A week ago, Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll and Florian Delcoigne freed The Approach Team Line on the north face of El Mocho in Patagonia, the hardest free-climbing route in the massif. Patagonia Vertical first reported the news.
‘The Approach Team Line’ on the north face of El Mocho. Photo: Julia Cassou
Martin Marovski and Viktor Varoshkin first climbed the route in 2016 in five days spread over a month. For the route’s 13 pitches, the Bulgarian pair used 280m of fixed rope. They reported that the hardest pitches were the first ones.
At that time, they bolted all the belays except one. At the time, they commented that future climbers should be able to free The Approach Team Line.
Villanueva’s three routes on the north face of El Mocho. Photo: Patagonia Vertical
In 2021, the COVID pandemic trapped Villanueva in Patagonia for over 15 months. During that period, he managed to climb some extraordinary routes. He soloed The Moonwalk Traverse across the peaks of Fitz Roy and did La Chaltenense (500m, 7a) on Fitz Roy with Jon Griffin.
Villanueva also did two new routes on the north face of El Mocho — Chalten Sin Clecas (450m, 7b) with Gabriel Rocamora; and Chalten Sin Chapas (450m, 7a+) with Matias Korten.
After an early attempt on Chalten Sin Clecas, Villanueva and Rocamora rappelled the lower part of The Approach Team Line to see how hard it would be to free it.
Villanueva, Pete Whittaker, and Julia Cassou attempted the line the following year, but the crux pitch was too difficult. A few weeks later, Villanueva tried again with partner Pol Domenech, but bad weather aborted their attempt. Finally, on this third try, he succeeded.
ExplorersWeb interviewed Villanueva last year.
Sean Villaneuva O’Driscoll. Photo: Jerry Kobalenko
Further details of this climb are available on Patagonia Vertical:
