Cerro Torre, Ferrari Route, and Cerro Standhart, Tomahawk and Exocet Routes, First Link- Up. Laurence Monnoyeur and I have been to Patagonia two times, once in 1996 and the second time last year. In 1996, we climbed El Mocho via the Goulotte Grassi (IV 4+, 250m), Cerro Polone via Mastica e Sputa (V 5+, 650m), a route established four weeks before by Luigi Crispa and Lorenzo Nadali, and made two attempts on Fitz Roy, via the Supercanaleta and Franco-Argentine routes. In 1997, we arrived with good weather at Chaltén with the goal of climbing the west face of Cerro Torre. We decided to climb A La Recherce du Temps Perdu, which finishes at the Col of Hope (VI 5, 800m), to get on the Ferrari route. We climbed it in eight hours, then bivied at the Col, but the weather changed, so we returned to Chaltén via the Wind Col in two days. During this trip, we used snow shoes for the approach and the return on the Hielo Continental (October 14-18). On the return, we traveled for three days via the Passo Marconi with skis and pulka to the Circo de los Altaves. From there, we approached the Ferrari route in a half day with a bivy 450 meters beneath the Col of Hope. From this bivy, from October 27-28, we free climbed (no aid, no jumaring) the Ferrari route (VI 6+, 800m) until 40 meters from the top (the rime was too bad for climbing; also, I had fallen 15 meters while on The Helmet, one of the hardest pitches of the route). We rappelled the same day via the same route to our bivy.

On November 15 and 16, we climbed Tomahawk (IV 6 Al) and Exocet (V 6). We started climbing Tomahawk at 12:30 a.m. and bivied at the bottom of Exocet. The day after we climbed Exocet to the top of Stanhardt and rappelled to base camp (Norwegian Camp) the same day. We free climbed both routes except for five meters at the bottom of Tomahawk. During the 80 days we spent in the region in 1996 and 1997, we had 20 days of good weather.

Bruno Sourzac, France