The summer of early 2021 was highlighted by a series of adventurous trips into remote areas of the southern ranges. In January, Leonard Brockerhoff, Ed Cromwell, Nick Kowalski, and Ben Mangan made the long trek into the Garden of Allah, via the L...
My partner Mike (46) and I, Tiffany Hauck (50), convened on the morning of June 13. Our sights were set on Wind Ridge (4 pitches, 5.7). We had climbed on the route a month earlier but ended up missing a good portion of the ridge. We wanted to bag ...
On August 26, two climbers fell over 100 feet from Wind Ridge (4 pitches, 5.7). Climber 1 was in his 20s and survived with severe injuries. Climber 2 was in his 30s. He sustained fatal injuries. The pair had climbed the first pitch of Tigger (5.6...
From January 25 to 27, 2022, David Bacci, Matteo Della Bordella, and Matteo “Giga” De Zaiacomo (all from Italy) climbed a 1,200-meter line up the east and north faces of Cerro Torre. The climb, which they called Brothers in Arms, was the culminati...
In 2013, Nicolas Benedetti and I attempted the north face of Cerro Torre for the first time. We did not have a clear strategy nor much information. We reached the north face via the American Torre Egger route [the 1976 route, which began up the ea...
On August 20, Fiona Tummon (Dutch/Irish, resident in Switzerland) and I, with a driver, left La Paz at 5 a.m. Before reaching the little village of Peñas, we took the road to Laguna Khara Khota and then over the Paso Mullu, which crosses the Cordi...
The climate continues changing. Weather patterns in Patagonia are strongly influenced by the north-south location of the low-pressure belt surrounding Antarctica. From 1980 on, this belt has trended southward—more pronounced during the summer—whic...
In March 2022, Alexis Rojas and I managed to finish a route on the far right side of Cerro Capicúa, which I had started one year ago with the help of Isidora Montesinos and Benjamin Lira. In all, the route took me 11 days spread across these vario...
The Torres del Brujo (34°42'10"S, 70°22'22"W) comprise a little-visited area of granite spires near the terminus of Glaciar Universidad (ca 3,000m), 50km east of San Fernando, Chile. [Editor’s note: See AAJ 1999, 2005, 2008, and 2010 for more back...
In late July 2021, Nicolás Gutierrez, Rodrigo Diaz, and I climbed a new variation on the elegant southeast face of Cerro San Francisco (4,345m; 33°44' 52"S, 70°5' 17"W), located in Monumento Natural El Morado, just southwest of Cerro Morado (4,647...
We started thinking about Cerro Catedral after seeing its 1,000m east face from Trono Blanco in 2019. Over January 18–19, 2022, we ventured to open the first route on the north face of this jewel. [The north face is accessed from Valle del Francés...
After a chance encounter with Don Guillermo, a generous local fisherman, Jose Navarro, Nicolás “Nico” Secul (both from Chile), and I sailed west from Puerto Natales into the Canal Santa María on October 28, 2021. After a six-hour boat ride, we mad...
On August 30, Camilo Pedreros, Nicolás “Nico” Secul (both Chile), and I kayaked west from Estancia Perales (30km northwest of Puerto Natales) across Fiordo Última Esperanza to reach Península Antonio Varas in the northern part of Cordón Monumento ...
In late January 2022, Pepo Jurado (Ecuador) and I ventured into Valle Bader hoping to climb a new route on La Hoja. I had attempted a line on the east face a few years ago but was shut down due to a bottoming crack and an icy roof. This time, we ...
In mid-December, Romano Marcotti (Chile) and I ventured into the Valle Bader in Torres del Paine to check out a project of mine. After discovering that conditions weren’t great, we decided on the north face Cuerno Este, ascending a line that looke...
The Cordón Ilse Von Rentzell, located approximately 50km northwest of the Chaltén Massif, contains numerous beautiful and challenging summits, all of them believed to be unclimbed prior to our 2021 expedition. The range is named after German-born ...
Sitting on Jim Donini's deck in Patagonia, a world of peaks can be seen, many of them unclimbed. Jim has taken to saying, “Climb the view.” In the spirit of his project to do just that, Weston Boyles, Max Schilling, and I made the first ascent (to...
In late October, Rebeca Caceres, Isidora Llarena, and I met in Puerto Guadal with the goal of climbing of Cerro Silvia (2,770m; 47°10'4"S, 73°29'33"W) on the Northern Patagonian Icefield. We departed for Valle Colonia on the 26th with three 75-pou...
Cerro Cohete is in Cerduo Alto, which is about 30 minutes southeast of the town of Pucón and just north of Volcán Villarrica (2,847m). The approach is both easy and beautiful. I started opening a route on the east face with my brother Juan Señoret...
In October, Federico Caballero, Rafael Reinoso, and I made the first known ascent of Pico Colina Sur (4,620m; 33°53'54.9"S, 69°51'45.6"W) in the Central Andes. This peak is the highest of the Picos Colina group, on the border between Chile and Arg...