Patagonia above the Snow Line

“How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top” — Yvon Chouinard

At noon on March 28, 2023, I arrived in the Argentine town of El Chalten. The memory of El Chalten 7 years ago slowly emerged. In these years, many new houses have been added to the town, but the whole town has remained the same, and there are still many hikers on the main street San Martin. walking in a hurry . . .

*San Martin, the main street of the town of El Chalten.*

Return to Patagonia

Climbing the snowy mountains of Patagonia has been my mountaineering plan since 2018.

In 2019, Tomy, El Chalten’s professional mountaineering guide, recommended several peaks of different difficulty levels in Patagonia for my consideration. After doing some extensive research and discussions, we finally decided to climb Cerro Solo as our first goal, and also determined our second climbing goal. If there is a suitable weather window, Tomy believes we can reach both climbing goals in 10 days.

We scheduled to do this exciting mountain climbing activity in March 2020. However, the ensuing COVID-19 epidemic caused the world to press the pause button, and this has lasted three years.

Entering 2023, I can finally restart my Patagonia climbing trip.

At 4:00 pm on the day we arrived in El Chalten on March 28, I met Tomy in a cafe. We have been discussing mountaineering matters in the past few years and have become very familiar with each other. According to Tomy's information, we have a two-day weather window on March 30th and 31st, which is a bit tight, but if all goes well, we should be able to complete the climb to Cerro Solo.

Although the summer climbing season in Patagonia has basically ended in late March, and the winter climbing season officially entered on April 1, the climbing route will become more complicated, due to my own time constraints, we did not better option. Tomy thinks that as long as we are careful, it shouldn't be a big problem.

*Overlooking the small town of El Chalten from the hill.*

Cerro Solo

Near the small town of El Chalten, we can see Cerro Solo from several directions, a completely isolated mountain peak with an altitude of 2121 meters. Technically speaking, Cerro Solo is an easier mountain to climb. From its summit, we can see the majestic Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre in an unrivaled 360-degree view.

On March 30, after breakfast, I checked all the equipment for going up the mountain again, packed the rest into big boxes, and stored them in the hotel. At 9 o'clock sharp, Tommy and his assistant Maxi also arrived at the hotel.

Let me explain here, in order to combine my alpine photography with climbing Cerro Solo, our climbing method this time is different from the usual route. Since all areas below the glacier slope of Cerro Solo are at risk of avalanches, usually Cerro Solo climbers can only set up their base camp in a safe area in the bush below the tree line, or even in the familiar Argostini camp ground. Climbers usually set off from the base camp in the early morning, carry light equipment all the way, climb to the top after about 8-10 hours, and then descend to the base camp. The entire climbing process takes about 13-15 hours.

Since I also do photography in addition to mountain climbing, the above-mentioned climbing method is obviously not suitable for me. To this end, the climbing route Tomy specially designed for me is as follows: We set the base camp at Cerro Solo Galcier Col, which is only 500 meters vertical height from the summit of Cerro Solo, at an altitude of 1,650 meters. Here we can see both Cerro Torre Peak and Fitzroy Peak, as well as the huge ice sheet between the two peaks. We planned to start from El Chalten on the first day, carry all the equipment, climb to Glacier Col, and camp there for one night. That night and the next morning were my shooting hours. After finishing the shooting the next morning, we set off from Glacier Col and climbed to the top of Cerro Solo with light equipment, which took about 4 hours. Then we descended to Glacier Col (base camp), then carried all our gear and camp equipment and continued to descend below the tree line. We would camp in the bush (700 meters above sea level) for one night, and return to the small town of El Chalten on the third day.

*Our base camp is only 500 meters vertically elevated from the summit.*

At 10 am, the three of us set off from El Chalten. Since we needed to climb 1,200 meters vertically on this day and transport all the equipment to the base camp at 1,650 meters, Tomy specially arranged for his assistant Maxi to carry some of the main climbing equipment and some of my photography equipment for us. In the end, the weight of the backpacks of the three of us were: Maxi’s backpack was about 25/26 kg; Tomy’s backpack was 20 kg; mine was the lightest, but it still ended up weighing about 15 kg.

*From El Chalten to Laguna Torre 9 kilometers, the three of us walked for two hours. The leftmost mountain in the photo is Cerro Solo, and the right is the famous Cerro Torre.*

*Take photos at famous scenic spots along the way.*

*At the confluence of the Laguna Torre and the Fitz Roy River, we passed the sling to the other side of the river in turn.*

Ascending

Two hours later, we arrived at Laguna Torre, had a quick lunch, and successfully crossed to the other side of the river through the sling. After walking for less than an hour, we passed through the dense bush and began to climb upward. Since it has entered winter here, this climbing route is full of challenges - steep rock walls, snow and falling rocks are the difficulties we need to overcome along the way.

The vertical rise of this climbing route is 950 meters. Once we passed the tree line, we were climbing on slopes covered with fresh snow, requiring constant attention to falling rocks above us. The three of us also tried to avoid climbing in a straight line, to prevent the stones we stepped on from rolling onto the heads of our companions behind us.

After we climbed for two or three hours, the route began to become extremely steep. In addition, each of us was climbing with weights, and the difficulty became increasingly difficult. Tomy and I started climbing together on ropes for safety, with Maxi right behind us.

*As the climb continues, the line becomes steeper.*

In the last few hundred meters of climbing, the rock wall was steep at nearly 60 degrees, and with a load of 15 kilograms, it was one of the most difficult climbing route I have ever climbed. Tomy also admitted that this was also one of the most difficult mountain climbs he has done recently. One of the difficulties was to ensure my safe guidance with such a complicated route and load.

After 6 hours of hard work, we finally reached the Cerro Solo Glacier Col at 1,650 meters before the sunset. We quickly unpacked our stuff and set up our tent before the dark.

*A few meters in front of our tent is a cliff, and behind the tent is the 100-meter-high Glacier Fault.*

Photography

Alpine photography and mountain climbing themselves always seem to be a pair of contradictory activities: in order to climb mountains, we must need a good weather window to ensure a smooth and safe climbing process. As for photography, in order to achieve the most perfect light and atmosphere, we need "bad" weather to obtain the best light and effects. In fact, in my activities in mountaineering and alpine photography, I almost never encounter the opportunity to have the best of both worlds.

On the evening of March 30, when we settled down, the dark sky was already covered with thick clouds (see the above picture). There was nothing to shoot at night. At the same time, I began to worry about the summit plan the next day. But because I was tired during the day, I slept okay in this tent that night.

I woke up at 6 o'clock in the morning. At this time, it was still dark all around, and Tomy and Maxi were still sleeping soundly in the tent next door. I got my camera and tripod alone, took the ice ax and climbed to the high point I selected yesterday.

When I finished taking the first long exposure, I screamed with excitement (I can’t remember the last time I experienced such an exciting moment in photography): the mountain peaks were lit, and colorful clouds began to fly in the eastern sky. Burning clouds! This is the third time I have witnessed mountain fire burning clouds since my mountain photography career, and it is the most intense one. I knew this was a rare opportunity, so I started shooting without hesitating . . .

*It's not yet sunrise, and you can already take pictures of the magnificent landscape with your mobile phone.*

*At dawn, Tomy and Maxi also came out of the tent, and we enjoyed the stunning scenery together from the commanding heights. Maxi took this photo of me with his phone.*

Descending

At around 8 o'clock, I finished shooting, and then I remembered that we had to climb Cerro Solo today. Quickly ask Tomy:

"When do we leave?"

"There's bad news," Tomy replied,

"I just checked the weather here by satellite phone, and the temperature in Glacier will be 20 degrees higher than yesterday afternoon by noon today," Tomy continued.

"This means the chance of an avalanche on Glacier after noon today is almost 100%!"

"Then what should we do?" I asked immediately.

"We need to get out of here before 11:00 am, because this place is completely exposed to the danger of avalanches. Now we have 3 hours, if you want, we can climb up to the Glacier at a height of 100 meters and have a look, and then come down afterwards and get out of here." Tomy explained to me.

"So is it impossible for us to climb to the top this time?" I was still a little unwilling.

"Yes!" Tomy had no room for negotiation, "At most we can only go up and take a look."

"Forget it, then just take me around for a while." I said sadly.

In this way, because the glacier ice surface of Cerro Solo began to soften early in the morning due to the sudden increase in temperature, we gave up on climbing Cerro Solo. In the remaining hour or so, Tomy took me around the camp and took a few photos.

*At 11am on March 31, we packed up our tents and started descending.*

On the way down, Tomy and I were roped together from the beginning because the snow was so soft that it was easy to fall. In fact, the three us fell a few time on the way down, until we were below the tree line that we started walking separately.

*After more than three hours of descending, we reached below the tree line, and then pitched a tent here for the night.*

It began to rain in the afternoon, and it continued to rain all night. During the night we kept hearing loud noises from avalanches and falling rocks on the ridge behind us and opposite. Early the next morning, Tomy told me that it was fortunate that we left in time yesterday, otherwise it would have been more troublesome.

Maxi (left, 32 years old, guide assistant), Tomy (middle, my guide, just celebrated his 40th birthday the day before we set off). Maxi grew up in the big city of Buenos Aires. Because of his passion for mountaineering, he came to El Chalten alone. He usually works as a welder in El Chalten to support himself, and climbs mountains in his spare time. An experienced mountaineer and guide, Tomy has climbed all the peaks near El Chalten, including Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre.

*We successfully returned to El Chalten at noon on April 1st, and I immediately went to Rancho Grande Hostel for a big meal.*

As planned, Tomy and I have a second mountain climbing plan from April 3-5. Unfortunately, the conditions in all aspects in the next few days were still not ideal. After discussing with Tomy, I decided to abandon the second climbing plan.

Mountaineering is a sport full of luck and regret. Knowing when to give up may be a basic quality that every climber needs to possess. Through this experience, I had to seriously adjust my mountaineering thinking: don’t take climbing to the top as the ultimate goal, enjoy the climbing process, and do what you can.