In February, Jim Taylor and I established a beautiful line he’d scoped out the year before, on a feature known as El Perfil in the Amphitheater. The route follows a crack system up to a short roof and then continues up a very prominent arête.

Our initial ground-up attempt came to a standstill after about four pitches (35m below a vegetated crack under the roof). The climbing on the pitch up to the roof turned out to be extremely thin and too vegetated for hooking. Thus, we decided to take a top-down approach, first climbing to the summit via a fifth-class gully to the southwest. Although the upper arête and three other pitches were bolted on rappel, we managed to establish several of the pitches on lead. We then cleaned the route from the top down over the course of the next two weeks.

Establishing the 11-pitch route with the unique style required in Cochamó was a wild learning experience. We fondly referred to this process as “finding your Cochamojó.” Our climb, Cochamojó (400m, 5.12a A0), is all free aside from a short A0 pendulum to connect pitches six and seven, and it includes incredibly fun and varied crack and face climbing.

– Nick Rothenbush, USA