Tasio Martin and Ibon Mendia of Spain have made the most of Patagonia’s stingy weather windows. After a new line on Torres del Paine, they nailed another new route on Aguja Mermoz in the Fitz Roy massif last week.
A one-day break in the otherwise stormy weather was all the two Basques needed to send a 500m line on the east face of Aguja Mermoz.
“It was a single, 18-hour push up and down a line we had been planning for days,” Martin wrote.
The climbers called the new route Dardara and graded it up to 7b+.
“The route goes to the left of Pilar Rojo [the Red Pillar],” Ibon Mendia wrote. “In the first three to four pitches, we found some material from a previous attempt. Otherwise, we first-climbed the rest of the route.”
Not long ago, the Basques opened the 420m, 7a Erresistentziara kondenatuak (Basque for “Doomed to Resistance”) on the North Peak of Torres del Paine during the last days of 2024.
