Patagonia is humming with climbing teams that are exploiting short weather windows to send new routes and interesting repetitions.
Last week, Vicente Urzua, Felipe Marin Moreno, and Josefa Miranda from Chile opened a new line on Cerro Escudo, a 600m shield-shaped peak that rises behind the Torres del Paine massif.
A rarely visited peak
Because of its inaccessibility, few climbers visit Cerro Escudo, and its wide north face has only a handful of routes. Patagonia Vertical, the blog by Rolando Garibotti, describes them in the post below:
The four locals climbed the new route in one day from the base of the face. It included 14 pitches with difficulties up to 5.11- (6.b). They named the route Millacahuin after Johan Millacahuin, a young Chilean climber who died in a fall on the North Torre del Paine in 2020.
Like most of the lines on Cerro Escudo, it does not reach the peak’s summit. Instead, the climbers stopped at a secondary summit at the beginning of the summit ridge and rappelled down a different route.
Two ‘musicians’
Patagonia Vertical also reports on the first free climb of Joviejo, the only route on Aguja Pollone, a spire rising from the northeast flank of Cerro Pollone, also behind Fitz Roy. Mati Korten of Argentina achieved the feat in two consecutive visits with different climbing partners. He free-climbed the first pitches with Facu Saubidet and Jose Bonacalza. Then, on a second push, Korten freed the entire route with Pierrick Giffard.
These are also the first repetitions of a 1998 line opened by Erich and Stefan Gatt, a father-and-son team from Austria.
Previously, Korten opened his second new route on El Mochito (a smaller peak in the Cerro Torre group) with Ignacio Mulero. Korten, a UIAGM guide from Argentina, named the 220m-long, 7a+ route Eternal Flauta (Flauta is Spanish for Flute) as a tribute to “two musicians who show up in the valley from time to time,” he said, clearly referring to Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll and Nico Favrese.
From Ecuador to Patagonia
While not exactly locals from the Patagonian countries (Chile and Argentina), Roberto Jose Morales, Felipe Guarderas, and Nicolas Navarrete are children of the Ecuadorian Andes and among the climbing elite in their country. At the end of the year, they completed the first repetition of Marc-Ande’s Vision and Titanic on Torre Egger in the Cerro Torre group. They linked both lines into one 1,000m route.
The combination included difficulties up to 7b, WI3, M6. It was opened by Brette Harrington, Quentin Roberts, and Horacio Gratton in 2020 as a tribute to Marc-Andre Leclerc, who had died two years before. Leclerc’s impressive career was documented in the acclaimed film The Alpinist.
Watch Harrington, Roberts, and Gratton’s climb of the combined routes below.
