Commencing the wait

Calum, Ben, Ally and myself have just arrived in El Chalten, Patagonia. We are here with the plan to climb on Cerro Torre, if we can. Any of you who have been to Patagonia already know that any firm plans here are, shall we say, subject to some adjustment. We want to climb rock, so we will have to wait until the liberal coating of snow and ice currently covering Cerro Torre melts back a bit. 

I’ve never been here before. Back in 2001 I was considering it when my friend Alan Mullin was going there. He pretty much put me off it with tales of two consecutive two-month trips which consisted of sitting in the hut waiting for a weather window that never came. But then, one might be lucky, and Patagonia is somewhere you really ought to visit at some point. So since Calum and I both had eyed up the same projects here, I thought now was as good a time as any.

I was fully braced for a month of editing my book and getting fat, and on arrival in El Chalten, the forecast duly delivered. No weather windows in sight so far. However, I didn’t really appreciate that the bouldering here is so good. So while we wait, we are bouldering, a lot. I’ve had two great days climbing so far. I’ve done some nice granite sport climbs and got some good links on Iker Pou’s famous power endurance problem V12 ‘Wasabi’. I’ll be back on that again soon. It’s great to be on a climbing trip after so long on the couch after surgery. Here’s to the next month, whether it brings chilly adventures in the mountains, or ‘waiting’ amongst the granite boulders and adventures on small crimpers.