In mid-January 2013, I arrived in Cochamó without sleep (lost on a bus), a partner (summiting Fitz Roy), or a plan (plan?). All I had was an awesome weather forecast. On the bus ride in, I met a large group of climbers and posed, somewhat maniacally, the question, “Hey, do any of you want to open a route?”To my surprise, four days later, after scoping out a stunning arête in El Anfiteatro, two of those climbers from the bus were working on a new route with me. Looking down, I saw Chris Moore with a face full of dirt, working like a madman to clean a nice finger crack. Further down I heard Cooper “Payaso” Varney swearing like a pirate as he finished clearing our approach trail, which would later be dubbed the Pan-American Super Highway, a.k.a. Trail of Tabano Tears. Looking up, I saw a beautiful, stunning headwall, and two table-sized mini-summits before the true top of the route. We were halfway there.The three of us climbed the Doppler Effect in what seems to have become typical Cochamó style. We were able to access the middle of the route via a fourth-class trail to the base of a knife-edge arête. From the midpoint, we worked simultaneously up and down: cleaning, establishing new pitches, and bolting both on lead and rappel, by hand and by power drill. Twice, the route went up one way only to be abandoned for an option to the left or right. The route climbs 16 pitches, mostly following a sharp arête, with a fantastic mixture of crack and face climbing to the final summit of Cerro Laguna.

The Doppler Effect (600m, 5.12b) includes several stellar pitches: the third-pitch dihedral, the seventh pitch’s bolted knife-edge arête, pitch 10’s V-slot, and pitch 13’s crux finger crack. We climbed the route all free in a push on January 23, with Cooper Varney onsighting the crux 5.12b pitch. This is the first route on the wall, which we named Pared del Tiempo, in honor of all the time and good weather we enjoyed while opening the route.