Patagonia-The Kingdom of the Wind

Published in Bivmail (winter 2003), NZ Adventure Magazine (Aug/Sept 2003), NZAC Alpine Journal 2003

Adventures are funny old things. You spend all your spare time dreaming them up, then, once you're in the middle of them you quickly start wishing you were somewhere else. It's a love/hate relationship, a fatal attraction and our mountaineering expedition to South America this past summer was to fit the bill perfectly.

I was brought up reading the sagas of the great British expeditions with their stiff upper lips, dozens of 'little brown men of the empire' and the inevitable sea voyage en-route to their destinations. To me the idea of sailing the Chilean fiords down to the wonderful looking granite towers of the Torres Del Paine in Patagonia seemed irresistibly romantic. Bonnington and Whillans of Himalayan fame had sailed to Patagonia in the 60's to claim the first ascent of the Central Tower of Paine and it was their route we were keen to climb.

Think Patagonia and you think impossibly inhospitable landscapes, swept by hurricane force winds and lashed with rain, so the flat calm sea under wide blue skies that greeted us as we boarded the good ship M.V Magellan had us pleasantly surprised and more than a little wary. Steaming south towards Puerto Natalas our suspicions were confirmed as the weather began to life up to its reputation and the clouds slowly lowered over the glowering mountains. At the same time the scenery became increasingly spectacular, the walls of the fiords closing in around the ship and the huge glaciers cascading into the sea.

After four days on board and a drunken 'Fiesta Finale' we arrived in Puerto Natalas, a somewhat dirty, frontier town on the edge of the barren pampas. This was to be our last town and we raced around buying three weeks worth of food and base camp equipment, negotiating the obligatory climbing permit hassles, and prying as much knowledge from the locals as we could. We also did plenty of last minute fattening up and drank coffee by the bucket load.

I'll never forget my first view of the Towers. I'd been asleep on the bus and when I stepped off, there they were, three colossal granite teeth piercing the distant Patagonian sky. That first view was like a physical blow and I literally took an involuntary step backwards. What were we thinking trying to climb those?

Slowly, over the next few days, as we lugged loads up the beautiful Rio Ascensio valley to our basecamp, the Towers became more familiar. We stopped often to gaze in gob-smacked wonder up at the soaring walls and crack systems that seemed to go on and on forever, impossibly aloof. Finally we deposited our last load at Campamento Japonese, our basecamp, a wonderful spot, set in open, sun-dappled, beech forest with its own babbling brook. More importantly we finally had a climbing permit in our hot little hands and free license to go and scare ourselves.

The approach to the Towers west side is a three hour walk up and out of the beech forest and into the Valle del Silencio, literally the Valley of Silence. Walking up the moraine leads you into an amphitheatre surrounded by a sea of granite. The incredible west faces of the North, Central and South Towers of Paine are faced by the colossal east faces of the Cerro Fortaleza and Cerro Escudo. It is an awe inspiring place, a place where the wind is king, and it was up here that the dramatic race for the first ascent of the Central Tower was played out in 1963. The British team had been in position for five weeks waiting for an attempt on the Tower. During that time the wind had never ceased its howling refrain and destroyed any tents they erected above the bush line, frustrating all their efforts to start climbing. Out of nowhere an Italian team turned up, intent on the same objective, and the race for national pride was on. The professional Italian climbers looked very disparagingly at the British slobs festering in their piles of empty beer bottles, but it was the Pom's that got creative, building a square canvas and wooden box hut and carrying it high up under the Towers. This was the precursor to the famous 'Whillans Box', to be used so successfully in the Himalaya during the 70's. Capable of withstanding the ferocious winds, this cunning ploy allowed them to camp high up in relative comfort, waiting for a break in the weather. Using any short weather windows to push the route, the Brit's fixed ropes to the mountain and left them behind as they descended. After seven long weeks, a longer fine spell finally arrived and the team headed off for a summit push. Swiftly ascending the fixed ropes to their previous high point, Bonnington and Whillans headed up into virgin territory while the Italians, realizing that they had slept in on the one fine day for weeks, raced to catch up. It was too late however, and after a fantastic effort, British boots were the first to stomp on the summit of this incredible spire. The Italians did manage to salvage some national dignity by nabbing the first ascent of the impressive South Tower.

We decided to make use of some moderate weather shortly after our arrival to carry a load up to the base of the Towers. From the moraine a long approach gully stretches up for a thousand meters to the saddle between the North and Central Towers, with some delicate icy slabs along the way to keep things interesting. Arriving at the top of the gully at 12.30, it seemed like reasonable climbing weather, a very elusive commodity in Patagonia. Reluctant to waste it, we hauled out the ropes for a fast attempt on the North Tower. It was wonderful to finally pull the rock shoes on after months of planning, and an easy rope length quickly lead us to Col Bich, the saddle between the Towers and a perfect accelerator tunnel for the increasing wind. From this beautiful, airy perch the solid orange granite of the walls on either side, looked breathtaking. We climbed out of Col Bich, with the enormous Central Tower looming behind us, the stomach clenching drop of the east faces to our right and the wind screaming around our ears. This is what we had come for. After several hard pitches the terrains eased a little and we are able to move simultaneously, still roped together, and cover lots of ground quickly until just below the top. The last rope length proved to be a beauty, thirty meters of almost blank wall with the only protection a rusty piton at 25m height. Despite the cold gale blowing us around, we had huge grins on when we rolled onto the summit. Unable to stand up for fear of being blown out to the Atlantic, we unrolled the NZ flag for a patriotic picture and then battled our way back down through the wind. After eighteen hours we staggered back into basecamp feeling tired but very happy.

Almost a week later after loads of eating, building of basecamp furniture and general laziness we arrived back at Col Bich late in the afternoon, intent on bivying before having a crack at the Central Tower the next day. The afternoon had, for the first time, been crystal clear and calm, and we prayed to the great weather God that it would stay that way. Tied to the wall two rope lengths up, we spent a frigid night trying to convince ourselves we were comfortable, shivering the night away until, at four in the morning, a prolonged and largely incoherent conversation ensued, about the now deteriorating weather. In the predawn light it was difficult to make out the extent of the developing wind clouds but we knew they were there and the dropping pressure wasn't reassuring us either. After much discussion we decided to go up and 'have a look', so, as the barometer headed down, we headed up. The first rope length proved to be a hard pitch of aid climbing up a thin crack that perfectly split a huge pillar leaning on to the Tower. Easier climbing led us to the red slabs where Don Whillans had nearly come to a sticky end during the first ascent. As he hauled up the wind frayed ropes that had been left fixed on the climb during an earlier attempt, one of them broke. In an act of incredible clear headedness, Whillans managed to grab the rope above the break just before he plunged to the glacier hundreds of meters below. Calmly tying the ropes back together, he carried on up, heading for the summit. We could only marvel at his good fortune and cool demeanor as we picked our way delicately up the fantastic, compact slabs. Lowering off a piton allowed us to swing across into the bottom of the climbs hardest sections, the grey and red dihedrals. Above were the corner systems I had gazed at for months in photos of Bonnington battling with a huge roof. It was incredible to finally be there and we launched into it, purposefully not discussing the rapidly worsening weather behind us. A little like a child hiding from monsters under a blanket, we figured that by ignoring it, it couldn't possibly get us. How wrong could we be!

The climbing was wild, hard and slow going but totally absorbing and it wasn't until the first snow flakes began to fall that we realized just how bad the gathering storm had become. Snow slickened rock shoes failed completely on the steep icy granite, so with little choice but bitterly disappointed we began a descent. Patagonia chose this opportune moment to teach us a lesson for ignoring her obvious warning signs. As the wind rose quickly to a hurricane force our disappointment turned rapidly to desperation, our human frailty suddenly exposed. So strong that it prevented us from pulling our abseil ropes, the gale roared around our ears, trying its best to pluck us off the small icy ledges. At the bottom of each abseil the two of us would hunker down, attach both sets of mechanical ascenders and heave on the rope as if our lives depended on it, which, funnily enough, they did. Several times the rope did not move, held rigid in the winds grip while we steeled ourselves for the hideous option of re-ascending the rope. Last ditch attempts during slight lulls in the storm resulted in the ropes slowly, oh so slowly, coming down, centimeters at a time, slowly gaining momentum until the storm grabbed them in a new game, whipping them through the anchor to stream out, all eighty meters, cracking and flailing across the ledges and flakes of the wall, trying their best to get jammed. Often the first person down had to place protection to avoid themselves being blown irretrievably away from the wall. While struggling to get one of these out on the second to last abseil I lost my grip, taking a bowel shaking swing out and across the east face, spinning like a puppet over five hundred meters of void and praying for the rusty pitons of the anchor to hold together. We weren't having fun anymore, and our world was narrowed down to a few meters of rock and the screaming wind that seemed determined to eliminate us. Time slowed to a crawl and it seemed as if years had passed when we finally abseiled into the top of the icy descent gully. For the first time in hours we could smile- we were probably going to be OK.

Back in basecamp we licked our wounds, one frost-nipped big toe and a broken pinkie sustained from a large rolling boulder in the moraine. The days slipped by in a welter of tea drinking, chess playing and losing pull up competitions with our neighbors, the 'hard as nails' Slovenians. Above us the storms raged uninterrupted, guarding the mountain kingdom from all intruders as they have done almost uninterrupted since time immemorial. Our time frame was no contest for the immortal gales and all too soon we began carrying our gear down the valley, destined for another adventure further north, on the high slopes of Aconcagua. We were disappointed but happy that we'd given it our best shot during the only gap afforded by the weather. To step foot on a Patagonian summit is a rare privilege indeed and in their elusiveness lies their allure. It is a place where your spirit can soar, or you can be crushed like an ant. A playground for those with a penchant for disappointment, a playground ruled by the wind.