Round 1

We are back in El Chaltén after our first attempt to climb Aguja Guillaumet. We had to bail but had a ton of fun, got gorgeous views of fitz, and learned a lot to prepare us for round 2. Here are some highlights from our journal entry just after we got back to high camp:

"Guillaumet is full of snow and ice...not exactly ideal rock climbing conditions"

"We went for it though...spirits were high, and the snow was good"

"We reached the first fixed anchor quickly"

"The next 3 hours were the most strenuous 300 ft of climbing that I've ever encountered...I was chest to shoulder deep in light powder. I struggled into it but the snow was so light I went nowhere. I switched to an approach of compacting down the snow in front of me so that I could make a step. This allowed for very slow and very strenuous progress, 1 ft at a time"

"As I got higher, I made it to a rock outcrop. I dug out some cam placements but found the rock above coated in thin ice. Not good."

"The snow got lighter and harder to compact. The hard ice underneath allowed me to cut steps occasionally. But I was quickly looking at a nasty fall, with no ability to self-arrest in the light, steep powder. I was also running out of rope and to make the notch sheila would have to simulclimb the shitty steep snow with only a pair of cams in a snowy crack to protect us. The scales had tipped from difficult but secure to hard, insecure, and unsafe....I downclimbed."

"We rapped the steep snow and headed back to camp"

"In the end we were happy, energized, and knew that we made the right call"

We have several options for our next attemp. We can start 300 m lower and bypass the snow altogether. We can wait for the snow to consolidate some, and also rent snow pickets in town so that we have protection. Or we can take an alternate route on the east face. We will evaluate these options over the next few days while the winds howl.

Looks like our next break in the wind may be dec 26. May be a huge weather window. Stay tuned.