more preparation of portering gear before making an actual attempt. In 2013 I made just a minor gear cache in the Marconi Valley, and realized in retrospect that I would need to cache gear way out near the base of the climb to have a decent chance of success. In addition, in 2013 I had anticipated free-soloing most of the route, and using some rudimentary self-belay techniques on just a couple pitches. While those tactics would have worked for me in summer, when the route was in well-trafficked conditions, I realized that in winter conditions I would need to self-belay much more of the climbing. Self-belaying is incredibly time and labor intensive… so I turned away from the project for 10 years!
I didn’t tell many people about my attempt in 2013, but to me a wintertime solo of Cerro Torre is an obviously enticing goal, so it wasn’t surprising to discover that Markus Pucher shared the same dream. Markus made solo winter attempts on the Ragni Route in September 2015, and September 2016. In 2015 he turned around just below the Elmo, a bit higher than my 2013 high point. In 2016, however, he climbed all but the last pitch of the route! The last pitch is the definitive crux of the climb, so climbing it or not is a very significant difference, but nonetheless arriving one pitch from the summit of Cerro Torre by oneself in winter is an incredible effort, and one that I highly respect, especially because Markus never hyped up his impressive attempt.
I made my second winter trip to Chaltén in 2019, focused on trying to solo Cerro Chaltén (AKA Fitz Roy) by the Supercanaleta, but I never made an attempt, due to dry conditions and not feeling psychologically ready at that moment (report here). In 2022 I planned to spend most of the Northern Hemisphere summer in the Canadian Rockies, but depressingly-melted conditions and a depressingly-crowded Banff National Park caused me to bail early. Frustrated with the experience, I made a last-minute decision to return to wintertime Chaltén, and that time succeeded to make a solo, winter ascent of the Supercanaleta. It was an intense, amazing experience, that I have written about here.
My wintertime success on Cerro Chaltén in 2022 inspired me in 2023 to return to my old dream of soloing Cerro Torre in winter. I won’t write much about that trip now, because I already wrote an extensive report about it here (and months later I also made a video from that attempt). At this moment, the funniest part of that report to read is this paragraph:
“I hesitated a lot about writing this blog post, and nearly didn’t. I generally prefer to keep quiet about my climbing projects, because it really is nearly never helpful to attract more attention to them. However, in this case I don’t think that I’ll attempt this project again, for a number of reasons. One is that the approach to the Ragni route is exceptionally long, and doing such a long approach by oneself, in winter conditions and with so much weight, is a huge amount of hard labor. Another reason is that the Ragni route gets extremely little sunlight in the wintertime, so it is a particularly cold route to climb in the winter. … But, by far the biggest reason is that I am [once again!] swearing off rope-soloing.”
It is true that after my attempt in 2023 I didn’t plan to attempt this project again. However, events this year unfolded in a surprisingly similar manner as they did for me in 2022. I spent six weeks of this summer in the Karakoram’s Charakusa Valley with my friends Aymeric Clouet and Damien Tomasi. While Aymeric and Damien’s company ensured that it wasn’t a bad time, it was a very unsuccessful trip in terms of climbing. The conditions this summer in the Karakoram were abysmally melted, after multiple consecutive dry winters, and extremely hot summer temperatures. We did a good job of remaining flexible and optimistic, but over the course of the expedition it became increasingly obvious that we shouldn’t be there at all – terrain that would normally be very easy had become outrageously dangerous, and large, natural rockfalls were occurring nearly constantly, day and night.
After making the decision to leave the Karakoram, it took Aymeric, Damien, and I an exhausting 10 days to make it from the Charakusa basecamp back to Chamonix, finally arriving on August 5. It was frustrating to have never had an opportunity during the expedition to make a real attempt on an exciting objective, and I was left with a large supply of pent-up ambition. Conditions in the Mont Blanc Massif were quite melted, and I knew that I wouldn’t get to spend time with my lovely girlfriend until October anyways… So, like in 2022, I made a last-minute decision fueled by recent frustration, and bought flights to El Calafate. I had only 6 full days in Chamonix after my Karakoram expedition, and spent that time in a frenzy of last-minute preparation. On August 13 I arrived in El Chaltén.
After a long, tiring journey from the Charakusa basecamp to Chamonix, 6 very busy days in Chamonix, and finally the travel from Chamonix to El Chaltén, I was extremely tired and would have loved to chill out and rest for a few days. Unluckily, I arrived in Chaltén during the middle of an excellent weather window, so rest was out of the question. This weather window was the best that I experienced during this trip, but unfortunately, attempting my project was also out of the question – I simply had arrived too late. However, I knew from my previous attempts that making a gear cache near the base of the route would be crucial to eventually have decent chances of success, so I was determined to at least use the end of the weather window for a portering mission.
I stayed up late the evening that I arrived in El Chaltén, packing and organizing, and then headed into the mountains early the next morning, on August 14. For this first portering mission I badly wanted to get a gear cache as close to the base of the climb as possible, and I was very short on time, having arrived with the weather window already halfway finished. For this reason, that first morning I did something for my first time ever, and hired a porter in the Chaltén Massif. My friend Jérémias Salinas carried 20kg of my gear to La Playita, so that I could save my energy and make it as far as possible on that first day. In terms of energy, effort, and time, La Playita is only about 15-20% of the way from the road to the base of the Ragni Route, so it doesn’t make a massive difference, but I wanted to mention it for total transparency. Aside from this load that Jéré carried to La Playita, I carried all of my own gear for this climb.
On that first day, August 14, I made it all the way from the road to the entrance of the Circo de las Altares. That is quite a big day, especially considering that starting from La Playita I was carrying a roughly 26kg backpack. After two extremely busy weeks during which I nearly never got enough sleep, and a huge day of load carrying, I slept 12 hours straight in my tent at the entrance of the Circo de las Altares! On August 15 I finished the last part of the approach, climbing to the top of Filo Rosso and making a bivouac there. This last part of the approach has a couple short pitches of technical climbing, and I left a 6mm rope fixed here, to make my future approaches faster and easier. I definitely consider Filo Rosso to be part of the approach, and not part of the Ragni Route proper, but some people might consider this to make my climb not a pure alpine-style ascent. I would argue that it is not very different from the fixed ropes that everyone uses at Paso Superior, that no one even considers to invalidate an alpine-style ascent of Cerro Chaltén. In any case, I mention the fixed rope on Filo Rosso for total transparency. On August 16 I left as much gear as I could possibly justify at the top of Filo Rosso, and made it back to town in one very long day.
My general plan was to get as much of my gear to the base of the route as soon as I possibly could, because I of course had no idea when the weather might allow me to make a real attempt. So, I tried to use any breaks in the weather towards my goal, and after just one day of rest, I was back to portering on August 18. This time I was using a short break in the weather to simply take a load to La Playita, and return to town the same day. I had a 3-day break from portering, and then was back at it on August 22. This time there was again a 1-day lull in the weather, so I left town early with a light backpack, picked up the load that I had previously left at La Playita, and carried it up to the base of Cerro Marconi Norte, a little bit past Paso Marconi. I had enough time and energy to take it farther, but the weather had gotten too rough, so I left it there and returned to town the same day. One very awesome perk of these first 3 portering missions is that Lago Eléctrico was frozen for 2 of them, so I got to walk across at least a portion of the lake 4 times – that saves a lot of time and energy, and was special because Lago Eléctrico rarely freezes.
One week after my third portering mission, a real weather window started on August 27. However, this weather window looked somewhat marginal, and it wasn’t clear if the winds would be low enough for me to have a decent chance of success. In the preceding days I checked the forecast constantly, trying to decide whether or not to make my attempt. In the end I decided to leave town with everything that I needed for a proper attempt, but with the knowledge that it looked likely not good enough, and would likely turn into just a portering mission. I figured that I would be there ready in case it was good enough, but get weather forecast updates along the way.
On August 27 I went from town to the base of Filo Rosso, which is a big day, especially since I was carrying a heavy pack past the base of Cerro Marconi Norte (where I had left my load on August 22). The weather forecast update that I received that evening convinced me that the winds would be too high for a proper attempt. So, the next day, August 28, I simply carried a load to the top of Filo Rosso, and returned to bivy in the same place as the night before, at the base of Filo Rosso. The following day, August 29, I made the long journey from the base of Filo Rosso back to town, with weather good enough that I was constantly questioning my decision not to make a real attempt. My first day back in town, August 30, the weather in the mountains also looked suspiciously beautiful, and I wondered if I had squandered my best opportunity. My friends Kiff Alcocer and Juan Adrogue were attempting Cerro Mariano Moreno during this weather window, and their report of high winds helped ease my concerns that I had made the wrong decision.
Since my arrival in El Chaltén I had been chatting with Ty Lekki about the possibility of him filming my attempt on the Ragni Route by drone. He had already been interested in filming the Ragni Route for a few years, and was keen on the idea. I have done extremely little filming during my climbing career, mostly because alpine-style climbing at a high level is extremely difficult to film well, especially in a small team. Lots of movies are made showing climbing in the mountains, but most viewers don’t realize that it is often a reenactment, or that the film team fixed ropes on some or all of the climb in order to make filming possible. Jerome Sullivan, Christophe Ogier, and Victor Saucède did an excellent job of filming their first ascent Pumari Chhish East, but it is much more feasible in a team of three than in a team of two or solo. I have already thought for several years that drones are the most promising way to film alpine-style climbing at a high level, and I think that David Lama proved this correct during his 2018 first ascent of Lunag Ri in Nepal.
Not long after my fourth portering mission, I was extremely relieved and pleased to see another weather window arriving in the forecast. At first it wasn’t clear how good of a weather window it would be, but Ty and I started making plans to head into the mountains. At this point I had nearly all of my gear already in place, so I could make the approach with a lightweight pack, and I also have pretty much the lightest ski touring setup that money can buy. Ty, on the other hand, had his gear cached only as far as Laguna 14, and doesn’t have such specialized gear as I do, so we figured he would need more time on the approach. After scrutinizing the weather forecast every handful of hours for a couple days, we decided that Ty would leave town on September 2, and I would leave town the following morning. However, by midday on September 2 it was clear that the weather was not getting very good yet, so while Ty made a first bivouac near Laguna 14 I postponed my departure for a day. On September 3 Ty moved his camp up to the edge of the glacier, and confirmed by satellite text message that it was still extremely windy, and that I had made the right decision to postpone for a day.
On September 4 the weather started to improve in earnest, so I left town in the early morning and Ty continued his approach. With my lightweight pack and good snow conditions I was able to move quickly, and I caught up to Ty in the early afternoon at the entrance of the Circo de las Altares. We both skied that afternoon to the base of Filo Rosso, in the back of Circo de las Altares, and bivouacked there just next to one another.
On September 5 I left Ty’s camp in the Circo around 8am, and started making my way up Filo Rosso. With my lightweight pack, and my 6mm fixed rope in place, I was able to pass the terrain quickly, and arrived at the top of Filo Rosso already at 10:45am. Having arrived at the top of Filo Rosso so early, I seriously considered continuing on, and starting the actual climb. However, the next potential bivouac site would be at the base of the Elmo, which is drastically more wind-exposed than the top of Filo Rosso, and on this day there was still a decent bit of wind. In addition, even with a lightweight pack, my previous day of going from town all the way to the base of Filo Rosso was a big effort, and I was somewhat fatigued. So, I spent nearly the whole afternoon chilling on top of Filo Rosso, making just a short excursion to carry my rope and rack up to the bergschrund, to give myself an easier start the next morning.
On September 6 I woke up early (5:00 am, if I remember correctly), and soon was hiking up to the bergschrund to start my attempt. Snow conditions were drastically better than they had been during my 2023 attempt, and my pack was also lighter, having refined my strategy and gear choices a bit. Above the bergschrund I was able to kick steps in snow for a couple rope-lengths before the snow ended and turned to hard ice. I free-soloed the first few rope-lengths of hard ice, to roughly one pitch above the Col de la Esperanza, and then started self-belaying.
Below the Elmo there is a section where one can climb more to the right or more to the left. In 2023 I chose the right option, and decided when descending that I should have chosen the left option. So, this time I chose the left option… and realized soon that I should have chosen the right option! This year the left option brought me to a section of mandatory rime climbing, and I spent a lot of time getting up a short but steep wall of rime, aiding off of pickets for several moves in a row. I arrived to the base of the Elmo sometime around 1:30pm. After my experience of rime climbing just below, I thought it would probably be worth attaching the “wings” to the top of my ice axes that are designed specifically for rime climbing. However, when I got the wings out of my pack, I realized that I had made a careless oversight. At the top of Filo Rosso I had put pick weights onto my ice axes, because they are really useful for the hard, brittle ice that one encounters on the Ragni Route in winter. I figured that I would probably appreciate them for the whole climb, so at the top of Filo Rosso I left behind the small allen wrench that is used to attach them. Only when I took the wings out of my pack at the base of the Elmo did I remember that the wings attach to my ice axes using the same holes that the pick weights do. Without the small allen wrench I couldn’t take off the pick weights, and therefore couldn’t put on the wings! That was a stupid mistake, but there was nothing to do about it at that point, aside from leaving the wings behind to recover during the descent.
It took me some time to decide what line to climb on the Elmo, and I wasted some time traversing around and making belay anchors in different places. It wasn’t until nearly 2:30pm that I finally started up this pitch. The line that I chose started with some climbing that was worse than solid ice, and unprotectable, but better than true rime. Higher up the pitch turned to good ice, and passed through a natural wind tunnel. I reached the top of the Elmo with my pack sometime around 4:15pm (after climbing, rappelling, and jumaring back up the pitch), and had a difficult time deciding whether or not to stop and bivouac. I knew that there would be no options for bivouacking between there and the top of the Headwall, which was a reason to stay, but I also had nearly 3 hours of daylight left, and good weather in Patagonia is rare… I decided not to bivouac on the Elmo, and I’m still unsure if it was the best decision or not.
I started up the mixed pitches sometime around 5:30pm, moving as quickly as I could, acutely aware that I had a lot of difficult terrain to cover before my potential bivouac site. By the time that I started up the Headwall it was sometime after 9:30pm, and the daylight was long gone. The Headwall was straightforward in the sense that it didn’t have rime on it, and I could place decent protection, but it still felt like a daunting task during the night, with my body already exhausted from 16 hours of climbing and jumaring. The Headwall is dead vertical for a decent ways, and the very brittle ice made for a lot of work, with dinner-plates fracturing from almost every axe placement.
After climbing, rappelling, and jumaring back up the Headwall, I climbed another half-pitch above, made an anchor, and rappelled down to the left, to look for a bivouac site. Making a decent tent platform did not take as long as I feared it might, but nonetheless it wasn’t until 1:00am that I finally got in my tent and started melting snow. The upside was that from this bivouac only 3 pitches remained between me and the summit of Cerro Torre. The downside was that I had done a massive day in terms of physical output, and I was really tired. All the tasks associated with bivouacking (making a tent platform, making an anchor, setting up the tent, inflating the sleeping pad, melting snow, packing everything back up in the morning) take up a lot of time, and despite only getting 5 hours of sleep, it wasn’t until 11am that I finally was ready to start climbing again on September 7.
When I started up the first pitch above the headwall, it was somewhat windy, my hands were going numb, and I could feel immediately how tired I was from the effort the day before. Fortunately this first pitch was mostly straightforward ice climbing, and apart from a brief break to moan in agony from the screaming barfies, I got up it reasonably quickly.
For the second pitch above my bivouac I wasn’t sure which line to choose, and I think in hindsight that I should have climbed a line further to the right. However, I chose a line on the left which was largely the same as I had climbed during past ascents. This line had become more difficult, however, and I soon found myself trying to get up a section of steep rime. After a couple attempts at aiding off of pickets, I started digging a tunnel inside. As is usually the case, this rime tunneling cost a huge amount of time and energy, and while inside I started to have major doubts about making the summit, especially since the last pitch is typically much harder than this penultimate pitch. I finally emerged from my tunnel, and the rest of the pitch was easy, but it wasn’t until 4:30pm that I had rappelled and jumared back up the pitch.
My tunnelling on the penultimate pitch had caused a lot of snow and ice to go down my clothes, and I got very wet in the process. While building the anchor above, in a shaded and windy spot, I quickly started to shiver and get mildly hypothermic. So, rather than immediately start up the last pitch, I took a long break in a sunny spot to eat, finish my water, rest, dry my clothes somewhat, and get mentally prepared for the final pitch.
The last pitch of the Ragni Route is infamous because it sometimes involves a lot of steep and unprotectable rime climbing. The first time that I climbed it, in January 2007, it took me 3 hours of intense effort to lead. The second time that I climbed it, in January 2008, it was in even more difficult condition, and it took me 4 hours to get up it. Since then I have climbed it sometimes in less than half an hour when it was in much easier conditions. Until climbing the penultimate pitch, I didn’t know what awaited me, and I was rather shocked by what I saw. Ty had mentioned a couple weeks earlier that on a drone flight he had noticed a section of Cerro Torre’s summit mushroom had broken off. I didn’t really think much of his comment at the time, but standing below the last pitch I saw what he had referred to – the right side of the Ragni Route’s last pitch had broken off in essentially a humongous serac collapse. I had never really realized before this moment that the ice on the summit of Cerro Torre behaves almost like a miniature glacier.
The key on the last pitch of the Ragni Route is typically to shoot for one of the natural wind tunnels, because they offer the easiest and safest climbing. There was a line on the left side leading to a wind tunnel high up, but my eye was drawn to the right side – where the serac had broken off there was a lot of exposed blue ice, which is much easier and safer to climb than rime. I saw a tunnel on the right side as well, so I decided to shoot for that. I finally started up the last pitch sometime around 6:00pm. Climbing on the right side was efficient because of the exposed ice, although it was extremely brittle in places, and I broke off very large plates of ice. One section that I climbed was noticeably overhanging, and I didn’t hesitate for a moment to start aid climbing, because I was already exhausted from the past 36 hours.
Just before 7:00pm I arrived excitedly at the entrance of the tunnel that I had been shooting for, and was immediately sorely disappointed. Only once inside the entrance did I realize my mistake – it wasn’t a wind tunnel, but it was actually just a crevasse in the glacial ice of Cerro Torre’s summit. The problem was that this crevasse was extremely narrow inside, and the walls of it were hard glacial ice, so it looked extremely improbable that I could fit through. I was devastated to have put in such an incredible amount of effort and arrive 30m below Cerro Torre’s summit, only to be shut down now. It briefly occurred to me to rappel back down to the base of the pitch and start up the left line, but I was wasted at this point and the sun had just set, so I didn’t think I had it in me to quest up the final pitch all over again given the circumstances.
When I arrived in the entrance of the crevasse there were a few minutes of daylight left, and I could just barely see a tiny bit of blue light filtering through the crevasse. I figured that my chances of making it through this crevasse were miniscule, but the blue light gave me just enough hope to try. I accepted that I probably wouldn’t make it to Cerro Torre’s summit, but I decided that I wouldn’t give up until it was 100% clear that I couldn’t make it through. So, with that determination I started the most insane episode of ice spelunking that I have ever experienced.
I spent the next 2 hours and 45 minutes making my way through this crevasse, which I would describe somewhat as the ice version of the Harding Slot. Most of my time was spent enlarging some sort of passage. Some of the time that fortunately involved clearing away snow, but much of the time it involved painstakingly chipping away at the glacial ice, breaking off pieces often hardly bigger than a dried apricot. Chipping away at the ice while in contortionist positions was extremely difficult, and I gave myself terrible bruises, especially on my elbows. The passage was so tight that I had to leave behind as much equipment as possible. At the entrance of the crevasse I placed an ice screw and left behind my helmet, my extra jacket, my extra gloves, the Grigri, and most of the rack. I took with me just 3 ice screws, a few carabiners, and a rappel device. Even without my helmet, my headlamp several times got nearly knocked off my head while trying to fit through the tightest passages. I took whatever route seemed widest, and in the process I climbed up, down, right, and left.
After an incredible amount of time, effort, grunts and expletives during this mad frenzy of crevasse squeeze-chimney, I was very close to the point of giving up. I nearly couldn’t believe it when one more blow with my axe revealed blackness – the night sky! Amazed, I frantically chipped away around this hole until I could poke my head through. I had no idea where I might be emerging, and realized that I was in fact still on the steep section of the last pitch, but thankfully just next to the entrance of the natural wind tunnel on the left side! After so much time inside the mountain it felt intimidating to feel the void again, but I had traced my rope through the entire crevasse, so I was extremely well protected. I adjusted the amount of slack in the clove hitch on my belay loop (I had left the Grigri behind), and made a couple of airy moves to join the easy terrain of the wind tunnel.
It felt surreal to top out the pitch, after feeling pessimistic for such a long time that I wouldn’t make it through. I was also somewhat in disbelief about the whole experience, which was certainly the most bizarre and insane finish of any climb I’ve ever done. Additionally, it felt strange to be nearly on the summit of Cerro Torre with no backpack, no helmet, and almost nothing attached to my harness. I climbed to the end of my rope, placed an ice screw to clip it to, and climbed easily from there to Cerro Torre’s summit.
I arrived on the summit just before 10:00pm, with zero wind and a completely full moon. It was a gorgeous moment, but I only allowed a fraction of my consciousness to enjoy it. I felt that physically I had really pushed myself to arrive there, and the summit of Cerro Torre in winter, by myself, at night, felt an extremely long ways from safety. I took a few pictures, shot a quick video clip, and started down.
Descending the final pitch was a bit complicated, and certainly bizarre retracing my route through the crevasse, but it passed without incident. I also had no trouble rappelling down the two pitches below. At the top of the Headwall I made a decision to use the Beal Escaper, which I have used in the past with success many times. I had brought with me just a single 80m rope, and my rationale was that the Escaper would allow me to rappel a bit longer than 40m and not have to make an Abalokov anchor in the middle of the Headwall on dead vertical ice. It turned out to be a terrible decision for multiple reasons. For one, I rappelled only 35m before deciding that I was at a good stance to build another rappel anchor, so I could have easily rappelled to that point with my 80m rope without using the Escaper. The real problem, however, is that the Escaper never came down. I didn’t count exactly, but I’m certain that I pulled and released the rope at least 200 times. I had modified my Escaper specifically to make it release more easily, and before starting the rappel I had tested it to make sure it was releasing when I weighted and unweighted it. In addition, it is a dead vertical rappel with almost zero friction, so I have no idea what caused the Escaper to fail. My best guess is that it has something to do with the sub-zero temperatures. In any case, I think that this was the last time I will ever use an Escaper in a serious situation.
After what must have been an extremely long time, I finally gave up hope of the Escaper releasing. I was so exhausted at this point that re-climbing the Headwall felt out of the question, and I made the painful decision to cut my rope. Thus, from midway up the Headwall I rappelled the entirety of the rest of the descent with only a 45m rope. As you can imagine, I made a ton of Abalokov anchors. I was physically exhausted, sleepy, and with hands, feet, and elbows that felt very abused, but I decided to continue rappelling through the night, rather than stop to bivouac anywhere. I knew that the wind was forecast to start increasing again already the next day, and I didn’t want to risk postponing any portion of the descent for that reason. At about 6:15am on September 8 I finally reached my bivouac site at the top of Filo Rosso, almost exactly 48 hours after departing from that spot. I communicated to Ty that I was down safe from the climb, and he departed his camp in the Circo a couple hours later, eager to return to civilization after having already left town a couple days before me.
The journey from the top of Filo Rosso back to town was never stressful, but was a long, drawn-out affair, in part because I had so much gear to carry out with me, but mostly because I was so physically destroyed. My hands, feet, and calves were impressively swollen for the entire journey back to town, and I felt generally very depleted. The weather had deteriorated enough that I was glad to no longer be up on Cerro Torre, with some snowfall and wind, but thankfully it was never bad enough to be problematic. When Kiff and Juan picked me up at the Rio Eléctrico bridge, it was the seventh day I had been out in the mountains. During that time I had briefly crossed a couple on the first day of my approach, briefly spent one evening with Ty in the Circo, and briefly passed some hikers on the last stretch from Piedra del Fraile to the road; otherwise I had been alone the whole time.
This was my tenth ascent of Cerro Torre. While some of my previous ascents of Cerro Torre were already among my life’s most meaningful ascents (Tiempos Perdidos with Kelly Cordes, the Torres Traverse with Rolo Garibotti, and The Torres Traverse in a day with Alex Honnold), this might be the most special one. I find it difficult to compare climbs, especially when they are separated by large amounts of time, and very different in nature, but I feel confident that I would rank this ascent among my life top ten, and likely among my top five. I like it when a climbing objective suits my personal skillset well, and I think that was definitely the case with this one. It required ice climbing skills, mixed climbing skills, rock climbing skills, snow climbing skills, big wall skills, a high level of physical endurance, skills to thrive day after day in a cold, harsh environment, ski mountaineering skills, cross-country skiing skills, and even mountain biking skills came in handy. Past seasons of climbing on Denali were equally important preparation as past seasons of waterfall climbing in the Canadian Rockies and past seasons of big wall climbing in Yosemite.
The Ragni Route had been climbed in winter 1.95 times previously. In 1999 a strong Swiss-American team composed of Thomas Ulrich, Greg Crouch, Stephan Siegrist, and David Fasel climbed all but the final 6m summit mushroom. Siegrist returned in August 2013 (a couple weeks before I arrived in El Chaltén for my first winter attempt), with Thomas Huber, Matias Villavicencio, and Dani Arnold to seal the deal and make a complete winter ascent to the true summit. My ascent is the second complete winter ascent of the Ragni Route, the third complete winter ascent of Cerro Torre (The Compressor Route was climbed in the winter of 1985 by Ermanno Salvaterra, Paolo Caruso, Andrea Sarchi, and Maurizio Giarolli), and the first winter solo of Cerro Torre.