It all started with a mistake, as some things do. I was with my friend James Stover, somewhere near the summit of the Mooses Tooth. We had just finished the last of our food: a little can of Vienna sausages. I was cold from nearly 24 hours on th...
Yep, right there in the desert, just a two-hour drive from my house located outside of Chile Chico in northern Chilean Patagonia is Wyoming’s Devils Tower on steroids: La Pirámide. The massive cliff hosts route potential up to 700’ and is a great ...
Marco Poblete and Harry Brito (both from Chile) climbed a new route, La Via de los Seracs (5.9 60°), on an unnamed peak in the Aysén Region of Chilean Patagonia, which they called Hama (ca 2,400m). The peak is located near the Miller River valley ...
On October 27, Felipe Cancino and I, both Chileans, made the first ascent of the northeast face of Cerro Peñón (2,424m), the second-highest peak in the Castillo Range, which is located south of Coyhaique. This prominent peak was first climbed by i...
Paul McSorley initially told me about the Turbio Valley in the summer of 2008, after seeing a photo of Cerro Mariposa in the refugio at Aguja Frey near Bariloche. “Where’s that?” he inquired. Nobody would tell him. However, blessed with fluent Spa...
In February, Cooper Varney, Elise Maillot, Laure Batoz, Caroline North, and Nick Heyward established a new route in El Antifeatro on Pared del Tiempo. The 8-pitch route, comprised of splitter cracks and roofs, was eventually free-climbed by Chris ...
After a month of fighting cold weather in El Chaltén, my partners, Kivik Francois and Olivier Zintz (both from Belgium), and I decided to head north to the sunny granite walls of Cochamó. On January 11 we climbed a new line ground-up on Cerro Lagu...
After opening El Filo la Aleta de Tiburon (see previous report), I was set on finding a cleaner and harder route, full of splitter cracks. Near the back of El Anfiteatro, up a gully, was an amazing-looking buttress, still untouched. I was in need ...
In January 2014, Florian Haenel (Germany), Austin Siadak (USA), and I made the first ascent of an unclimbed feature left of Pared del Tiempo. (At first, it appears to be part of Pared del Tiempo, but it is separate from that wall.) The lower part ...
This season I hoped to complete a first ascent on one of the most impressive and beautiful walls in Cochamó, the west face of Cerro Capicúa. I’d chosen a line in the middle of the wall, following a very steep headwall. Trying to free as much as po...
In late January 2014, Chris Moore, Katie Ryan, Cooper Varney, and I began to porter our gear across the strenuous 13km approach from La Junta to the base of El Monstruo. We set our eyes on a direct and sustained line on the east face, to the right...
I’ve spent 10 seasons of my life climbing in the awesome big-wall destination of Cochamó Valley, and the devouring finger crack of my new route Doña Debora de Dedos (450m, 5.12b) is the best I’ve ever climbed. Others who have repeated it agreed an...
On January 7, 2013, Drew Smith and I walked into Cochamó Valley with 160 pounds of food, climbing gear for any situation, and the intentions of having an adventure. After a week of climbing some established routes, we decided to explore the 1,000m...
In December 2011, Martín Neimark, Code Raguet, and I explored the barely visited western area of the Cordillera de la Totora. This beautiful range is located in San Juan Province in the Central Andes of Argentina—a remote area with lots of potenti...
Cerro Moai is a Chilean mountain (4,368m, 33º44´29¨ S, 69º58´56¨ W), first ascended in 1964, which had two routes and relatively few ascents. From April 19–21, Mariela Muñoz (German-Chilean), Luis Garrido, and Vicente “Vicho” Gamboa (both Chileans...
In the heart of Central Andes are “blank” zones ignored by mountaineers. The Santa Clara Range, situated at the southern end of the La Jaula Massif in the Cordillera Frontal, is one of these, and still houses 5,000m unclimbed peaks. Lotfi Mijel an...
This fine peak (5,432m) is located near Aconcagua in Argentina’s Central Andes. It was first ascended in 1903 by Countess Nadine Lougonine Von Meyendorff and Alois Pollinger. On October 27, Pablo Busso and Gabriel Fava traveled to the west face to...
Cerro Río Salado. In November, Glauco Muratti and Adriàn Petrocelli ascended an unclimbed volcano near Ojos del Salado: Cerro Río Salado (6,350m). They left their vehicle at ca 4,700m, and the next day reached a camp at ca 5,200m. On the third day...
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El Altar (a.k.a. Kapak Urku) is a large, extinct stratovolcano located on the western side of Sangay National Park in central Ecuador, 170km south of Quito. Comprising the massif of El Altar are nine major peaks that rise over 5,000m and form a ho...