Aguja Mermoz: The Argentina Route

We awoke on Saturday morning with enough time for coffee & breakfast before it was time to take a taxi 30mins north of town to the Río Eléctico bridge & trailhead. Previously, we had just walked from town to the east face of Poincenot, but the route we wanted to climb next was on the west side and required an alternative entry point. The plan was to make it to either the Piedra Negra bivy site or continue past that point to bivy on the snow/glacier at the base of the route instead. Piedra Negra is somewhere around 6.5mi and 3,500ft from the trailhead, with the base of the route being ~2 hours beyond that point after a mix of talus hiking, moderate snow/glacier travel, and a 1000+ feet of fixed ropes traversing the slabs below the base of Guillamet.

With those potential sleeping options in mind & our bags packed, we caught the taxi & headed north through down towards the Eléctrico bridge! The start of the hike was incredibly beautiful: the sunny day, glacial blue river, and flat easy miles had us feeling pretty psyched to be getting out. We cruised our way through the Lord-of-the-Rings-like forests & bridges, chatting about all sorts of things & watching the miles melt away. Around 4.5mi into the trail, you pass the Refugio Piedra Del Fraile, an awesome little spot way out in the woods at the base of the Fitz range, where you can camp, eat a homemade pizza, or grab a beer! Pretty epic considering how wildly remote the place is. After a relaxing snack break in the sun and some cookies, we geared up for the 3,200ft climb up to the bivy. All of this vertical gain occurs within ~1.5mi or so, so we needed the extra cookie calories.

The sun was shining & it was pretty hot out, but luckily there was a nice breeze coming from up the valley to keep us cool on the climb. This approach was quite a bit steeper than anything we encountered on the Paso Superior approach to Poincenot but it flew by quickly. Next thing I knew, we could see Guillamet, Mermoz, and the north pillar of Fitz Roy peeking out over the talus. When we eventually made it to the Piedra Negra bivy site, we found a sweet sandy spot next to running water & layed down to rest and decide what the rest of the day would look like. At this point, laying in the sun & relaxing, we ate our hike-out empanadas -- which is 100% the move for the hikes out into the hills: 2 pollo & 2 carne each. A pretty ideal lunch in a pretty ideal location! Once we'd fueled up & felt good, we looked around at the rest of the approach towards the base of Mermoz. It didn't look too bad to figure out in the dark the following morning, so instead of continuing on to camp at the base of the mountain, we decided to set up camp at Piedra Negra and soak in the sun, nap, and snack for the rest of the afternoon. The beauty of hiking out in the morning is that you can spend the rest of the day resting & recovering for the climbing day(s) ahead. With heavy packs & long approaches, those extra few hours of rest feel pretty essential to feeling good up there.

Isaac read for a while before taking a nap in the tent, while I layed in the sun and took a nap on a sandy patch by the water while watching condors fly around the spires just above us! So so cool. We'd seen condors while on Poincenot, flying way below us over the glaciers, but these ones were a bit closer and stuck around for 30+ mins just swooping around in the breeze. Eventually it was time for dinner, so we boiled some water & ate our backpacker's pad thai before snuggling into the tent. With our alarms set for 2am, we slowly drifted off while it was still light out.

Our alarms went off at 2am and we quickly (and regretfully) unzipped our sleeping bags to embrace the cold night air. Instant coffee, a quick protein bar, final packing, and we were off on the approach by 2:30am. The approach went well & we found the initial notch over the ridge pretty quickly. After the notch, Isaac found the start of the fixed ropes which would ideally lead us to the base of Mermoz. After 100s of feet of fixed ropes, they abruptly ended at a section where water was flowing down the face. It was still pitch black and, although we weren't totally sure, it appeared that we simply needed to pull the rope out & climb the slabs and snowfield above to get to the base of the route. After some dark wandering up the slabs, a short section of snow which required crampons, and a final transition back to the rock, we were on what we thought was the lower buttress/ridge on the north side of Mermoz. I started leading a simul-block, feeling pretty confused as the features we were climbing did not match what the topo said or what I'd anticipated climbing. After a while (maybe ~500ft?), I made it to the top of the ridge to a point where I could see up & over to the south. It was just getting light, and it appeared that we were on the wrong mountain entirely... I built an anchor & belayed Isaac up -- Upon one look over the ridge, it was quickly confirmed that we were indeed on the wrong mountain... In the dark, we'd accidentally started up a sub-feature on Guillamet instead of Mermoz.

This actually ended up being okay -- After one double rope rappel, we were able to walk acorss talus & slabs straight to the base of the route. This definitely cost us time & energy, but it could've put is in a much more inconvenient position. At the base of the ACTUAL route, we left one backpack & Isaac started off up the face. He cruised up the first few hundred feet and, with a bit of simul climbing, made it to the base of a wide chimney in a corner. We were pretty psyched to be on-route after a very confusing & wandery morning in the dark. He led another long section, linking a few pitches worth of climbing together with some simuling, to the base of left-angling crack system. This chimney section was a bit looser & harder than I was anticipating and felt especially wacky with a pack on the pack. Once I made it to Isaac at the belay, he handed me gear to take off on the next lead block. This section was way more straightforward with respect to route finding: follow the crack system for a few hundred feet through hand cracks, low-angle offwidth, and flaky stemming. The rock up to that point was pretty bad -- lots of loose flakes & blocks, wet cracks, and generally mediocre climbing, but this section was pretty fun! I stopped once I'd mostly run out of gear so that we could swap leads again.

Isaac then lead us up towards the ridge which separated the east & west sides of the peaks. As mentioned before, our route started on the west side. The upper half of the route primarily followed the main ridge, zig-zagging around the east and west aspects while weaving ever higher towards the summit. By this point the wind had really started picking up. The forecast when we left town wasn't great & we'd decided to turn aroudn by noon, whether or not we'd made it to the summit, to avoid the afternoon rain & very high winds. Luckily Isaac is an absolute tank and lead a HUGE section, many 100s of feet long, taking us within a few hundred feet of the summit! When he ran out of gear, it was my turn to lead again. I led some wandery sections, a few steeper bits, and ended up stopping ~50ft below what I assumed was the summit (though it was hard to tell). When Isaac got to me, we continued past so that he could get a view over the ridge to determine whether or not this was the summit. We quickly realized that this was a false summit & continued leading up and over, along the ridge towards the true top. When the rope came tight, I started following the ridge onwards towards Isaac and the summit.

After a quick tag of the summit and a snack, we reversed the upper ridge back towards the false summit to find a rappel anchor so that we could get back to the west side & start the descent. The next few hours were a bit chaotic & fairly brutal. The wind was strong enough that it was creating all sorts of issues with our ropes. They kept getting blown to the side, above, or below, getting caught on all sorts of flakes & ledges & boulders... At one point, after some miscommunication (and an innability to communicate because of the wind & being out of sight of each other), Isaac was pulled sideways from a ledge while searching for the next rappel anchor, slamming his heels hard against the wall. He was a good sport about it and, although he was clearly in pain, we kept cruising down the mountain as the weather started to get worse.

As we continued down, our rappelling systems and teamwork felt super dialed. We were moving as efficiently as we could, each completing the necessary tasks at every station & rarely wasting time. Isaac, in a effort to keep the mood high as it started to rain a bit and get very windy, was playing Irish music at the rap stations to keep the mood high & it was honestly such a boost. Unfortunately this didn't prevent our ropes from getting stuck a few more times... In two of those cases, we each took a turn leading back up the wall to retrieve the stuck ropes (which is never a fun task, but went SUPER well & we quickly moved on). By the lower third of the mountain, it was legitimately raining hard. Previously we'd just been getting drizzled on, which was a bit annoying but not bad. For the last few rappels, we were totally soaked & water was running down everything.

When we finally made it to the ground, we were pretty stoked to be down but not yet comfortable -- since we'd started up the wrong mountain in the dark in the morning, we weren't totally sure how to get back to the fixed ropes which would lead us to the pass, and eventually back to our tent. We knew we could figure it out & weren't necessarily worried, we just knew that it may take extra time & potentially some extra searching to find the best way. This would've been much more casual in good weather, but we were soaked and it seemed like the rain & wind wouldn't be stopping anytime soon. We started down the mountain, weaving our way down annoying talus & around the buttress which we had started up in the dark (which, at this point, was obviously part of the wrong mountain lol). We arrived at the base of the soaking wet slabs & pulled out the rope so that we could work our way back towards to fixed ropes while being protected & tied in. This was honestly a comical section -- the slabs were fully running with water & we were climbing in approach shoes, traversing our way through the running water towards the ropes. After a few hundred feet of soaked slab traversing, I made it to the ropes & belayed Isaac over.

The fixed ropes went quickly & we just kept on moving towards camp. At this point, we were so soaked that any additional wetness, rain, or running water didn't really matter. It's hard to get much more wet than that. From the pass which would lead to Piedra Negra, the wind was absolutely RIPPING on the peaks and ridges above. The noises were wild -- It sounded like an avalanche or rock fall when the wind would rip through the notches above. With those noises above & the continuous rain, we were stoked to be back on the ground. We made it back to the tent around 5:30pm and immediately packed our bags. No chance we were spending another night up there. It'd be better to at least hike down into the valley, ideally out to the trailhead to hitch hike back to Chaltén. We ate some salami, a sleeve of cookies, chugged some water, and started our way down.

On the way out, Isaac spotted a SWEET fox cruising around the bivy sites! Another party of climbers was hiking down at the same time, all of us bundled up in our most waterproof layers & hiking down without speaking. It was so windy that there wasn't really any point in trying to communicate. You'd just be screaming into the void at that point, so we hiked fast & made quick work of the huge descent into the valley towards Río Eléctrico. Down in the valley the rain eventually stopped, temperature increased, and we were protected by the wind in the forest.

The final flat miles were much more enjoyable. We could finally chat without yelling & cruised the final 4.5mi out of there debriefing the climb (what we did well & what we could've changed), what we wanted for dinner, and just general enjoying the calm and no-longer-horrendous conditions in the valley. At the trailhead, we plopped ourselves down to wait for cars to drive by. Isaac and Justin had hitchhiked back to town before, but Isaac noted that it may take a while to flag someone down. It was close to 9pm, so it wasn't necessarily looking great. Luckily, the second car that we flagged down stopped & said they'd absolutely drive us back to Chaltén!

This ride ended up being a highlight of the day. The driver of the car, Jorge, and his two kids Rosario and Ricardo, were all incredibly kind and friendly. They were visiting Chaltén from Buenos Aires and seemed to be just as psyched as we were on the area. We spent the 30min drive chating about their few years living in the Bay Area, climbing in the mountains here, what they'd been up to on their trip, and generally just having an awesome time connecting with each other as we made our way home. They let us out of the car in the northern part of town & we started making our way home. We were pretty hungry but REALLY didn't want to go back out after we made it home so we opted to pick up some empanadas and a sweet treat on the walk back. Back at home we quickly ate food, showered off, and fell asleep VERY quickly, stoked to be back in a warm home with dry clothes and a real bed!