the patagonia trip: First sight

Our hostess kindly had breakfast ready for us this morning at 6am. By 6:25am, after sweet corn flakes, yogurt and toast we were piling our cab full of our gear with the help of our cabby.

We boarded our bus around 7am in a spitting rain and were quickly lulled back to sleep. The bus was chilly but comfortable with seats that reclined effectively. A few times I woke, feeling guilty about passing up the scenery, but a glance through the windows, which were bleary with condensation, reassured me that I wasn’t missing too much. It was only the flat terrain with the standard trees and scrub brush we had already become acquainted with.

 A few hours later, awake for good after some strange dreams, the landscape began to change. All of a sudden there were hills, then vegetated mountains and eventually larger mountains of dark crumbly rock with some small snowfields. When we reached the Paine massif, we saw only a whirling mass of clouds, but we knew we had arrived. The bus stopped at an outpost for the passengers to pay the $15 entrance fee. Dave and I spoke with a ranger about what we’d need to do from there. We would have to take a bus, which would come in four hours, one and a half hours to the outpost with the administration center, where we would have to get our climbing permit processed. Presently we are returning from the administration station to pick up our gear, which we left behind, and will take another bus to an outpost further in the park. There we will spend the night. 

 Back at the admin station we got to name our expedition. We chose, “Tradical Sabatical.” Also, Christian had left us an encouraging note. He said that he had stopped by to see if we had arrived and that he had some ideas for our days with him. He would meet us at Campamento Japanese on the 9th and we would try to climb on the 10th-13th. “Have information on the Bonnington-Whillans route on the central tower and also on the north tower,” he included. Those were the words that truly stoked us and those were the two towers that peaked at us through the clouds, giving us glimpses of their phantasmagorical proportions.

the patagonia trip: Expectations

Many months ago, when the idea of this trip was born, the vision was of an epic voyage, traveling and climbing from peak to peak with only the supplies we could carry on our backs. Serious sacrifices were expected to be necessary. Perhaps we’d only be able to bring a couple pairs of underwear, a single set of clothes and simple, light-weight food would be all we could manage. We could realize an ideal of backcountry freedom by traveling so light.

I still subscribe to the ideal, but, as our planning for the trip progressed, the realities of our ambition to climb technical peaks in locations with large environmental extremes evolved our vision. We came to terms with the fact that we’d have to travel with a duffel in addition to our “only” pack when, on a weekend trip to the Adirondacks, our “only” packs were bursting with only a couple days worth of supplies. Speaking with our alpine hero, Jim Donini, on the phone didn’t help. He told us of the myriad things he brings on his own Patagonian expeditions, including large tents, good food and stoves.

the patagonia trip: Intro My Partner

“I don’t know what chill is, but I know that I’m not part of it,” says Dave, my climbing partner, as we wait at the gate to board our flight out of DC.  You know we're going to be spending many days together couped up in a tent don't you?  At least he shouldn't be spacing on belay!

the patagonia trip: Loose Ends

Laura, Megan, Aaron, perhaps a couple others and I walked up a glass-walled stair shaft that looked out upon a dreary airport runway. What did Aaron do that pissed that lady off? Apparently there was a pissed off lady who wouldn’t relent with her updates on the ill-effects of Aaron’s action. I’m sure it couldn’t have been that bad. Oh? He hit her with a chunk of ice? He was horsing around, lobbed a chunk of ice into the air and hit an obnoxious lady in the rib! I see. What a strange interlude. But, getting back to the conversation at hand, of course it is going to be an amazing trip. Amazing trip! Amazing trip!

The past few months have been a groundhog day of this conversation. I talk about my coming trip and then the eyes of whomever I’m speaking with light up as if watching a movie of my trip on the inside of their eyeballs. Then they say, “You’re going to have such an amazing time! Such an amazing time!” I always want to know what they see on the inside of their eyeballs.

I awoke from this funk of sleep in the mangled position I’ve been growing accustomed to on the 6:05am Amtrak train from Philly on Monday morning. The train is perfectly timed so I can go from the depths of sleep to the guilt tainted horror of being groggy, red-eyed and half an hour late to work within the ten minutes it takes to walk from Union Station to Senate Square Towers. But this wasn’t any day back from a weekend visiting Laura and friends. It was my last day at work before THE trip—the day I would have to dump my loose ends—loose ends I was sure had been breeding in the corners of my pre-TRIP world—onto coworkers whom I genuinely liked…

the patagonia trip: Purgatory

I have boarded the train to Philly to find myself in the “quiet car” towards the rear of the train. I didn’t even know there was a quiet car in the afternoon.

There is an African American man in the seat ahead of me, chatting in subdued tones. I wouldn’t have noticed him or that I am in the “quiet car” were it not for the display coming from the guy across the isle to our right. 

With curly grey hair, wire rimmed glasses and a grey goatee the pudgy caucasian is glaring across the isle at the man in front while vehemently thumbing his newspaper. “Shhh!” he bursts with his finger to pursed lips, failing to attract the attention of the man ahead, from whom I’m beginning to smell alcohol.

He continues to glare and thumb his newspaper. Finally it is too much. He reaches across the isle and taps the man in conversion. “Shhh!” he says, again with the finger and pursed lips, “this is the quiet car, which means there is no talking!”

After a beat the fellow in front of me leans over, pokes his critic in the arm, who is still focused intently on him and says in forced politeness, “just because this is the quiet car doesn’t mean you can’t talk.”

“You’re supposed to be quiet, they announced it!”

Both are reasonable stances, I had to think. What’s right? Is something juicy about to happen? What is really bothering this uptight dude and what craziness is being uttered by the man ahead?

As if to respond to the unfolding drama, the conductor’s voice came across the intercom. “…the dining car is open and serving drinks and snack. And the last car is the quiet car, where a library-like atmosphere should be observed. That means no cell phones, music or loud talking.”

Well there we have it. I wouldn’t think his talking is loud.

Just then, the conductor walks up, takes my ticket and punches it with the smoothness of a well-practiced motion. He moves ahead and punches the ticket of the man ahead. “This is the quiet car. If you want to talk you’ll have to move to the main cabin.”

That’s that. End of drama. At least I got to distract myself from this purgatory I have been feeling lately. Over the past few months I have engrossed myself in the imaginary world of my two month expedition and endless possibilities. Warm granite towers beckoned me and prospects of stormy bivouacs heightened the anticipated thrill. Now that film is growing faint and I wait in silence for the lights to come on and the reality to begin.

HA! My buddy Jeb just called and the pudgy goatee guy Shhh’ed me! Freakin’ quiet police.

DC Alpine Assault

To continue our training for Patagonia and fuel our alpine urge, Dave and I met after work last night to do a quick night ascent of Old Rag's Oh My God Diheral (5.10c). The grade was at our limit, but we'd climbed it before and thought it safe enough to try at night.

We pushed through rush hour on 66 and got to the base of the North Ridge Trail at 830pm. The sun had set hours ago.

We blasted the 4 miles of switchbacks and spooky scrambling to the summit of Old Rag carrying small packs, harnesses, a rope and 5 cams.  Mist curled through the beams of our headlamps and heightened the atmosphere.

We bushwhacked down the flank and arrived at the base of the climb just after 10pm.

I led it, then Dave.

We rappelled, reversed the bushwhack and ran down the mountain. All we could see was what the bouncing circle of our headlamps showed, which gave us the strange feeling of being in a first person shooter game.  Who knew what bad guys lurked in the darkness?  Hopefully just deer.

We reached the car around 12:30am, then home just after 2am to get a few hours of sleep before work in the morning.

Climbing Oh My God Dihedral by daylight on the 4th of July '07.  I hadn't tried anything harder than 5.9 at this time and thought this attempt would be a hangdog affair.  Instead, I got the onsight.  I will always remember this as one of my proudest sends.

Wallface: P-Town Approach

Our goal was to climb "hang ten (5.10)", a free variation of an aid route called Gourmet, at Wallface, in the Dacks.  We knew it'd be cold, but it'd be good preparation for our coming trip to Patagonia.

The Mellor "guidebible" acknowledges that the first few pitches are somewhat unknown, so we proceeded to find our own route to the prominent "Gourmet" dihedral.

It took us the whole first day, after completing the 5 mile approach, to do those first few pitches.

Dave started us out with a short pitch around a bulge in his mountaineering boots. I followed, wearing the entirely overkill 70L Naos pack (to see how climbing in it felt...it didn't feel good), which put us under a blank, overhanging bulge.

Following a crumbly horizontal crack, I led left under the bulge, looking for a weakness. 100' feet later, with killer rope drag and sketchy microcams for pro, I found a hanging belay below a promising crack, which broke through the bulge.

Dave took the thin crack to a short head wall below a ledge, pulling committing ~5.9 moves on PG13 gear with a shit-eating grin on his face the whole time.

It appeared that it was a simple low angle, scrambly pitch that separated us from the massive ledge at the base of the "hang ten" dihedral. I set off, executing a hard boulder move to link blocky sections, then continued on a mossy, wet and dirty, low angle section on wishful pro. A brief slip on wet moss, twenty feet up from a muddy cam, had my heart leap from my chest. Slinging a demoralized clump of brush, I got my heart under control and finished the pitch.

By the time Dave joined me on the ledge, it was dark. Bundled up in our belay jackets, we fixed our two ropes and rapped by headlamp.

Pasta, sausage and a bit of whiskey warmed us up back at the cave, and we got a good night sleep, with only a couple interruptions from the mice sharing our camp.

The morning sun warmed us, as well as the clifftop ice, which would periodically break off, whiz through the air like incoming artillery and explode off rocks around us as we jugged our fixed lines.

I picked up where we left off and headed up the impressive, overhanging dihedral that is the "hang ten" pitch. Dirty hand jams and crumbly face holds for feet got me up the first half, and also through my larger cams. Thinking I would need them for the rest of the way, I built an anchor and back-cleaned.

It turns out that "hang ten" follows a thin seam out to left, from my mid-way anchor, which would have used smaller gear that I had plenty of... (Apparently the last moves of this exit have you hanging by all ten fingers, with no feet...hence, "hang ten.")

Anyhow, at the time, I wasn't sure that the left exit was the way to go. Having retrieved my #2 and #3s and my #4, I went to work on the dirty, licheny, offwidthy, jammy continuation of the crack I had been following thus far. I thrutched up into the crux of the off-route off-width to find myself hanging on a solid, but nauseatingly stressful arm jam. Plugging a tenuous #4, I had myself a little rest on the rope, then finished the last few moves.

I was glad to be at the top, but felt unsatisfied by my inefficiency and hang on the pitch.

Dave came up, then led through a short low angle section with one very hard boulder move to gain a ledge. I followed, employing a stout bush to pull through the crux.

Route finding uncertainty necessitated a short rap and traverse to the beginning the final dihedral/face.

Dave started up just as it was getting dark. The moves were thin and it was eating up gear, with no good prospects for a belay stance.

Finally, route uncertainty, complete darkness and freezing temperatures compelled us to bail.

We rapped through the night and returned to our cave around 1030pm.

A closer look at the guide book revealed that the first ascent party for "hang ten" tried to free that last section, but were turned back by rain (explaining the fixed hex we found).

The next morning we lazed around in our sleeping bags as it snowed for a few hours. Then packed up and hiked out in glorious sunlight.

All in all we thought the trip was quite a success. We climbed at our limits on poor gear with difficult route finding, in freezing temps and in the dark. We can't wait to return.

Epilogue:
-Dave and I corresponded with the authors of the new Dacks guide and our first four pitches are now in the new guide book as "P-Town Approach 5.10b PG-13 350'." Much thanks to Jim Lawyer and Jeremy Haas for the opportunity to contribute. We're ecstatic to have our first first ascent.