A Mountain Town: El Chalten, Argentina
Down
sleeping bags don’t perform well when wet. Especially in the rain at
1:00 AM on the side of a road. But I really didn’t care. I was cold
and it made me warm. This was not a long term solution. It was short
term satisfaction. Not a particularly exquisite end to an epic day, but
things could be far worse.
Twenty hours earlier I woke up in a
tent with a new friend I had met only two days before. My first thought
of the day was about the tent. Not how it had held up in the wind, or
whether not it was dry, but how it could smell so badly so early in the
morning. Outside there was no light. I guess the beginning of the day
would be as odd as its end.
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| The Terrain |
A group of five that had befriended
me was from Spain. Two of the group were brothers and all of them were
friends who had traveled together in the past. All five of
them had just returned from a sixteen-day glacier trek that
circumnavigated through some of the wildest and most treacherous terrains
in all of South America - this probably explains the less-than-favorable scent of the tent. But, luckily for me, only three of them
were interested in climbing. One had broken his finger badly on the glacial trek and another had to return to Spain. Taking on a fourth (who happened to have some
nice climbing gear and looked very eager) made a bit of sense. They were able to overlook my pathetic Spanish and focus on what mattered - I had nice gear and a rope. They
were a kind and fun-loving bunch that I knew absolutely nothing about.
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| The Gear |
It was still dark as some
sort of Spanish lullaby came from the tent next door. My guess is that
the intention of this early morning song was not to put us back to
sleep but to bring us gently into what would be a long day. I giggled
along with everyone else even though I had no idea what the song was
about. Soon we were up.
Within two hours my three climbing
partners and I had eaten breakfast, secured our site, and hiked from our
base camp 1,500 ft up, and two miles across, to the first pitch of Aguja
Guillaumet. Our goal was to climb one thousand plus feet of ice and rock,
rappel back down, hike back to our tents, and carry our 60-pound packs
4,500 vertical feet down (to a road that was over eight miles away) to
meet our taxi at 10:30 that night.
One other person in my group spoke English well, one spoke English that was much like my Spanish (malo/bad), and one, my climbing partner, spoke no English at all. On the way up to the climb, I learned four terms: reunion (off belay), pilla (take), dame (slack), and piedra! (stone). We all agreed that these words were necessary.
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| The Goal |
The
climb started with 500 feet of thin ice squeezed between smooth,
granite walls. Not extremely technical compared to the ice I have climbed
before, but loaded packs and a solid approach made this class II+/III
pitch of ice somewhat challenging. We broke into two pairs. The first
pair set up only two belays. They climbed simultaneously and did the
entire 500 feet in two sections. My partner and I split the 500 feet
into four sections. I led the second and third pitches of ice and took a
thrashing on the fourth. Being anchored 150 feet below three climbers
in a gully that was 60º degrees and six feet wide was not what I would
refer to as a great time. Even though those above me climbed with care I
took a pounding from all of the small chunks of ice that rained down from above. I was anchored to the wall
and I felt like I was in front of a rubber bullet firing squad. To add
an extra richness to the experience one of the ropes I was attached to
got wedged into a crack so I had to wait in the shade while one member
of the other pair down climbed to set me free so I could ascend. Good,
clean, cold fun.
Once we emerged from the ice gully we placed our
crampons, alpine boots, ice screws, and ice axes in our packs and pulled
on our thin climbing shoes over already frozen feet. We also took off
our gloves to prepare for the six pitches of rock climbing
ahead. We swapped gear and chatted strategy as the wind began to
accelerate. Soon we would be in the sun climbing some of the world’s
best granite.
The climbing went smoothly even though the route
meandered up steep sections of vertical rock and across narrow (and very
exposed) traverses. The climb went up about 500 vertical feet, but we
traversed three times this distance. We climbed as two separate pairs,
but the first pair would leave gear in key spots as directionals to provide protection. The second person of the second pair would “clean”
and the first person of the second pair would feed gear to the second of
the first group. In the first pair, Miguel was the lead climber
throughout the climb and in my pair, we swapped leads back and forth.
Far less confusing than it may sound. There were only two technically
“difficult” pitches of climbing, but all six were very exposed at
several points and a slip would mean a dramatic turn of events. We
stayed roped up for the last pitch - an easy, but relatively exposed,
ascent.
Soon we were on the summit of Aguja Guillaumet exchanging
hugs and taking pictures. We all wanted our summit pictures to include
Aguj Mermoz, one of the most sought-after peaks in the area, in the
background. We also held up the business card of our host hostel in
hopes that we would make it onto the “wall of fame”. This wall at the
entrance of the hostel included pictures of some of the world's best
alpinists on some of the larger, neighboring summits. We ate chocolate,
drank tea, and watched as the sky thickened and the wind began to surge.
I
took pictures at the top of the first rappel while I waited my turn to
head down. At the bottom of the third repel I noticed that my camera was
no longer on my pack. To my horror, I realized that I had left it at
the top of the first repel. Luckily the two repel lines above me were
still up and my partners were empathetic to my situation. I knew this
was a mistake that put all of us at risk, but we all agreed that I
should retrieve the camera.
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| The Hostel Promo |
I quickly climbed the third to last
and second to last pitches on top rope (with my alpine boots on) and
free-soloed the last pitch of the climb to get to my camera. By the
time I got to the camera, the wind had picked up to around forty-five
miles per hour. Even though the climbing was easy, the wind and my pack
made the ice and rock tricky to descend. Later my newfound friends
joked that I liked the end of the climb so much, that I climbed it
twice. My guess is that at the time they were not very amused by my
delay.
By the time I had down-climbed and “cleaned” the ropes on
the second and third to last pitches, the fabled winds of Patagonia were
in full force. All relatively easy tasks, like throwing a rope down to
the bottom of a rappel, became difficult and risky. Cracks could “eat”
ropes and one (more) mistake could cost us precious time. The rest of
the afternoon became a controlled but rushed, scramble. Since the
climb, known as Amy, was a popular and well-traveled route in the area
there were old and new, pitons and slings to repel off of the entire
way down. This made the exit easier.
By the time my partner and I
reached the base of the climb the first pair had already started the
journey down to pack away our camping gear. We began our scramble down
through loose scree in winds that were gusting at seventy miles an
hour. The sand and gravel from the basin below blew up the walls of the
valley and into our eyes, ears, and noses. The trail was steep and icy.
My pack contained two 60-meter ropes, a trad rack (climbing gear), a
thermos, climbing shoes, ice screws, two ice axes, and crampons. I had
not consumed any water in two hours and the last real meal was almost
twelve hours earlier. By the time the sun had set, I was only halfway
down the long approach back to our base camp. My headlamp only offered
a twenty-foot view of the vertical world around me and my climbing
partner was 100 meters ahead of me. I was exhausted but determined.
I moved as quickly as possible back to base camp.
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| The Summit Surf |
When I finally
arrived I drank some sort of Tang and water mixture and ate a piece of
ham and cheese. Five minutes later three of us began our eight-mile,
4,500 vertical foot trek to the road. My partner had left fifteen
minutes earlier to see if he could make it to the road in time to secure
our ride home. We all knew we would miss our cab, but the storm that
was upon us was not to be trifled with so we had to exit the area and
head for a safer spot to spend the night. We kept up a furious pace and
marched without rest until half past midnight.
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| The Partners: Thester and Pablo |
Soon I was alone
with three packs as my two partners set out down the road in search of a
phone and the fourth member of our group. It was raining, there was no
more food, and the only shelter I had was my down sleeping bag. As I
mentioned earlier, down-sleeping bags don’t perform well when wet.
An
hour later my three partners returned, but no phone or ride could be
found. Apparently, the Refugio down the road was closed for the evening
and the caretaker had no interest in answering the door. We quickly
set up a three-person tent, drank some untreated river water, and piled
into our shelter.
We spent the night together under the driving rain
and powerful winds forty minutes outside of El Chalten.
Six hours
later I woke. Twenty minutes later our gear was piled into a fifteen-passenger Mercedes Sprinter. The driver, who was returning to El Chalten
after dropping off some tourists for a glacial tour, would not take
payment for the ride into town. Climbing is what El Chalten was
founded upon and alpinists were still held in high esteem in this little
town. El Chalten was, and is, a mountain town.
