Aguja Poincenot: Patagónicos Desesperados

The Fitz Roy Massif. Peaks from left to right: St. Exupery, Rafael Juárez, Poincenot, Fitz Roy (tallest), Val Biois, Mermoz, and Guillaumet

Although the photo above was clearly taken from google images, it really displays how dramatic this range is, so I felt it'd be useful. Our plan upon leaving the house in Chaltén was to climb Royal Flush on the east face of Fitz Roy, a ~4,000ft tall face and one of the longer routes in the range. I was anxious, as this would without a doubt be the hardest climb we'd ever attempted together and, seeing as I'd never touched this range, possibly a bit audacious for a first climb. Luckily Isaac & his confidence convinced me that'd it could work and we hit the trail ready for a long approach, a few days on the wall, and hopefully a summit & safe return to town.

One of the coolest parts about being in Chaltén to me is that you can just leave your front door and head straight for the mountains. No car, no traffic, no annoying timed entry passes or parking lots or lines. Just pack your stuff & hike up into the hills. It was a moody day and low clouds were swirling around the peaks as we left town. We didn't end up heading out until 1:30pm or so due to the previously mentioned unexpected news, which meant we needed to boogie if we wanted to make it up to Paso Superior (our camp spot) in time to set up the tent and get a full night's sleep. So off we went, with Isaac absolutely cruising uphill with a fully-loaded pack, ready to rip through the 10mi and 6,000ft of vertical gain ahead of us.

The first 6 or so miles of the trail are moderate, with a casual uphill grade & some seriously beautiful forested sections. We cruised our way up, at one point running into Miles and Katy, whom Isaac had recently met, on their way down from climbing the Italaliana route on St. Exupery. After a short chat with them, we made our way towards the final steep bit to Laguna de Los Tres. This is a classic hike for the area, with VERY impressive views of the Fitz massif and some seriously cool rivers, forests, and viewpoints along the way. We made our way around the lake using the fixed ropes & handlines in place to facilitate a safe crossing and quickly approached the glacier which would eventually lead us to Paso Superior. At the base of the glacaier, we stopped for a snack & a sit down break to switch into our mountain boots and crampons. The next section was only a mile or two, but it was about 3,000 more feet to camp with probably 90% of that vertical gain happening on glaciers & snowfields.

After switchbacking around dozens of crevasses, passing a few more fixed ropes, and gaining a few thousand more feet, we finally made it to Paso Superior! I didn't really know what to expect from this "campsite", but it really blew me away. We set up the tent in a prime spot, tucked between a tall snowbank & the cliffside. There was a perfect tent patch already dug out into the snow, which made it super convenient for us to get settled. After the tent was up, we started melting snow with the stove for drinking water & for our dehydrated dinners. We caught our breathe, ate, and quickly packed our bags for the following morning so that we could still get to sleep before the sun went down (which, luckily, wasn't until around 10pm). As we drifted off to sleep, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything -- The last minute decision to hike up today, the news of my grandmother passing, and the nerves surrounding the goal ahead all came together as I attempted, unsuccessfully, to fall asleep quickly.

After a fairly rough night going in and out of sleep, listening to the sound of rain & snow hitting our tent, I eventually popped up to the sound of our 4am alarm. We briefly discussed the fact that it was actively raining, and decided to set another alarm for an hour later. Packing up & heading out in the very cold rain didn't seem too wise -- if it were still coming down at the base of the route, it was unlikely the wall would be in climbable conditions. After a bit more sleep, the rain finally decided to quit & we were up and moving around 5:30am. Isaac racked up his harness, I threw on the pack, and off we went for the glacier which would lead us to the base of Fitz Roy. As we rounded the corner where the face was supposed to come into view, we could see absolutely nothing. The fog was dense & the range was covered in clouds, mist, and some light snow. When we finally got close enough to see the base of the wall, the clouds opened up briefly to show us a rime & ice covered, soaking wet face above...

Given that an attempt on Royal Flush would likely be the hardest thing we'd ever tried, we needed conditions to be pretty damn good to warrant going up there. We decided to sit around on the glacier in hopes that things cleared up & the sun came out to melt the ice & snow off of the face. After about 45mins sitting there and chatting, the snow began falling again so we decided to stomp out a flat spot on the glacier to set up our tent to avoid getting completely soaked & frozen. Long story short, we spent the next 10 hours or so laying in the tent, eating snacks, and coming up with games to play to pass the time. We eventually realized there was no chance that we we'd be starting up the wall today, but the continuous rain & snow made it very unnappealing to leave the tent and head back to Paso Superior... Sometime around 6pm, the precipitation stopped & we were able to pack up and head back across the glacier towards our previous camp. Although we didn't climb, it was honestly a pretty fun day just lounging, napping, eating, and talking about all sorts of nonsense to pass the time. Back at Paso Superior, a few other parties had arrived in hopes of the following day bringing better weather.

Back at Paso Superior, we met our tent-neighbors & committed to an alternative plan for the coming days. We'd been getting weather updates from Justin via InReach and the updates made it seem like the following day would be great, but subsequent days after that were very questionable. Based on the forecast info we had, we decided that an in-a-day route would be better & we settled on Patagonicos Desesperados on Aguja Poincenot for the "Plan B" attempt! We stared at some topos, came up with a came plan, and packed the bags for the next day before snuggling back up for more sleep (even though we'd been napping all day, we were pretty psyched to get a full night).

Alarms went off at 4am & we drank some cold instant coffee before sliding out of our sleeping bags & the warm tent. Before taking off, we melted some snow so that we could bring some extra water on the route with us. Once that was done, we set out under an insanely bright full moon to retrace our steps across the glacier towards the jagged peaks once again. By the time we were nearing the steep snow & bergschrunds below the route, the sun had fully risen & things were starting to warm up a bit. Isaac led the way as we navigated some steep snow and one fairly large crevasse below the wall. Things were going smoothly so far and, before I knew it, we were off of the snow & at the start of the Whillans ramp (the base of the east face of Poincenot).

We had initially planned to climb the Whillans ramp for a few hundred feet, traversing into Patagonicos higher up the wall. We'd heard that the lower few hudred feet of the route were serious -- fairly hard, bad rock quality, and some potential for big/sketchy falls. Isaac had the first "block" and would be leading the first half of the route (and me the second half). He started up the Whillans ramp, but after 80ft or so, traversed out right onto the rock face instead of following the weird, unstable snow & ice in the ramp itself. He built an anchor & belayed me up to where he was. We quickly decided that starting up Patagonicos from the base would likely be a safer, faster, and more enjoyable option than our initial plan to traverse in higher up, so Isaac headed up into the void to see what the lower pitches had in store. The first few pitches had less-than-ideal rock quality, with all sorts of crumbles & pebbles & bits falling down as Isaac led the way.

After a handful of pitches, we made it to the base of the slab crux of the route. It sounded pretty run-out from what we'd heard (sparse gear & potential for big falls), but Isaac was PSYCHED and took off on lead shortly after I made it to the anchor. He placed a few good pieces of gear off of the belay as we were riffing and joking, and he noted that he could see a bolt WAY up above, probably ~25ft past where he currently was. The next few minutes were SO SICK and one of my most "proud partner" moments. He starting climbing up into the blank nothingness ahead, questing for the far-off bolt. I could tell by his body movement and silence, even from the belay, that the climbing was requiring complete focus and a whole lot of technical ability. It looked pretty damn hard and pretty damn thin -- tiny crimps, small flaky feet, and still a longgg ways to go until that bolt. Eventually, after many many more sections of wizard climbing with no gear, he made it to the old bolt, letting out an audible sigh of relief once it was clipped. As I followed the pitch, I was legitimately in awe at how terrifying and technical the pitch was. If that would have been me on lead, I would have backed down & bailed SO quickly. Truly one of the most impressive things I've ever seen Isaac do and one of the more intense-feeling belays I've ever given.

As we continued up the route, things got way way steeper and we started employing alll sorts of tactics to continue upward progress: pulling on cams, swinging around corners, stepping in slings. The goal was not to free climb the entire route, but ideally to make it to the summit by any means & get back down in one piece. Isaac led many more pitches, quite a few of which contained icy, wide cracks that were pretty brutal. Eventually, it was my turn to lead. I was not feeling too good at this point... my arms were starting to cramp, and the seriousness of the day was already started to wear me down mentally. My first lead was slow, and I felt like I was climbing poorly. The rock was pretty bad, with lots of crumbling sections and big loose blocks/flakes all around. The rock quality eventually got a bit better on the upper sections & I started to feel a bit more comfortable up there. As these were my first leads in Patagonia, I was definitely anticipating some extra nerves but man did I underestimate how I'd feel. The upper headwall was STEEP!

As we started nearing the "upper mountain", the section where the angle gets less steep as you near the top, the terrain got a bit more complicated (for me, at least). Lots of micro-decision making to navigate around big blocks, corners, and features in an attempt to weave our way closer to the summit by the path of least resistance. I slowed down quite a bit here as the terrain turned from steep, clean, vertical walls to a chunky, loose, maze of mountain. After a while, we eventually made it within sight of what we assumed was the summit. We swapped into mountain boots & crampons for a final short section of snow to the top and before we knew it, we were taking turns standing on the pointy summit block! This was around 6pm, roughly 13 hours after we'd left camp & 11.5 hours or so since we started up the route.

As in many climbing destinations, but especially here, the day was far from over when we reached the summit. Now came the time to descend the entire mountain, a task which I was feeling a bit nervous for. Rappelling is fairly straightforward in theory, but there are just so many things that can go wrong: stuck ropes, getting off route, pulling loose rock down from above as you pull your ropes down. That is just a few of the potential issues, but in short, a lot could go wrong when rappelling thousands of feet & the opportunities for help out here are slim. You can't make a serious mistake. So with those thoughts in mind, Isaac started leading us down the rappels. We'd decided to rap down a different route, "Whiskey Time", as it was apparently pretty simple to follow and would ideally put us right back down on the steep snow we had climbed to get to our route. The rappels went super smoothly and ended up being very straightforward. Our systems felt dialed and we were making quick progress down the mountain!

The views as we descended were incredible. I'm always fairly nervous when a route requires hours of rappelling, due to the many ways things can go wrong mentioned above, but damn it was hard not to be blown away by the beauty of this place as we descended (which luckily distracted me from thinking about getting our ropes stuck). Whiskey Time is a VERY steep route, which meant that there were less chances to get our ropes stuck, but way more time hanging from our harnesses between rappels (as opposed to standing on ledges etc.). Eventually we were making our final rap over the bergschrund/crevasse and onto the steep snowfield above the glacier. After some shenanigans getting over the final crevasse, we had easy glacier walking back to our tent. At this point it was fully dark, but we were pretty damn psyched to be down safe after an amazing route & epic summit. For Isaac, Poincenot was a new summit and for me, the first summit in the range!

Back at camp, we melted some more snow to rehydrate & boiled water for some dehydrated dinner. We ate, unpacked a little, and went to sleep in our wet sleeping bags for the night. The morning was nice & slow: more water, lots of gear organizing so that we could repack our bags for the hike out, and eventually a tent tear-down before we were on our way home. The hike out felt long, but we had some nice breaks for water, snacks, and changing into shorts & regular shoes once we had descended past the glaciers to Laguna de Los Tres. We took a rest by the river at one point to rest the legs & eat some salami, which was a much needed & absolutely stelar rest BUT made it way way harder to rally for the final 6 miles back home. We chatted our way down the hill and finally made it back to the apartment in Chaltén, where we threw the packs down & sat for a while. We'd worked up an appetite on the hike out, so we wandered to the bakery down the road for some empanadas (with some additional chipas & a churro for Isaac).

I called my parents to catch up, then chatted with Will & Sarah on the phone too. There were asking me how the trip was going & I was asking all about how the week had been since Grammy had passed away. It was great to hear their voices and hear how things had been while we were out. I think, for me, the time away was a nice mental break. It gave me some time to think about what she meant to me, to our family, and to all of us grandkids as we navigate how to move forward now that she's gone. I really appreciated Isaac's willingness to be flexible with everything & his questions like "what was she like to you" and "have any good stories?" as we hiked & climbed around. These simple questions caused me to reflect quite a bit on her & what she meant to me.

After the phone calls & catching up (during which Isaac was napping lol) we popped down the street for some pizza to fuel celebrate & refuel before bed. Pretty freakin awesome day, and handful of days really, out there. After dinner I talked to Emily on the phone for a while (I miss you!!!) and we wrapped things up for the night. No TV this evening, as I was WAY too tired to watch anything without immediately passing out. Weather window #1: success!