Furry Murry

Sorry, no pictures in this post. I have a few, but currently can’t access them to upload. Instead close your eyes and allow my inspired logos to fill your head with captivating imagery. Wait, don’t close your eyes because then you can’t read. Nevermind, you get the idea.

Or just google “patagonia frey” and look at other peoples’ pictures.

The camping at Frey isn't too bad...

Since we last spoke there have been a lot of buses, taxis, planes, and cars involved in my life. As well as some real deal rock climbing. In fact, my 4 days at Frey probably added up to almost as much rock climbing as two and half months in Chalten! Ok, not really, that was extreme hyperbole, I apologize. But nonetheless it was quite astounding to wake up everyday to warm, sunny weather and go climbing without regard to any ‘meteogram’ or ‘conditions.’

The campground and Refugio at Frey are also a super chill 10 kilometer hike in by way of a wide, well trodden and maintained trail. No endless uphill slogs, no moraines, no glacial river-jumping (actually pretty fun), and no dodging greedy landowners and their ill-imposed land crossing fees. Not only that, but the Refugio sells food, beer, and wine. Granted it is at absurdly inflated prices; in Argentina that amounts to around twelve US dollars for a bottle of wine and four bucks for a cold beer. I can – and did – manage.

I hiked up to Frey on my lonesome, my hopes of finding a climbing partner on-site buoyed by numerous assurances from gringo and Argentine friends before I left Chalten. As luck would have it, the Big Guy upstairs continued his things-always-work-out streak and after spending a day cragging with a rad couple from Canmore I ran into John Verbeck. John had also come up from Chalten, where he had spent his time putting up new routes on the Pier Giorgio massif with Crystal Davis-Robbins. Pier Giorgio is possibly the longest approach from Chalten, and is totally exposed to the hammering wind and weather coming off the ice cap. Suffice to say that John shared my enthusiasm for some relaxed, sunny rock climbing.

We did some things, including an accidental new (?) first pitch variation on La Voz de Silencio on Aguja la Vieja. Our final climb was a little adventure up the west face of Torre Principal’s Siniestro Total. It started off exciting when I began the first pitch in the wrong place and had to do a sketchy slab traverse to get back on. Then John accidentally followed a weakness around a corner and off route, which forced me to climb a corner til it petered out, then pendulum left to another system. We ended up on a bolted route and John led a pitch of solid 5.10/5.11 climbing on wayyyyy spaced out bolts. Oh well, at least I only had to follow it. Another 5.9 pitch and we regained Siniestro, tagged the summit, and rapped. Just when the adventure seemed over, I reached back to unclip my trail runners from my harness and found only one. Apparently the shoe lace it was clipped through busted at some point during the day and so I accidentally discarded some foot-smelly garbage on the mountain. Luckily our packs were a short scramble away, and mine contained my flip flops. I also forgot my helmet as we were packing up at the base. Meh. Hiking down the sand and scree in one flop in near darkness wasn’t as heinous as I expected, and the six mile trail back to town in both was actually quite delightful (aside from the resultan dirty black feet). Chaco flips are the shizz!

Another twenty two hour bus, seven hot and dizzying hours in Buenos Aires, and an overnight flight and I was back stateside. Quite surreal.

Patagonia is an incredible place, chock full of remarkable people. The mountains are truly magical and enchanting, and while the unstable weather makes ascents a fleeting endeavor it also sweetens the experience and adds depth and richness. There’s a reason that the Diamond of Long’s Peak sees 20+ climber days, while Cerro Torre sometimes goes a whole season without a successful ascent. I don’t head into the alpine to avoid people, but the harshness and isolation of more far-flung ranges definitely takes the experience to a whole other level. I don’t know what the future holds, but I yearn to return!

Some photos:

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“This next pitch looks incredibly splitter, but I don’t know if I can climb it, Josh. I’m so worked.”

“Dude, you’ve totally got it, you’ll be fine,” Josh replies as we gaze up the final 5.11 pitch on Aguja Mermoz’s Red Pillar (600m, 5.12-). From there another thirty meters of 5.10 will deposit us on the ridgeline for a few hundred meters of easy climbing to the summit. It is our fifth straight day of activity in the mountains. It seems that in Patagonia “when it rains it pours” applies to the good weather as well as the bad.

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Life in Chalten is characterized by long bouts of sedentary weather-watchingpunctuated by brief, intense mountain missions when the weather yields. In those interim periods we pour over online weather maps, go bouldering, sport climbing, and talk about climbing much more than is necessary or mentally healthy. (I fear the deleterious effects three months of saturation in this alpine community will have on my ability to relate to the rest of civilization.) The weather report – or “prognostico” – refreshes every six hours; enough time to confer, debate, plan, question the plan, and resolve to wait a few hours for the next forecast. Repeat endlessly and you’ve got a good picture of daily life in town.

The standard forecast in use is the NOAA meteogram, comprised of five factors: precipitation, wind speed and direction, temperature, dew point (cloudiness), and pressure. All five factors have to line up perfectly and in sufficient length for your climbing objective, which feels a lot like waiting for the proverbial monkey to type Shakespeare. Although we are reticent to discuss fixed climbing goals for fear of jinxing them, most climbers here have dreams of standing atop the grand summits of Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre, or the like. However, as unlikely as it is for the weather gods to smile in pristine alignment, the odds of getting a “brecha” for those larger objectives are even less. In fact, people still talk of the epic 2008 window that lasted for ten whole days! Nevertheless, there are often brief bouts of marginal weather, neither sufficient nor advisable times to get hung out on a major alpine route, but workable for a minor peak in the area. We call those days “Guillamet days.”

Standing at 2574 meters Aguja Guillamet is the northernmost peak (of climbing interest) on the Fitz Roy ridgeline, and one of the smallest. An ascent by international climbers is typically Read more…

The following is an article I wrote for Urban Climber Magazine about the Red Bull, David Lama, and Cerro Torre fiasco in Patagonia last season. Given that history repeats itself, it bears some pertinence on current events.

I fancy myself an alpine climber; which is to say I once climbed a mountain or two while it was cold outside (I had to wear a jacket and my hands got cold, it was very serious). I also almost booked a ticket to Patagonia once. Taken in concert, I think both these characteristics give me a significant stake and the proper credibility from which to comment on the current David-Lama-takes-a-pick-axe-to-Cerro-Torre conflict.

I could wax on and off like karate kid all day but the only thing that will get the window clean are the cold, hard as Cerro’s granite facts (taken with a bit of hyperbole to keep things interesting, of course).  The initial reports went something like this: shortly after sacrificing a group of Argentinean children at the base of the glacier David Lama took to the face of Cerro Torre with a Hilti and a crazed look in his eye as he bolted a ladder to the top; he was then seen shortly afterward in the Gulf of Mexico freediving to the base of the BP Horizon well with a satchel of explosives in hand.

The firing squad was close on his heels. Nearly every alpine climber had something to say. Steve House labeled it “Red Bull goes BP.” Kelly Cordes called “Red Bullshit” on the whole affair. At last count the story on Red Bull’s own website had accumulated 110 comments accusing Lama and his crew of everything from leaving behind more trash than Jersey and conceiving the anti-Christ.

The realities were a bit more mundane. Will Gadd took the effort to acquire firsthand information from everyone involved and provided the most in depth investigation and analysis on his blog. (For you youngsters out there with your crash pads and curvy climbing shoes, Will Gadd is a Canadian who has ruled the ice and mixed climbing scene for the last decade or more. He is also sponsored by Red Bull himself.) Lama and his partner went up to free the Compressor Route on Cerro Torre, a feat attempted most recently and notably in 2007 by the likes of Josh Wharton and Zac Smith – accompanied by its own violent controversy revolving around their intention to strip superfluous bolts. Red Bull sent a film crew with Lama headed by a European guide tasked with the responsibility of the rigging and safety for the film crew so Lama and his partner could focus on the climbing. The film crew added a total of 26 bolts, most of which were off to the side of or below the original route. They also left a bunch of gear and ropes on the mountain when forced to retreat in bad weather. All, or nearly all, of that abandoned offal was later removed by guides Red Bull hired for that express purpose.

Cesare Maestri first made FA claims of the vaunted Torre in 1959, returning from the mountain alone after his partner Toni Egger was swept to his death along with the sole photographic evidence. Subsequent teams have failed to discover any evidence of his presence high on the route; the crotchety Italian even puzzlingly remarked in a 2006 interview, “What I did was the most important endeavor in the world. I did it single-handedly. But this doesn’t mean that I . . . that I reached the top, do you understand? Do I make myself clear?” No, Cesare, you most certainly do not. In an effort to silence his detractors Maestri returned to the mountain in 1970 hauling a gas powered compressor gun and blasted his way to the top with the shiny comfort of over 400 bolts. Well, almost the top, he turned back 150 meters shy of the summit in the face of Cerro Torre’s infamous ice mushrooms. Hence the moniker “The Compressor Route.” The ethical veracity of Maestri’s aforementioned first ascent has been volleyed back and forth more than Serena and Venus’ fuzzy, yellow ball. Nonetheless, most alpinists consider it a violent abomination coming in a close second to Dr. Moreau.

In his interview posted on Red Bull’s website before he headed south to the land of empanadas and windstorms little David made some Goliath claims: “Cesare Maestri, who made the first ascent in 1970, left an entire highway of bolts and pitons in the mountain’s south-east face, which has nothing to do with today’s climbing ethics… Daniel and myself will be carrying all of our stuff into the park and out again. Transport flights are forbidden, but it’s not in our interest to leave any traces anyway.”

Setting aside the singular notoriety of Cerro Torre and the sordid history of the route itself, Lama set a high bar for his camping trip. Even though he was focused on the climbing, he has rightly acknowledged responsibility for the actions of his film crew. After airing out all the facts a ripe opportunity existed for the 19 year old phenom to stand up, acknowledge his detractors’ concerns and consensual ethics, and move forward with a renewed credibility and support from the climbing community. Everybody makes mistakes, and even if his weren’t nearly as gratuitous as initially reported, admitting them and moving on would have been as simple for the Austrian lad as winning another World Cup.

Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves, you say? What iron cast ethic casts aspersions on the actions taken by his crew in the first place? It’s true, there is no fundamental principle we can stand on when it comes to climbing ethics. Ultimately the ethic of any area, boulder, or mountain rests on the shifting sands of arbitrary consensus. Believe it or not, that’s how a lot of the ethics in our world work. Why is it you can put a fence around a piece of land and keep me off it? Because we all got together and figured property ownership would be an amenable way to do things. The basis for the rules is less important than the fact that we all agree to play by them.

Climbing is no different. The storm of controversy surrounding the Compressor Route for the last 40 years gives ample notice to any climber gunning for its rime-plastered summit. Lama knew this. Even if he didn’t, the reaction from the climbing and local community was clear enough. Unfortunately, he has so far ducked his chance to take the heat, admit his mistake, and move forward. In his recent reply Lama appealed to the importance of film projects and photo shoots for vindication of his missteps. Like the whiny kid in gym class he countered that their decision not to fix more gear in the future, “will have consequences on the quality of the production.”

Really, David? That’s your excuse? That the movie would have been better? Yes, and those action scenes in “300” would have been far more realistic if we could still execute criminals for entertainment a la the Collisseum. Sadly, the annals of history appear to impugn justifications appealing to, “It’ll look way more rad!” Just tuck your chin, take a square one on the jaw, and admit your fault in the matter. That way we can all move on to more important crises like Lindsay Lohan’s latest trip to rehab.

Life is full of lessons, and never is that more true than with trips to the alpine. It is a harsh, objective environment – it’s trials and judgments are unbiased, based purely on the intersection of your own preparation, choices, and environmental conditions. Last week’s trip was rife with such lessons.

Alpine sunrise in Niponino.

Josh and I were at first dismayed when his New Year’s arrival brought him to El Chalten in the middle of a weather window; but much to our delighted surprise the promising weather reports have kept coming and we spied another decent few days in the forecast later that week. The window wasn’t splitter, but he was antsy, I was game, and what’s the harm in a 6 hour walk up to the Torre Valley to check things out? Our objective was loosely set on the West Ridge of Aguja Innominata (750m, 5.10ish).

The night before our departure we attended a “meeting” of the rescue committee – i.e. a bunch of climbers standing around the town doctor’s yard waiting for news. Details were sketchy, but it appears a climber took a fall some 30 pitches up the French Ridge of Fitz Roy and broke his pelvis. Unable to effect a self rescue, he told his partner to descend and save herself. By the time her news reached town he had been alone for two days on the mountain, it would take another two days to reach him and require a massive effort to bring him down, if even possible. The decision was made that a rescue was too risky and unlikely to succeed; a sobering reminder of the realities and consequences of these mountains. Its easy to be lulled into a false sense of security when town is often so close, visible even. The lesson was obvious.

On the heels of that reality check we left town at a very tardy 4 PM on Wednesday, arriving at Read more…

My friend and collaborator for this current Patagonian vision quest, Josh, has launched his only lil’ bloggety blog:

http://slowandheavy.wordpress.com/

The name belies a little bit about our climbing style. Check it out for updates on this adventure and his own future explorations (of which there are many).

Josh on virgin terrain on a new attempt at Mt. Evans this summer.

It has certainly been a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year here in Chalten. The holidays have brought with them an unbelievable spell of good weather, in fact there are very few of us climbers in town right now as almost everyone has headed up into the mountains.

Last week when the beginning of the window looked like it would materialize – rather than vanish like a phantom as all the other potential “windows” had over the last month – my friend Jarrod and I loaded up and headed for the high camp in the Torre Valley, Niponino. The hike to Niponino is a relatively flat 12 miles or so, but the route-finding and terrain of the glacier crossing and moraines can be tricky, especially with 80+ pound packs. Arriving in camp Monday evening we made plans to climb Claro de Luna (800m, 6c) on Saint Exupery the following morning, ate some food, and tried to get some sleep.

When the iPhone alarm buzzed me awake at 4 AM the wind was whipping the tent around like Richard Simmon’s curly locks. A quick conference with the Italians, who were also forestalling their attempt on Cerro Torre, and back to sleep.

Wednesday morning’s wake up call was far more promising. The dark morning was clear and still, and delightfully warm. A quick breakfast of some oatmeal-ish substance with hot cocoa and we were on the trail. Jarrod is a seasonal wild firefighter, so he’s what you’d call a “fast hiker.” With his charge across the rocky moonscape, up the approach ramp, and across the snow slopes – and my desperate attempt to keep pace – we were at the base by 7:30 AM and began racking up. Unfortunately, we had been beaten by an Argentine team who had bivied closer than us. No matter.

Jarrod took the first block of pitches across the slabs, up a sketchy basalt dike, and the crux 6c (5.11), splitter corner. We swung leads every 4 pitches or so, with the second free climbing rather than jumar; we had a light pack with only jackets, water, and food, so climbing seemed just as fast and much more fun.  Nearly every of the 20 pitches was classic and stellar rock quality, the only exceptions being that first, loose basalt pitch and a wet, flaky slab pitch I led up higher. 18 out of 20 ain’t bad! For those who know my climbing style, you’ll be happy to know I got to employ a killer heel hook on one of my crux leads. Oh yeah!

About to follow the crux, splitter pitch. Psyched!

I was lucky enough that the final leads to the summit were mine, but foolish enough on the final pitch to climb a stout ringlock splitter to a super cruxy traverse whilst the easy snow slope was right around the corner. I set an anchor, cleaned my Pyrrhic efforts, and ascended the snow to the summit block at around 8 PM (which was not without excitement since I was wearing rock shoes and the snow was slush). A quick celebration on the summit and now for the real adventure: the descent.

Jarrod leading beautiful alpine granite.

I hate descending, of all types. Hiking down is jarring and painful, the joy of climbing and the summit are behind you; all that remains is a chore. As bad as hiking is, rappelling is far, far worse. Ropes get stuck, anchors can be hard to find and scary to trust (who doesn’t love old webbing looped around a block?). To minimize stuck ropes we chose to do single rope rappels as much as possible and leave the 6 millimeter tag line in the pack. It meant leaving some gear behind for anchors, but worked in that I only had to scramble up 20 feet once to free a stuck rope. Around 1:30 AM we tried our first double rope rappel; we were above a huge, clean looking vertical face with no idea what was below. Near the end of the ropes I pendulumed far left and found a small ledge with another anchor. Very excited and relieved, Jarrod joined me and we went to pull the ropes. Nothing. We teamed up and pulled as hard as possible. Still Nothing. They were obviously caught around something which we couldn’t see in the looming darkness above.

The sun would be up in a few hours, and everything is always better in the morning, so I pulled the small foam pad out of my backpack frame, we squeezed into a 3 ounce emergency bivy sack, and cuddled up tight to nod in and out til morning. Nothing is wrong with a little man-cuddle, and its difficult to overstate the value of shared body heat…

We awoke to yells of “Libre!” and saw the Argentine team continuing their descent just a few hundred feet to our right. They were as relieved to see us as we to see them. Now we just had to find a way to free the ropes and continue down. In the light I could see them caught in a corner above, and succeeded in whipping the thin tag line free. Pulling as hard as possible, we managed to move the ropes an inch or so. Excitedly we rigged a 3 to 1 pully system and with a great deal of effort had the ropes down in about half an hour. Yahoo!

A few more rappels and we met up with the Argentines, and continued the descent together. The day just kept getting better and better: we had been out of food and water since the evening prior, and while hopefully digging for an elusive GU packet I came across an unopened packet of Shrek cookies! Around noon we reached our bags, unlaced our rock shoes for the first time in 30 hours (TC Pros = awesome), and stumbled a few hours back to Niponino.

Been back in town for a few days now, and my buddy Josh just arrived from Boulder. We are stoked for a serious mission! The weather is tantalizing us right now, looking potentially good this week. Keeping one eye on the meteogram as we plot our moves…

Yesterday my new friend Jay and I caught an early morning cab ride with Tommy and Colin to Rio Electrico to go climb Aguja Guillamet. Tommy and I had made weather dependent plans to head up together, but it looked iffy, so we scrapped them and the four of us wound up heading to the Brenner route on Guillamet instead. Such are the uncertainties and sudden adaptations that Patagonia requires, I am learning.

As with most any route here in the range, most folks approach the day before to one of the camps/bivy spots (where they often times have cached their gear prior) and then climb the next day. Guillamet is apparently the shortest approach around here, so Colin has always done it town-to-town in a day. That being said, the approach is still quite long; it took us about 6 hours on the way up, just a few short stops for food and crampon donning. It entails busting straight up a steep hill for probably 1000 vertical meters or so. Apparently there is no word in Castellano Spanish for “switchback.” We ended up scrambling up some 4th and easy 5th class rock instead of the proper approach gully, but who can Read more…