Patagonia stories

Trekking / exploration

• Homage to Patagonia
• Explorations of the Southern Patagonia Ice Cap
• A six day trek on the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap
• A four day trek around Fitz Roy

Climbing

Climbing text paraphrased with the permission of UK Mountain Info, American Alpine Journal, Alpinist magazine and The Mountaineers. Reproduced here online. Credit and many thanks are due to Rolando Garibotti for his help in its original preparation.

• First ascent of Fitz Roy
• Second ascent of Fitz Roy
• The ascent of Fitz Roy's 'Goretta Pillar'
• First ascent of Aguja Poincenot
• First ascent of Cerro Torre
• First ascent of Torre Egger
• First ascent of Cerro Standhardt
• The Torres traverse

1. Homage to Patagonia

A personal account of Los Glaciares National Park in Patagonia, visiting El Chalten, Piedra del Fraile, Marconi Glacier, Paso Marconi, Southern Patagonian Ice Cap, Circos de los Altares, Cerro Torre, Torre Egger, Cerro Standhardt, Paso del Viento, Lago Toro.

It’s 4am. I put on all my clothes and go outside to help dig our tent out of its snow grave. I ignore the mountains soaring above me – because this is the second time I have been up tonight and because it is extremely cold and very, very windy. This is Patagonia, after all.

The Southern Patagonian Ice Cap is a great ocean of ice that sweeps west from the coast of Chile to the border of Argentina. It is one of the largest expanses of frozen water to be found outside the polar regions, nearly 350km long and at times 90km wide.

Home to some of the most extreme weather conditions in the world, the smooth surface of the ice cap allows storms generated deep in the Pacific Ocean to race unimpeded and gather momentum before slamming into the Southern Patagonian Andes with a force generally uncommon in the northern hemisphere: apocalyptic.

Nearly 170km of these Southern Patagonian Andes have been designated as the Los Glaciares National Park, a collection of heavily glaciated, sheer-sided peaks that rise steeply out of the vast semi-arid plains that cover the landscape. Two of the most spectacular mountains in the world, Mount Fitzroy and Cerro Torre, are in this park.

New frontier

Access to these mountains is via El Chalten, a dusty frontier-type village nestling in a small horseshoe valley at the head of the nation al park. El Chalten is 220km from its nearest neighbour, El Calafate, which is itself a three hour plane journey from Buenos Aires. By any standards, the location is remote.

Mount Fitzroy dominates the area, by virtue of its sheer size and bulk. Standing 3,441m high, it soars above the village and its neighbouring peaks, spouting out rivers of ice and satellite crests that overshadow everything except the Torre Range, a collection of needle-like spires 7km south. Undisputed queen of the Torres is Cerro Torre, the Tower Mountain. It rises vertically for 3,128m and is generally regarded as one of the most difficult in the world to climb. That’s not because of the altitude or highly technical climbing, but by virtue of its location: standing sentry for the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap. Cerro Torre lies right on its edge. Once described by the South Tyrolean climber Reinhold Messner as "a shriek turned to stone", the mountain receives the full brunt of the prevailing weather. The freezing conditions, coupled with the almost constant high winds, regularly see Torre and its adjacent peaks covered in a maelstrom of moisture-laden, boiling storm clouds and coated in a rime of perilous, and at times unclimbable, snow and ice ‘mushrooms’.

Cerro Torre presents its west face directly to the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap. It is home to one of the most difficult climbing routes on the mountain: 2,000m of vertical – and at times overhanging – rock, snow and ice. Its main defence, apart from the difficulty of climbing and the atrocious weather, is remoteness. It can be reached only by those few who manage the ice cap itself and, weather permitting, zig-zag their way south for 25km around a myriad of crevasses to the Circos de los Altares – Corrie of the Altars.

International: no rescue

Circos de los Altares is a deep glacial scoop, rough-hewn from the west side of the Torre range by many years of glacier excavation. Enclosed on all sides except its front by sheer granite peaks and with its mouth facing the ice cap, it is a spectacularly beautiful and at the same time threatening place – there is no mountain rescue here if things go wrong…

Which is what appears to be happening as, with us committed to the ice cap, and camped deep in the corrie, the weather takes a turn for the worse and we are forced to repeatedly get up in the night and dig our tent out of the snow drifts that threaten to bury us in the ground and result in us being tent-bound for three days.

When we’re finally allowed to leave the corrie, it takes us nearly all day to travel the 20km south to the nearest exit to the ice cap, Paso del Viento – Pass of the Winds. It is a strangely quiet place, given its name and the preceding days’ conditions.

Despite the weather, we reluctantly turn our backs on the ice cap and head off on the two-day trip it takes to descend the glacier, traverse endless moraine, and climb up and down steep-sided valleys to return to El Chalten.

In El Chalten I spent two days in March recovering from the nine-day, 120km round trip to Circos de los Altares. I had followed in the footsteps of Gregory Crouch, an American author and climber who entered the ice cap during the Patagonian winter of 1999 with a party of companions, set up a base in the corrie, and climbed the west face of Cerro Torre. Like his book said, the views didn’t disappoint.

2. Explorations of the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap

The first explorations of the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap took place in 1914. Frederick Reichert, a German explorer sponsored by the Argentine Scientific Society, reached the 1500m high plateau of the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap by way of the Perito Moreno Glacier, in the southern portion of today’s Los Glaciares National Park.

Two years later, Reichert organised another expedition where members of the society explored all the way from the Viedma glacier to the huge plateau of Paso de los Cuatro Glaciares, the watershed of four huge glaciers on the ice cap. They passed the remote west faces of Monte Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre on the way.

Dr Frederick Reichert returned to the ice cap in 1933 and, in a brief glimpse through weeks of bad weather, made the first sighting of a live volcano that was smoking away in the middle of the ice cap, north-west of Paso de los Cuatro Glaciares and less than 50 km from the current location of El Chalten.

Eric Shipton

Reichert’s observations of a volcano went largely unnoticed until the 1950s, when Eric Shipton, an English explorer with possibly an unmatched experience of the Himalayas, turned his attention to Patagonia and completed a number of exploratory journeys onto the ice cap.

In 1959/60 Shipton, with countrymen Jack Ewer and Peter Miles, made the second, but first noted, account of Cerro Lautaro being a volcano —27 years after it was first seen by Dr Reichert. The three were unable to attempt the peak due to the poor weather.

By the 1950s, the challenge was for a full traverse of the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap. The shorter east to west crossing was attempted in 1953 by a national expedition, led by the head of the Argentine army, Emiliano Huerta. During this expedition the group saw, but like Dr Reichert in 1933, did not reach the Pacific Ocean.

The first complete lateral traverse of the ice cap was made by Eric Shipton’s Himalayan partner, Bill Tillman, who, with the Chilean Jorge Quinteros, crossed from west to east and back again in 1956, starting and finishing from Tillman’s yacht, Mischief, which they moored in a Chilean fjord. During this trip, Tillman had a swim in Lago Argentino.

Traversing the full length of the ice cap

The first attempt at a north to south traverse of the ice cap was by Shipton himself, who returned in 1960/61 and made a partial crossing, from Glacier Jorge Montt in the north to Glacier Upsala in the south, finishing at Estancia Cristina, over a period of 55 days. His partners were fellow Briton Jack Ewer and the Chileans Cedomir Marangunic and Eduardo Garcia Soto.

The four travelled the whole way on foot, carrying their food and equipment behind them on sleds and spending the nights under a heavy canvas tent much used in Antarctica. During this trip they tried again to ascend the volcano Cerro Lautaro.

Cerro Lautaro was finally climbed in 1964, when Argentines Pedro Skvarca and Luciano Pera reached the summit on 29 November, having travelled over the ice cap from Paso Marconi at the head of the Rio Electrico valley.

The second ascent of Cerro Lautaro was made nine years later in 1973 by British mountaineers Eric Jones, Mick Coffey and film-maker Leo Dickinson. Their initial plan to parachute onto the ice cap was curtailed by the Argentine army, who deemed the idea too dangerous. The British used the parachutes anyway, as a great sail, and as a means to propel themselves across the ice. After their ascent, the trio climbed a peak they called Cerro Mimosa, 30km north of Cerro Lautaro, which they named after the ship in which the first Welsh settlers arrived in Patagonia.

A last great journey?

For those with the experience to attempt it, a fully unsupported, complete traverse of the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap still exists. Notable attempts since Eric Shipton in 1961 include the Swiss climbers, Franco Dellatorre and Arturo Giovanoli, who retreated in 1993 after getting lost for 17 days at the Falla de Reichert — a huge 900m deep, 12km wide crack in the ice south of Upsala Glacier — when one of their sleds fell into a crevasse and they lost the batteries for their GPS. Later in the same year, three Spaniards and an Argentine, Sebastian de la Cruz, completed the same journey but resorted to a helicopter crossing of the Falla de Reichert, continuing on down the Pingo Glacier into Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park.

The first complete land traverse of the ice cap, from north to south, is understood to have taken place in 1998/99 when the Chilean team of Pablo Besser, Rodrigo Fica, Jose Pedro Montt and Mauricio Rojas travelled to the Balmaceda Glacier — about 45km further south than the Pingo Glacier — taking 30 days to cross the Falla de Reichert on foot. Critics however pointed to the support of a cache of food and equipment they used on the way.

In National Geographic September 2003, Norwegian polar explorer, Boerge Ousland, and Swiss mountaineer, Thomas Ulrich, completed the ‘first unsupplied expedition from Tortel in the North to Puerto Natales in the South’, taking in much of the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap on the way. They exited from the ice 'at a logical point 28km north' of the Chileans' exit point, with the view that the additional distance to the Balmaceda Glacier was not part of the main ice cap due to a mountain range cutting across it.

In some media (but not by Ousland and Ulrich) this was claimed as the first crossing of the ice cap, a view rightly challenged by the Chileans, who pointed out that Ousland and Ulrich’s use of kites to travel across the ice should also be classed as ‘support’.

An independent arbitrator, ExplorersWeb (www.explorersweb.com), took up both sides for its readers in 2003 and decreed that whilst each expedition had great merit, neither party could be classed as having made a ’fully unsupported, complete crossing of the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap’ and that such a journey still remained an open challenge.

3. A six day trek on the Southern Patatgonian Ice Cap

A personal account of a six day trek / traverse / expedition on the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap, visiting El Chalten, Piedra del Fraile, Marconi Glacier, Paso Marconi, Southern Patagonian Ice Cap, Circos de los Altares, Cerro Torre, Torre Egger, Cerro Standhardt, Paso del Viento, Lago Toro.

The Southern Patagonian Ice Cap gives me a nervous ache in the pit of my stomach. For I’m usually an office-bound adventurer. And I’m going to traverse it.

Reaching out of my tent, I glance again at the huge expanse of ice we’re camped upon. Dotted across this, the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap, huge mountains slice out of the cold, hard surface and soar up into the sky. The largest peak in view is the snow-covered Cerro Lautoro, an active volcano. Sulfur fumes rise from its top mixing with clouds that stream from its summit ridges. The peak is 35km away but seemingly close enough to touch. Behind Lautaro there is more of the same - ice and mountains - with no human habitation, until the ice cap melts into the Pacific Ocean, 30 kilometres further on.

The Southern Patagonian Ice Cap is a great ocean of ice sweeping west from the southern coast of Chile to its border with Argentina. Up to 650 metres thick and almost 13,500 kilometres square, it is said to be one of the largest expanses of ice outside the Polar Regions.

Icy wastelands such as the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap, not without reason, are usually out of bounds to the office-bound adventurer. But short trips here are possible, with the services of a guide, in Argentina’s Los Glaciares National Park.

Los Glaciares National Park doesn’t have, say, the Himalaya’s high altitude to attract the masses. But its mountains rear up out of an otherwise flat landscape. Mount Fitzroy dominates the area, by virtue of its sheer size and bulk. Standing 3,441m high, it soars above its neighbouring peaks, spouting out glaciers and satellite crests that overshadow everything except the Torre Range, a collection of needle-like spires 7km south. Undisputed queen of the Torres is Cerro Torre, the Tower Mountain. It rises vertically for nearly all of its 3,128m and is generally regarded as one of the most difficult mountains in the world to climb. That’s not because of the altitude or highly technical climbing, but by virtue of its location: standing sentry for the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap. Cerro Torre lies right on its edge. Once described by the South Tyrolean climber Reinhold Messner as "a shriek turned to stone", the mountain receives the full brunt of the prevailing weather. The prevailing wet conditions, coupled with the almost constant high winds, regularly see Torre and its adjacent peaks covered in a maelstrom of moisture-laden, boiling storm clouds and coated in a rime of perilous, and at times unclimbable, snow and ice ‘mushrooms’.

Most people see Cerro Torre from the east. A feasible 2 day journey takes you from Buenos Aires to El Chalten, where you can step into the famous view found in the postcards all over the park’s gateway town of El Calafate. Less common – and a world away in terms of the memories you’ll come away with - is to ski out onto the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap and traverse over the ice cap, to the remote glacial cirque called Circos de los Altares, where you can gape, mouth wide open, right underneath Cerro Torre’s cathedral-like proportions.

Not everyone who attempts the Patagonian Ice Cap traverse reaches Circos de los Altares. The biggest obstacle is the weather. Strong winds, known locally as Escobado de Dias, or God’s Broom, are generated far out in the Pacific Ocean. Known to gather speeds of up to 200 kilometres per hour, they race across the flat surface of the ice cap and hit the mountains with great force. Any visitor to the cirque, or climbing high on the mountains at this time, is at the complete mercy of the weather gods.

Another obstacle to a successful traverse of the ice cap is crevasses, both on the Marconi Glacier on the way up to the ice cap and at the mouth to Circos de los Altares. The largest of these crevasses, 30 metres across, even has a name, La Sumidero. Crystal clear water arrives in this spherical ‘sink’ before swirling counter clockwise and disappearing down a great black hole which would easily swallow a man. Then there’s your pack size. Potentially nine days out from El Chalten requires a lot of food and equipment and you’ll analyse the contents of your rucksack like never before. ‘Light is right’ is the mantra for any such trip but remember, a canny man always keeps his toothbrush in one piece.

Most people will require the services of a mountain guide for the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap. You can use one of the local companies or hire one direct. In 2004, I used Pedro Augustina Fina of Argentina. He’s a nice bloke, greyhound fit, with a naturally friendly smile. The trick is to slow him down with much of the gear, and to use your gas canisters first. He’ll be wise to that now though. Pedro travels each year to El Chalten early, from Buenos Aires, to do some mountain climbing before the guiding season starts. He’s been up both Aguja Poincenot and Aguja Guillaumet, serious peaks either side of Mount Fitz Roy and once spent 2 days under the ice cap hiding out the weather, after an ascent of Cerro Lautaro. On a different trip he took me on a partial circumnavigation of Mount Fitz Roy. But that’s another story.

The author spent 7 days in 2004 traversing the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap. He got superlative weather all week and spent two days enjoying the views in Circos de los Altares. Unfortunately he can’t guarantee you’ll get the same.

Visit Pedro’s website at www.pedrofina.com.ar.

4. A four day trek around Fitz Roy

A personal account of a four day trek underneath Cerro Fitzroy in Patagonia, visiting El Chalten, Piedra del Fraile, Paso Cuadrado, Supercanaleta (Super Canaleta / Super Couloir), Filo de los Hombres Sentado, Paso Guillaumet, Aguja Guillaumet, Aguja Mermoz, Fitz Roy, Aguja Poincenot, Paso Superior, Laguna de los Tres.

"It's called the Guillaumet pass. It's generally used by climbers. There's a little crevasse danger but as long as the weather holds it'd be fine. You'd be right underneath Monte Fitz Roy."

The e-mail I’d opened was from a 29-year old Argentinean mountain guide, Pedro Fina. I'd first met Pedro in 2004, when he was one of two guides I'd had on a 4-week trekking expedition in South America. During that trip, we'd climbed a glacier beside two of the great peaks of the Patagonian Andes, Monte Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, and traversed a small portion of the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap, a flat expanse of thick ice - 13,000km2 - that flows west from the mountains and down into the Pacific Ocean.

My objective this year was to get much closer to the mountains, to scratch an exploratory itch I have for Patagonia and to research new treks for a guidebook I was writing to Argentina's Los Glaciares National Park. With the help of Pedro and Rolando Garibotti, a US-based Italian-Argentine mountain guide and an expert on Patagonia climbing, I'd settled on a shorter expedition around Monte Fitz Roy, connecting small cirques and climbers' trails with pocket glaciers and high bealachs to create a trek that I hoped would offer me the finest views possible of the Fitz Roy massif.

"I'll pick you up at 7am. There's a 3-4 day good weather forecast and we should take advantage of it whilst we can."

I'd only been in Argentina a day when Pedro suggested we should leave the following morning. Neither of us had any desire to be caught out in a Patagonian storm. The weather in Patagonia is commonly said to be amongst the worst in the world. Dark storm fronts that begin life deep in the Pacific Ocean rampage across the sea uninterrupted, the cold and wet air picking up moisture and gaining in speed as it heads towards a thick belt of low pressure, termed a circumpolar trough, that rings Antarctica. When this trough has expanded over Patagonia, as is all too often the case, the storms are dragged kicking and screaming over the Andes first. It is not uncommon to encounter wind speeds of 160 kph. When this is the case the last place you'd want to be is up in the mountains where, as Gregory Crouch, in his book 'Enduring Patagonia', quotes US climber Jim Donini as saying "survival is not assured".

Cerro Torre, Torre Egger and Cerro Standhardt from Paso del Cuadrado

It was this sobering thought that occupied my mind when, two days later, Pedro and I stood atop the 1700 m high Paso Cuadrado and prepared to descend 400 m of blue, translucent ice to reach the remote and heavily-crevassed glacier we could see far below us. We had climbed the 200 m to Paso Cuadrado that morning, after ascending 1000 m the day before from a private campsite just outside Los Glaciares National Park and spending a dry, cold night beside a huge, black rock called Piedra Negra. Two off Pedro's friends spent the night with us, shivering without sleeping bags as they waited to attempt a nearby peak, Aguja Guillaumet.

By 11.00am Pedro's friends could be a world away. Having carefully descended the ice slope we'd swapped crampons for snow shoes and headed uphill towards the Fitz Roy Norte Glacier. A huge jumble of ice towers, or seracs, spilled out of a higher basin as the glacier broke up and made its way down valley.

Fitz Roy Norte Glacier

Giving this icefall a wide berth we traversed instead beneath a jagged bergschrund that had formed as the ice had torn itself away from the huge granite walls of Aguja Mermoz. Rock-fall was a distinct possibility and more than a few deep breaths were taken before we passed the seracs and could cut back onto the upper part of the glacier. As we did so, everything underfoot turned to pristine white.

Perhaps it was the uncommon lack of wind and the resultant silence or more likely my jangly nerves, but the further I walked into this glacial cirque the more the surroundings began to affect me. It wasn't just that we were far from civilisation - a 2 day walk to the small town of El Chalten unless you could climb expertly - but that if you had seen us we would have been impossibly small. Behind us was the 400m ice slope we had just descended. We had to climb it again later in the day. To our right was a vast wall of ice-clad cliffs, 200 m high, which made up the southern side of Cerro Pollone and Cerro Piergiorgio. Beyond these cliffs was the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap, beyond that only the Pacific Ocean. In front of us was the fourth 'wall' of the cirque, the Filo del Hombre Sentado, or Sitting Man Ridge. At the top of this ridge the ground dropped 700 m to the Torre Glacier before it rose up the other side again to form a 3 km long incisored skyline of agujas, or needles, that culminates in three of the most recognisable and difficult to climb mountains in the world - Cerro Torre, Torre Egger and Cerro Standhardt. Clearly visible from the ridge is the most popular route up Cerro Torre; the so-called Compressor Route, named after the Italian climber, Cesare Maestri, who drilled over 400 bolts into the mountain as he climbed it in 1970. Despite the prevailing weather, and the outcry of many a traditional climber, the bolts are still there, as is the drill itself. It is tolerated by many of today's climbers as an opportune place to stand on an otherwise blank vertical wall. Maestri's original claim to have summited the mountain in better style, in 1959, up the far harder north-east ridge, is still a subject of much debate. This route was not climbed without suspicion until 2005, by the afore-mentioned Rolando Garibotti and two Italian friends, Ermanno Salvaterra and Alessandro Beltrami. Rolando is one of many people who believe, not without reason, that the first people to climb Cerro Torre were a team of Italians, in 1974, via the west face.

All views paled into insignificance however by the massive, 1600 km high flange of granite that rose up on our left. Monte Fitz Roy’s huge west face is split in two - as if by a mighty axe blow - by the majestic Supercanaleta, or Super Coulouir.

West face of Monte Fitz Roy

If you're the American climber, Dean Potter, this 60 degree, ice-filled couloir is regarded as an easy way up the mountain. In 2004, Potter raced from the bottom of the couloir to the summit of Fitz Roy, all 1600m of snow, ice and rock, in a mere 6 hours 29 minutes. He then descended the other side of the mountain the same day. In 1965, the first ascentionists of the couloir, Argentineans Jose-Luis Fonrouge and Carlos Comesana, took a more realistic 2 days, before they descended on their third day through a storm that raged around the mountains for a staggering 36 days. You can be sure this thought wasn’t far from my mind as I considered the meagre two days rations I had packed in my backpack.

“The next bit’s got the crevasses”, Pedro said, as he handed me my obligatory fix of morning coffee. “Great”, I said, but I didn’t really mean it. Although it was possible for us to have abseiled the Sitting Man Ridge and descended the Torre Glacier back to El Chalten this was way outside the realms of my experience and we had chosen instead to return to Piedra Negra. It was from here that we were headed for Paso Guillaumet, a small notch in the mountains that enabled access across the east-west divide, and from there to another high mountain pass, Paso Superior, that lay right in front of Monte Fitz Roy. Both Pedro and Rolando had told me in their e-mails that the view between these passes was spectacular.

The ground up to Paso Guillaumet was similiar to the previous day; long, steep ice slopes broken up by the odd rock outcrop that we took advantage of for snack breaks. Higher up, we entered a gully system until a large, angular rock blocked the way and we were forced to move out onto a buttress for a few easy pitches of easy rock-climbing.

Climbing up to Paso Guillaumet – not as steep as it looks

On reaching the pass the view opened out to the east and we could see far below us, out over the glaciers to the dry, brown Patagonian steppes and the stone-gray waters of the enormous Lago Viedma. My eyes kept darting back and forward between the contrast of the brown steppes in the distance with the whiteness of the ice cap we could see over to the west.

View west from Paso Guillaumet

Once we crossed the watershed we headed up towards a rock apron that made up the lower eastern face of Aguja Guillaumet. Traversing the base of this mountain we passed the Amy Coulouir, a narrow ice hose that offers a popular way to the summit. It was this route that Pedro's friends had taken the day before. The jagged rent of a bergschrund and other crevasse danger eventually caused us to head away from the mountains and descend towards a large, snow-covered plateau that is only hinted at from the usual treks near El Chalten. As we neared the plateau, Pedro wasn't happy with the route we had taken and he walked back towards me, motioning for us to find another way to descend. As we did so, I looked back up to our right and could see our footprints on top of a huge, overhanging ice cliff. The gap that had opened up beneath it was big enough to swallow a house.

Tracks from Paso Guillaumet

Once on the relative safety of the plateau, I could finally appreciate the view. The magnificent east face of Monte Fitz Roy was only half a kilometre away. It’s impossibly huge and I still can't imagine anyone having the courage to climb it. Even to reach the bealachs either side of the peak involves 300 m of technical climbing – and the summit is still another 1,000 m higher. It was first reached in 1952, by the Frenchman, Lionel Terray, and his partner, Guido Magnone. It took their expedition many weeks to reach the top and a lot of time was spent burrowed underground in snow caves waiting out bad weather.

Monte Fitz Roy and Aguja Poincenot (right-left)

At the far end of the plateau, making up the southern end of the Fitz Roy skyline, was the huge granite tooth of Aguja Poincenot. The English mountaineer, Don Whillans, was the first person to climb this peak, joining a team of Irish climbers in 1957 who attempted the mountain on a Guinness sponsorship. Their descent of the mountain was hampered by strong winds and it was 20 hours before they reached the safety of their high camp at Paso Superior. When they did so they were exhausted - Pedro said this reminded him of when he and his friends had climbed the mountain in 2003; they were so tired they kept sitting down and falling asleep during their descent.

Our own traverse to Paso Superior was uneventful, if nerve-wracking. Dropping off the plateau onto a steep snow slope, we traversed above an intermittent line of blue-black crevasses that threatened to catch any fall. It was easy terrain but after two days of steep ice slopes, seracs and crevasses my nerves were frazzled and I just wanted to be on solid ground. I got my wish when, just below the pass, we encountered a 10 m rock wall with a flotsam of old fixed rope and a rope ladder that hung loosely down the rock. With no desire to put any weight on the trashed ropes I cIimbed a mixture of rock and ladder and pulled myself up over the top and out onto Paso Superior. It was empty, except for a large climbers' haulbag sitting on the snow.

Pedro at Paso Superior

The plan had been to stay at Paso Superior for one night, using one of the existing snow caves or digging a new one, before descending 1,000 m down the glacier the following morning to reach Laguna de los Tres. This small lake at the foot of the glacier is the usual high point for trekkers in the national park. It has great views of the Fitz Roy mountains, especially in the early morning. I should have been looking forward to it. But on the plateau I'd decided I'd had enough. Enough steep snow and ice slopes. Enough thoughts of falling into a crevasse and dying a cold and unpleasant death. Turning the sight of some grey, wispy clouds I'd seen forming over Fitz Roy into the leading edge of a storm, I asked Pedro how long it would take us to get down to Laguna de los Tres. "2, maybe 3 hours?" he replied, "then another 30 minutes to Campamento Poincenot. Oh, plus another hour to get back to the car." "What's the ground like?", I asked, immediately deciding it was worth it, regardless of the terrain. "Do you want to leave now?" he replied, giving me that quizzical look talented folk give you when they just don't understand. "Yeah, I've got a book to write ", I said, adding "And the weather's got to turn sometime". Okay" he replied, 'let's get moving. If we hurry we'll make it all the way to El Chalten." And with that, we packed up and headed for home.

5. First ascent of Fitz Roy

An account of the first ascent of Fitz Roy in Patagonia.

The first mountaineers to attempt Monte Fitz Roy were from an Italian expedition in 1937. Led by Count Aldo Bonacossa, this small group climbed the glacier above Laguna de los Tres and reached a small col they called Paso Superior. From here, they found they could ascend to the Piedras Blancas glacier and from there reach another col at the foot of the south-east ridge of Monte Fitz Roy. This small notch in the skyline is known as Brecha de los Italianos, or the Italian Col.

After two attempts by Argentine parties, a group of world-class mountaineers from France arrived in 1952, inspired by photos published by the Argentine missionary, Padre Alberto de Agostini. Highly confident, the group included one of the first men to reach the summit of an 8,000 metre peak, 31-year old Lionel Terray.

Disaster struck the expedition when one of their climbers, Jacques Poincenot, drowned whilst attempting to cross the Rio Fitz Roy. Despite this, the French continued their expedition but were rewarded only with atrocious Patagonian weather, bringing with it hurricane force winds that blew them from their feet and snow blizzards that left them unable to see. But eventually their patience paid off and when the weather conditions changed they were able to forge a route back up to the base of the mountain.

At dawn on 31 January 1952, two members of the French expedition, Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone, left their snow cave on the Brecha de los Italianos and headed back across easy ground to the base of Fitz Roy’s South-East Ridge. Seeking out the line of least resistance, they spent the day making their way slowly and skilfully up increasingly difficult terrain, fixing ropes for safety as they went, before they ended the day as planned and returned to the cave for the night. It took the French pair nearly four hours the next morning to regain their high point where the difficulties increased and they were pushed to their limits in order to make further progress. One single pitch of climbing (50m) took them over five hours to surmount. As night fell they were only half-way to the summit and looking for a place to spend the night. Perched precariously high on the shoulder of the mountain, the plan was to make an attempt for the summit the next again morning.

Terray and Magnone continued early the next day, having spent an uncomfortable night out in the open. They soon had difficulty in finding a route and were forced to use crampons on iced-up rock. The arrival of strong winds and dark clouds swirling around the nearby peaks saw the more experienced Terray fearful for their safety and he advocated retreat. Anxious they would not get another chance, an enthusiastic Magnone pushed forward his reasons for wanting to go on and the pair decided to continue for just two more hours in the hope of making the summit. Finally, just as they thought they had run out of equipment to protect themselves from a fall, they ascended the last of the technical difficulties and raced to the top of a cloud-strewn Fitz Roy at 4pm on 2 February 1952, completing what was an outstanding ascent and one which reinforced the reputation of French climbing throughout the world.

Terray, an outstanding all round Alpine mountaineer, would later say in his autobiography, ‘Conquistadors of the Useless’ that his ascent of Fitz Roy was “more complex, hazardous and exhausting than anything to be found in the Alps” and the one in which he “most nearly approached my physical and moral limits.” Despite this, he still found the strength four weeks after the expedition to make an ascent of Aconcagua, at 6,962 metres the tallest peak in South America.

6. Second ascent of Fitz Roy - Supercanaleta

An account of the second ascent of Fitz Roy, by the west face, by two Argentine climbers in superb alpine style fashion.

In January 1965, two Argentine climbers, 22-year old Jose-Luis Fonrouge and 24-year old Carlos Comesana, made the second ascent of Monte Fitz Roy, via the Supercanaleta, or Super Couloir. A huge gash splitting Fitz Roy’s remote west face, the Supercanaleta is a difficult and dangerous route up the mountain, exposed to any bad weather sweeping in from the ice cap and frequently peppered by rockfall. Its attraction is its straightforwardness; 1700 m of couloir takes a climber from bottom to almost top.

Gregory Crouch, in 'Enduring Patagonia', and Alan Kearney, in 'Mountaineering in Patagonia', both write how Fonrouge and Comesana intended to make a lightweight, 2-3 day attempt on the mountain, boldly relying on the short gaps of good weather between storms to help them climb. This committing style of climbing, dubbed alpine-style by today's climbers, was in vast contrast to the huge, monthslong expeditions prevalent of the time. It had great potential for things to go wrong but the Argentine pair had proven their style worked however when, only two days earlier, they had made the first ascent of Fitz Roy’s neighbouring peak, 2,579 m Aguja Guillaumet, in a rapid, 2 day push.

The pair’s confidence from this ascent was merited when they also stood atop Monte Fitz Roy, at 7 pm on 16 January 1965. Thirteen years had passed since the mountain's first ascent. With only faint wisps of clouds in the distance, Fonrouge and Comesana spent an hour on top before they planted an Argentine flag and began their descent back into the couloir. With no lines of fixed rope attached to the wall to help them on the descent —a feature of the big, multi-walled expeditions of the past— Comesana and Fonrouge knew that they were not home and dry yet. This was hammered home to them when the weather turned during their final night and a malevolant Patagonian storm saw them spending the day dodging snow, ice and rocks that the couloir funnelled directly on top of them. High winds bouncing around the constricted walls of the couloir made it difficult for them to abseil and, finally forced to cut the rope and leave equipment behind, the nerve-frazzled pair eventually solo down-climbed the final 400 m of the couloir to reach the Fitz Roy Glacier. Once on flatter ground, they fled back to the safety of their base camp, counting how lucky they were as the storm they just missed continued to rage around Monte Fitz Roy for six consecutive weeks.

Today, climbers have ascended the Supercanaleta in a matter of hours; the quickest probably being the first solo ascent in January 2004 by American climber, Dean Potter, who reached the summit in a remarkable 6 h 29 m before he descended the same day to Campamento Poincenot, on the other side of the mountain. Potter also reached the summit of Cerro Torre in the same month, making the third solo ascent of the mountain in a remarkable eleven hours from glacier to summit (most parties take two days). A highly experienced Patagonia climber, Potter became the first person to base jump these mountains when he leapt from Torre’s stunted neighbour, El Mocho, in January 2005, landing 400 m away on the Torre Glacier.

7. The ascent of Fitz Roy's Goretta Pillar

A summary of the ascent of the giant north-west pillar of Fitz Roy by Italian climber, Renatto Casarotto.

Once the summit of Fitz Roy was reached in 1952, the focus for climbers soon moved to other features of the mountain. The big, thick index-finger of granite you see attached to the northern shoulder of Fitz Roy is known as the Goretta Pillar. It is nearly 700 metres high.

The pillar had never been climbed before when Italian climber Renatto Casarotto made his way solo up the steep, cracked granite over the Summer of 1979. Progress was slow, with each section of rock having to be climbed twice; first for Casarotto to find the way then he abseiled back down and climbed it again so he could re-use his equipment for the following pitch.

After many aborted attempts due to the weather, and a final two consecutive nights out sleeping on the mountain, Casarotto reached the summit alone late in the afternoon on 19 January 1979. Completing what he classed as his “quest for adventure”, he named the pillar after his wife, Goretta, who had supported him throughout from a base camp in the valley.

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8. First ascent of Aguja Poincenot

An account of the first ascent of the prominent peak to the south of Fitz Roy, led by the British climber, Don Whillans.

Ten years after the first ascent of Fitz Roy, in 1962, a group of Irish students invited the British mountaineer, Don Whillans, to lead them on an attempt of the as yet unclimbed Aguja Poincenot, the incisor-shaped spire lying 1 km south of Fitz Roy.

Despite a Guinness sponsorship the luck of the Irish avoided the expedition and various travel delays and bad weather saw them using up weeks of their trip just sitting around; a frustration more than likely numbed by the hundreds of cans of stout they took with them. As soon as the weather cleared, the group spent three days moving supplies from Campamento Poincenot to Paso Superior, at the top of the de los Tres glacier.

After establishing themselves in a snow cave, Whillans and Tony Kavanagh fixed ropes across a tilted Piedras Blancas Glacier and climbed an obvious ramp to reach the foot of Poincenot’s South-East ridge. Here they cached a supply of food and equipment before returning to Paso Superior as the snow fell.

A week and a half later the pair were back in base camp after the roof of their cave had split with the weight of over three metres of new snowfall. Frustratingly, the weather didn’t improve until the day before they were due to go home.

Whillans and Frank Cochrane were the only members of the group up for a last ditch attempt and in the early morning of 31 January they trudged back up through deep snow to Paso Superior. By lunchtime they had reached the base of the South East ridge and the previously buried cache of gear. The afternoon saw Whillans slowly working his way skywards until eventually, 300 metres higher, he could climb no more and he brought up Cochrane to join him on the narrow summit ridge. The pair had to take turns to sit on the actual summit. Unable to stay long, they were forced to down-climb their steps instead of abseil due to their ropes flying around in the wind. Regardless, they had reached the summit, and another great tower in the Fitz Roy region had succumbed to patient climbers.

9. First ascent of Cerro Torre

An account of the controversy surrounding the first ascent of Cerro Torre.

In 1958, two groups attempted to make the first ascent of Cerro Torre. The Italian alpinist, Walter Bonatti, describes in his autobiography ‘On the Heights’ how he and fellow Italian Carlo Mauri, joined an Italian/Argentine expedition that was forced to attempt the west face, reached only after a 40 km approach march over the ice cap, after an all-Italian expedition turned up at the same time and attempted the peak from the easier to reach east side. Neither party had any success.

Bonatti and Mauri gained no further than the icy col between Cerro Adela and Cerro Torre, which they christened the Col of Hope, and the Italians’ expedition leader, Bruno Detassis, simply banned attempts, for his group’s safety, after he saw Cerro Torre first appear out of the cloud.

The arrival of Cesare Maestri

One year later, in 1959, Walter Bonatti was packed and ready to leave again for Patagonia when he received news that one of Detassis’ men, Cesare Maestri, was in the Fitz Roy region and making another attempt on Cerro Torre. He decided to stay at home. Maestri’s account of his 1959 climb has gone down in mountaineering history. He claims that, after ten days of continuous storms, he, fellow Italian Cesarino Fava and Austrian ice climber Toni Egger travelled up the Torre Glacier and climbed 700 m up the East face of Cerro Torre to reach a huge notch they proclaimed the Col of Conquest. Fava then returned to camp and left Maestri and Egger to continue the next day, up the steep north ridge.

Whether it is true they reached the col or not has since been the subject of much debate. The evidence apparently dictates otherwise. What is known is that six days after he said he descended from the col, Fava found Maestri alone and delirious, lying half-buried in the snow at the foot of the East face. Babbling, Maestri spoke of a great avalanche that had swept the face, killing poor Toni Egger as the pair descended from the mountain. They were returning triumphant, Maestri said, having been the first persons to stand atop the summit of the mighty Cerro Torre.

Maestri’s account of their success was feted around the world. He received a hero’s welcome on his return to Italy. The French mountaineer, Lionel Terray, one of the first ascentionists of Monte Fitz Roy in 1952, went so far as to call it ‘the greatest mountaineering feat of all time’. If true, Maestri and Egger had indeed completed a spectacular climb, a visionary ascent way ahead of its time and probably the finest ascent of the 20th Century.

First doubts

In November 1968, a team of highly experienced British climbers, including future Everest summiteer Dougal Haston, enlisted the help of ace Argentine climber Jose Luis Fonrouge for an attempt on Cerro Torre’s South East ridge. Bad weather hampered the expedition throughout. The group managed to climb within 400 metres of the summit before they returned to base camp for more equipment. A major storm saw them stuck for 37 days in base camp and when they returned to the mountain their fixed ropes had been destroyed by the wind. Defeated, the British returned home and, when asked, expressed doubts about Maestri’s ascent, compared to the time it had taken them to climb their route, the terrain they could see on the East Face, and the ferocity of the Patagonian weather.

In 1969, Carlo Mauri added fuel to the fire when he made another attempt on the west face and sent out a telegram in which he inferred that Cerro Torre remained unclimbed. This was picked by the Italian press and the resultant exposure led Ken Wilson, the editor of the British climbing magazine, Mountain, to investigate Cesare Maestri’s claims in more detail. Finding Maestri extremely reluctant to discuss in detail the nature of the climbing he encountered on the ascent, Wilson started a concentrated commentary on the 1959 climb, of the firm belief that the account as published was not truthful, raising eyebrows in the mountaineering world, which had up until then operated very much on ‘a man’s word is his bond’ principle.

A mountain desecrated

Angered by the slur on his character, Maestri returned with a team to Cerro Torre in 1970. Rather than silencing his critics by repeating his visionary, alpine-style ascent of the north ridge, Maestri employed a team and sieged the mountain from the east, forcing a route up the South East ridge and drilling over 400 bolts with the aid of a gasoline- powered air compressor drill. Bad weather stopped their first attempt 350 m below the summit but Maestri was not to be defeated and he returned later in the year and drilled a final bolt ‘ladder’ up the headwall to stand just below the final 20 m high summit ice mushroom. On his return, he announced once again that he had reached the summit, claiming the mushroom was not part of the mountain and would fall down some day. He also destroyed many of the bolts he had placed in the headwall to prove the compressor drill was necessary for the route of ascent and to prevent the bolts being used by other climbers attempting the mountain.

(Known today as the ‘Compressor route’, the South-East ridge is the most popular way to climb Cerro Torre. The compressor itself is still on the mountain. About the size of a small table, it hangs from bolts that Maestri drilled nearly all the way up the middle of the headwall. It is often used by today’s climbers as a belay stance.)

The condemnation of Maestri’s actions from the climbing world was more or less immediate; the sheer amount of bolts Maestri used for the ascent and the manner in which they were placed creating much anger and condemnation amongst mountain purists. It was also suggested that he couldn’t claim it as an ascent as he didn’t climb to the very top of the mountain. In the UK, Ken Wilson published a damning article in Mountain magazine, claiming ‘the rape’ of Cerro Torre and declaring it a “mountain desecrated”. Maestri responded by comparing his doubters to fascists for telling him he must only climb a mountain in a certain way but the style he went about climbing Cerro Torre in 1970 went so far against the climbing ethics of the day that it made his corner almost impossible to defend. More than anything, the complete contrast with his 1959 account —which was seen as light years ahead of its time— and the lack of proof he could show for that climb, forced upon people the general opinion that the true summit of Cerro Torre (i.e. the top of the ice mushroom) still remained untouched by human presence.

The over-riding factor for Maestri’s detractors over the years was the inability of the world’s top alpinists (most notably Austrians Toni Ponholzer and Tommy Bonapace and the Italian Ermanno Salvaterra) who, with vastly superior technique and using much more modern equipment, had consistently failed to repeat the line that Maestri claims he and Egger took up the north ridge. Added to Maestri’s apparent denial to answer any questions raised about his 1959 climb and the inaccuracies raised by other climbers’ accounts —including an Italian team who “went as far as rappelling 50 metres straight down the north ridge … and made several pendulums in hopes of finding something…” (‘A Mountain Unveiled’, Rolando Garibotti, American Alpine Journal 2004) — it lends credence to the many people who regard another Italian team, from the Ragni di Lecco, led by the great Casimiro Ferrari, as being the first persons to stand on top of Cerro Torre on 13 January 1974, by way of a continuation of Bonatti and Mauri’s original route up the west face. The other members of the successful summit party were Mario Conti, Daniel Chiappa and Pino Negri.

Toni Egger

In 1975, British climber Mick Coffey, on an attempt of Cerro Standhardt with American climber Jim Donini and fellow Brits, Ben Campbell-Kelly and Brian Wyvill, found the gruesome remains of Toni Egger sticking out the glacier. His corpse had travelled a simple one and a half miles since its disappearance fifteen years earlier from the East face of Cerro Torre. An elusive camera, which Maestri claimed would provide proof of his 1959 ascent, was unfortunately not to be found. Donini returned to Patagonia in 1976 when he joined up with fellow Americans, John Bragg and the late Jay Wilson, to make the first ascent of Torre Egger, by its south face. The bottom part of their route started up the East Face of Cerro Torre and goes over a snow patch where Maestri claimed an avalanche took the life of Toni Egger. Although they found proof of the Maestri/Egger route on ground below this snow patch, the Americans saw no evidence of further passage and disputed the nature of the terrain that Maestri described above it. When they later published these findings, it fuelled yet more fire to the uncertainties surrounding Maestri’s claim.

Despite the arguments that have abounded over the years, there are some notable mountaineers, including Swiss Thomas Ulrich —in his 2001 film, 'Cerro Torre', about an attempt on Maestri’s claimed route up the north ridge— who believe that Maestri and Egger, with their expert rock and ice skills, would have been able to make the first ascent in 1959. The most authoritative account of all things written about the events of that year appears to be published in 'A Mountain Unveiled' (see above), in the American Alpine Journal 2004, in an article written by Argentine climber, Rolando Garibotti. A chronicler of Patagonian climbing for mountaineering publications throughout the world, Garibotti has huge experience of climbing in the region and with his skills in interviewing related parties and translating previously unpublished documents he has presented a comprehensive argument against Maestri’s claim.

In October 2005, Garibotti, and Italians Ermanno Salvaterra and Alessandro Beltrami, became the first persons to summit, without question, Cerro Torre from the Col of Conquest. Their route, El Arca del los Vientos, too found no evidence of Maestri’s ascent. In February 2006, Cesare Maestri —then 76 years old— repeated through his lawyer that he and Toni Egger had made the first ascent of Cerro Torre. He regarded Salvaterra’s, Beltrami’s and Garibotti’s route as simply following his and Egger’s route to the summit in 1959.

As the surviving climber from up high on the 1959 expedition, Cesare Maestri is of course the only person who knows the truth of his and Toni Egger’s days on Cerro Torre in 1959. Judging by his previous exploits in the Italian Dolomites, and Egger’s expert ice skills, it is thought the two were capable of climbing the mountain. Others however who have covered the same ground as that claimed by Maestri have raised large inconsistencies in his route descriptions. And no evidence of the climb, above a reasonable height, has ever been found. As a result, the arguments about whether or not Maestri and Egger were succesful in climbing Cerro Torre in 1959 sadly seem to show no signs of abating, over 50 years on.

Update - In 2007, Americans Josh Wharton and Zack Smith intimated they would chop Maestri's bolts if they managed a boltless attempt on the Compressor route. After a public debate, local guides and visiting climbers voted the bolts should be left where they are.

Bio, Ermanno Salvaterra - A 51-year old mountain guide from the Trento region in Italy, Salvaterra has made over 20 expeditions to the Fitz Roy region in Patagonia, during which he has climbed Cerro Torre via its East, South and North faces, made the first winter ascent of the mountain, in 1985, and has made many attempts at a continuous traverse of the three Torres peaks, Cerro Torre, Torre Egger and Cerro Standhardt (see below). His ascent of Cerro Torre's South face in 2004, which rises an enormous 1900m above the Torre Glacier, is especially notable for the way the group hauled a 225kg, two-tiered aluminium box on a pulley system for a shelter each night, a meagre 2cm at a time!

10. First ascent of Torre Egger

An account of the first ascent of Torre Egger by climbers John Bragg, Jim Donini, Jay Wilson in 1976.

Torre Egger is the middle of the three Torres spires and the second tallest at 2,850 m. It was first attempted by a strong British team in 1974, who abandoned their attempt due to the threat of falling ice.

Gregory Crouch, in ‘Rock & Ice Goldline’, and Alan Kearney, in ‘Mountaineering in Patagonia’, both describe how, in 1975, a New Zealand expedition called off an attempt on Torre Egger’s East face after their youngest member, Phillip Herron, fell 60m into a crevasse and despite the protracted efforts of his climbing partner, died between its narrow walls.

As the New Zealand tragedy played out, the strong US team of John Bragg, Jim Donini and Jay Wilson were attempting Torre Egger’s south face. Despite the fact they had just arrived overland from Buenos Aires, the three climbers immediately took advantage of some fine weather and ferried supplies up the Torre valley to what is now the site of Campamento Agostini. With a base camp established in the woods, they continued up the Torre Glacier and moved food and equipment to a snow cave at the foot of Torre Egger. In what was to be a regular occurrence, bad weather arrived and forced them back to camp. When they were able to return, nearly two weeks later, their cave had been buried by nearly 10 m of new snowfall.

It took a further two days for them to dig out all of their equipment. Once they had done this, 700 m of steep, difficult climbing took the group to the icy notch between Cerro Torre and Torre Egger and Maestri’s proclaimed Col of Conquest was reached, perhaps for the first time (see first ascent of Cerro Torre). Dark storm clouds greeted their arrival and, with 300 m still between them and Torre Egger’s summit, they returned to base camp to recuperate.

Three weeks later, after another attempt ended at the Col of Conquest, the determined Wilson, Donini and Bragg were back at the col for a third time. This time, they tried a different plan of attack, chopping out a ledge 100 m below the col for a ‘Whillans Box’; a tent designed by the late English climber, Don Whillans to withstand high winds and first used during the first ascent of the central tower in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park.

Above the Col of Conquest, the trio were impeded yet again by bad weather and retreated again but this time only as far as the col. Sheltered from the storm in the box tent, a game of cards calmed their nerves and the following morning they decided to ignore the weather and go for the top.

On 2 February 1976, three months after they first started, the American’s patience and determination paid off as Jay Wilson surmounted the last of the difficult climbing above the col and became the first person to reach the icy summit of Torre Egger. Bringing up Donini and Bragg, the three celebrated their success in the cold, featureless mist but didn’t stay long, fearful of being caught up high in another storm. They began their descent soon afterwards, leaving behind as proof of their passage a karabiner which Donini had found with Toni Egger’s remains the year before.

11. First ascent of Cerro Standhardt

A short summary of the first ascent of Cerro Standhardt.

Cerro Standhardt was the last of the Torres spires to be climbed. Depending on how strict you are as to what is the top of the mountain (and people can be very strict; see Cerro Torre story above) it was either first ascended in 1977 by two British climbers, Brian Hall and John Whittle, or in 1988 by veteran US big-wall climber, Jim Bridwell, and his fellow countrymen, Jay and Greg Smith. The former didn't climb the ice mushroom that adorns the summit; the latter did.

Gino Buscaini and Silvia Metzeltin, in their book 'Patagonia – Terra Magica per viaggiatori e alpinisti' credit the first ascent of Cerro Standhardt to Hall and Whittle in 1977 but Alan Kearney, author of 'Mountaineering in Patagonia' —quite fairly making the case that what is a rule for one must be a rule for the other— gives the first ascent of the mountain to Bridwell, Smith and Smith.

12. The Torres traverse

A short summary of the attempts and eventual success by Rolando Garibotti and Colin Haley of a continual traverse of Cerro Torre, Tore Egger and Cerro Standhardt.

Valhalla for Patagonia climbers since Cerro Standhardt, the last of the main Torres peaks was climbed, could be interpreted as the complete, uninterrupted traverse of each peak in this magnificent horizon; Cerro Standhardt, Punta Herron, Torre Egger and Cerro Torre —over 3200 m of continuous ascent/descent with highly technical climbing on vast, almost featureless walls.

First attempted in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Italian climbers Maurizio Giarolli, Elio Orlandi and Ermanno Salvaterra, the most recent near success was by the German-Swiss combination of Thomas Huber and Andi Schnarf, who in January 2005 successfully surmounted the summits of Cerro Standhardt, Punta Herron and Torre Egger in a single push. They descended an existing route on Torre Egger to reach the Torre Glacier, 38 hours after they started out.

In November 2007, Rolando Garibotti returned to Patagonia intent on the traverse and, with Hans Johnstone, completed the traverse to Torre Egger. A short time later, Ermanno Salvaterra and three Italians became the third group of climbers to end the traverse on Torre Egger.

Foregoing a return to the USA, Garibotti stayed on in El Chalten and, in January 2008, persuaded Colin Haley to join him on another attempt. Three days later, the pair abseiled down from Torre Egger to the Col of Conquest and started up Cerro Torre. Garibotti, having already climbed to the summit of Cerro Torre from the col - see Cerro Torre ascent above - led on up the north-west ridge until Haley took over and burrowed his way through the magnificent but surely nerve-wracking ice mushrooms to land the pair just below the summit. After a night out on the wall, the pair continued up onto the summit of Cerro Torre and descended to El Chalten via the south-east ridge's Compressor Route. After almost 20 years of attempts, the traverse was finally complete.