In February, on a rainy day in Valle Trinidad, Billy Barghahn, Dana Hawlish, and I set out to look for a new line on this valley’s seldom-climbed walls. On the north face of Cerro Laguna, we stumbled upon a pair of beautiful left- and then right-facing corners and a stunning splitter crack high on the headwall. Once the weather cleared, we returned and began to climb the route, which begins in the gully between Cerro Laguna and Tetris Wall.  

After aiding the steep and thin second-pitch corner (which would eventually be dubbed the Cosmic Corner and become the route’s free climbing crux) we found evidence of previous climbing and, deterred, bailed off the fixed gear we found. Upon returning to base camp and asking about the route, we discovered that another American team had rappelled the wall to scope the line but had not climbed the route.

We returned to Cerro Laguna and climbed to the top of the wall using a mix of free and aid climbing tactics. Over the several days following, we returned to the wall to clean the route, equip the route for future ascents, and to establish a more direct and higher quality version of pitch five, which we bolted on rappel. The route was equipped with a total of seven protection bolts plus rappel stations suitable for descent with one 70m rope. We finished the process with a team-free ascent of the newly equipped route: La Pluma del Cóndor (7 pitches, 600’, 5.12-).

–       Brandon Hill, USA

Editor's Note: After publication of this report, more details about the earlier history of this line emerged. On February 10, 2017, Americans Chris Kalman and Eric Lynch went ground-up on the first three pitches of what is reported here as La Pluma. They did not free the second pitch. On February 11, they climbed fixed ropes to the top of pitch three, then led two pitches of 5.11 R straight up the wall to access a 5.10 leftward traverse (the same one used by the team who climbed La Pluma) to the shoulder of the buttress and the end of the technical climbing. Lynch and Kalman decided on the summit not to invest any work bolting and cleaning for future parties, and they rappeled to the ground. Hill's statement that "another American team had rappelled the wall to scope the line but had not climbed the route" was erroneous. 

Arrayan Free Ascent: To the east of Cerro Laguna, on Trinidad Sur, Clinton Leung and Drew Marshall succeeding in free climbing the route Arrayan (AAJ 2017), which Leung and four others had established in early 2017. The free climb has nine pitches to 5.12d.