In February 2022, Kevin Heinrich and I completed the first ascent of Entre Cristales y Cóndores (11 pitches, 1,500’, 5.12 C1) on Atardecer, which forms the west face of Cerro Laguna in the Anfiteatro. The route was first envisioned by local climbers Mike Sanchez and Favian Sandoval, who (separately) attempted an independent line up Atardecer in early 2012, at the same time that Al Centro y Adentro (12 pitches, 5.11c, Haab-Seeliger) was being established. After concluding the routes would share a lot of climbing, both Sandoval and Sanchez decided to abandon their projects. During their exploration, they top-roped the excellent splitter cracks on pitches three, four, and seven of the now complete route.

I first noticed the lurking potential of this route during a guide training course in 2016 while scrambling around the base of Al Centro Y Adentro. After sighting the hidden-in-plain-sight finger crack three pitches up, I began dreaming of how to reach the obvious, wave-like headwall split by an overhanging crack near the top of the wall. Locals assured me this upper overhanging crack was a “butt crack,” famous for thwarting many a first ascensionist’s dreams of a Cochamó mega line, and I did not yet have the skills at the time to attempt such a climb, but the image of this crack would not leave my mind.

After returning to Cochamó several times, I began piecing together the route during the 2020 season. First, Stefan Hadeed and I struggled to the top of the pitch-three finger crack, confirming the high quality of this pitch. After this, I linked up with Jonny Baker, a British dark horse. We forged our way to the upper wall utilizing much of the already established terrain on Al Centro y Adentro. Jonny encountered a precarious death flake on the crux (later cleaned), which ended our attempts for the season.

In January 2022, with the support of an AAC Live Your Dream Grant, I returned with Kevin Heinrich, equipped for what would become six weeks of strenuous labor. With the gift of plenty of bluebird days, we climbed a line almost completely independent of Al Centro y Adentro, sharing only pitch five and 30’ of pitch eight.

On our eventual ground-up push, we free climbed all the pitches on lead (with no falls) up to the crux overhanging finger crack on pitch ten, which we estimate to be low to mid-5.13. We ascended a fixed line to the summit and then spent the next couple of days projecting the crux pitch and the last pitch of the route. On Kevin’s 30th birthday, he redpointed the last pitch (5.12-); however, we couldn’t piece together the crux before a week of rain arrived.

As we climbed the route, Entre Cristales y Cóndores is 5.12- C1. We developed the line in a modern style with bolted anchors; only 15 protection bolts were required to comfortably climb the route, thanks to the splitter nature of the cracks.

— Thomas Gilmore, USA