Torres del Brujo, A Ultima Dama and other climbs. From January 10-22, 2008, Joao Cassol (Florianopolis, Brazil), Wagner Machado (Curitiba, Brazil), and I explored the seldom- visited Torres del Brujo. Located 120km south of Santiago, Chile, the area may best be described as a smaller version of its famous Patagonian neighbors to the south. The primary difference between the two regions is the likelihood of long periods of high pressure in the Torres del Brujo during the South American summer.

We set out from the trailhead under a deep blue sky, with two heavily laden and disagreeable mules. Our arrival two days later at the base of the towers went, more or less, according to plan, and we promptly set out to repeat one of the easier routes on the Aprendiz de Brujo, a 300m tower at the foot of 500m Brujo Falso, our main objective.

The day after our arrival, we climbed the classic Aprendiz route Uno Poco de Patagonia (300m, IV 5.10d) in a long day from our camp at the base of the glacier. During the course of this day, we realized that the glacier conditions were too poor to permit safe passage with the amount of equipment we needed to carry to Brujo Falso. We then set our sights upon the walls on the opposite side of the glacier from the Brujo Falso, walls that seemed conducive to a lighter style.

On January 17, with everpresent high pressure, we found our way to a substantial wall that looked promising. The unnamed peak is adjacent to a tongue of glacial icefall that descends from the icecap above and east of the peak. Examination of the wall revealed two previously climbed lines, but farther up-glacier toward the icefall tongue we found a line that appeared unclimbed. Located on the very left side of the wall and threatened by seracs from the icefall, the line starts in the middle of a system of right-facing corners and can be distinguished by the presence of a short section of chimney 65m above the glacier, at the top of the first pitch. From here, the climb ascends a strenuous hanging flake above the chimney and continues in a fairly direct line, on crack and face features, to the top of the steep wall. This first part of the wall is characterized by steep, hard 5.10 crack climbing. After the steep section of the wall, the route changes to an alpine ridge climb. The final 150m is seldom more difficult than 5.9, and routefinding on the broad ridge never seemed difficult, with several logical options available to reach the summit. We completed our route in one long day from camp. Because it seemed to be the last unclimbed line available to our party, we named it A Ultima Dama (320m, IV 5.10+), Portuguese for “the Last Lady.”

During our trip we also established several single-pitch routes from 5.10-5.11 in an area we dubbed Gato de Brujo (the Sorcerer’s Cat), at the lower end of the same long rampart as our route. There was at least one other route there, likely done by Italians. (The bolts were Italian, anyway.)

David Trippett, Vancouver, B.C., AAC