With a two day weather window showing up on the forecast, we set off on this 25 mile, 17,000' of elevation gain traverse across the skyline which seems to be a right of passage for any alpine climber in the BC area.
With one day left before catching a flight back to the States, Sam Stuckey and I decided to try and climb something in a weather window that was getting pushed further and further back. The night before at basecamp was grim. Drizzle, rain, everything was soaked and hope for rock climbing the next day was almost lost. But then we woke up to sunshine and bluebird skies, so the decision was easy: we were going up.
This is dedicated to John Boltey, who cameos in this story and who died by rockfall a day after I took these videos. I'll never forget getting in a water balloon fight with a bunch of 5 year olds in the streets of Chalten together.
Beau Skalley and I speed-drove 1300km of Argentinian roads past herds of guanacos, drinking thermoses of yerba mate and with only one flat tire to get to Chalten for a small weather window. We joined up with Chris Farrah and Adam Martos to climb Aguja d l'S from the west side via the Austríaca route from Camp Polacos.
This was my first Patagonia summit and the stories lived up to the hype. The approach into the Torre Group across scree-covered glacial moraines was no joke, the packs heavy, the weather finicky, windy and ever-changing, and the climbing and views legendary.
Not wanting to spend weeks sitting around waiting for weather to clear up in El Chalten, Beau Skalley and I made the voyage to Piedra Parada: a sport climbing venue in the middle of nowhere in the deserts of Argentina with huge 2000' walls and stellar, varied climbing.
10 hr c2c ascent of Liberty Crack in matching (hot pink) tights