Lessons

First thing, Happy Birthday Evan!!!!! The Internet down here is REALLY slow, so I'm not sure that a message got through to you. So I hope you are having a gay day! Xxo lil bro!

We are in el chalten now. We arrived here on December 31 and the weather was the most beautiful day ever! I'm pretty sure that is as good as it gets here. So, we needed to take advantage. The next day would bring more of the same per the incredibly sophisticated weather prediction they have here. It's a pretty magnificent website that includes wind (direction and speed) , precip, temperature, and barometric pressure. It breaks it all down hourly for up to 196 hrs. It's pretty impressive, geeky and rather confusing but pretty spot on. So we knew that we had until January 2 at 1pm until the weather turned. We had to rally because once the weather changed, there may not be a break for a while.

The next day we hit the trail, 7hr with our full packs of climbing plus backpacking gear. It was such a beautiful hike! We got buzzed by a condor. The views are stellar. Right in the middle of all these massive glaciers, huge waterfalls and rivers. The wildflowers are peaking, and everything is radiant from all of the sun after weeks of rain. Not to mention, we were staring up at FitzRoy the whole time. It is a 1250m relief of vertical rock, beyond dreamy sights for a rock climber. As far as I'm concerned, it is the rock.

The route we would climb is on the same massif, but quite a bit smaller. Still a feat by all means, but it really gave me a perception of how big the big one is. Our route was 8 pitches of impeccable granite, it really is the best. The views from the route were even more spectacular. Surrounded on all sides by massive rock walls and endless glaciers, it made me realize how small we are as humans. It was a good experience for my ego. We finished the route at 12:22, right as the weather changed which was exactly as what was predicted between 12 and 1pm. Yes.

After rappelling, packing up gear, walking down the loose talus and glaciers, the wind had really picked up. I swore that day I would never complain about a windy day in Gunnison ever again. This is the kind of wind that blows you off your feet (no joke.) it's the kid of wind that cracks around the sides of rock faces so loud it sounds like thunder. The wind is so fierce that you can literally lean into it and it will support you. What a trip.

We arrived back at our camp, famished, chilled and I was completely ready for bed, at 330pm. The sun doesn't even set for another 7 + hours. Well I devised a clever plan to eat all of our food instead.  (I hindsight I'm very grateful we decided that was a bad idea.) We did however stuff our faces. Instant potatoes have never tasted so delicious.

During the time we were cooking, a friend from camp informed us that a British dude came by saying his homie broke his leg on FitzRoy. He was stable and waiting in his tent, dry and with food for someone to come get help. He was disappointed we weren't around so continued down to get help from the El Chalten SAR. We tossed around the idea of going out to help him, but there were a lot of red flags (Wasser and any other DarkSAR members following, we GARed this one out and were in the red by the 4th question.) We decided we would go at first light.

Just as we finished dinner, a Swiss party came by and the older, more experienced of the two insisted we go with to help carry the guy back to this camp. He was quite familiar with the terrain and was confident that where they were camped was less than an hour away. At the very least we would bring him some food and just check in on his condition. (3 EMTs in the mix) We were out of there in ten minutes. Carsten dumps all his gear in our tent and the five of us headed over the pass.

Once we approached where the patient was supposedly camped, we realized that the camp as a lot farther, more technical glacier terrain, the weather was definitely deteriorating, wind picking up, I was wet... A quick reassessment made me realize I may be into deep. I told Carsten I was uncomfortable and wanted to go back as we had no bivy gear. Ryan and I turned around and wished them good luck.

The wind on the hike back was absolutely horrendous. The rounding crystals on top of the glacier from the warm sun all day were being blown at us. It felt as though we were being ambushed by bebe guns. Wet, cold, blasted by painful wind, how had my psych level dropped so much from the high of climbing that beatiful route? Once we made it to the other side of the pass the wind was way less intense. We arrived back to camp before dark, once again a feast of powdered potatoes, we felt really good about our decision as we realized ther was no way those guys would be making it back that night.

Not much sleep due to wind, cold, and wondering what the five guys were doing in a two man tent.

The rescue team was at our camp at first light. The rest of them trickled up slowly. We sat and watched everyone come over the pass and geeked out hard on the SAR aspect. Pretty imoressive, ragtag group of folks...sound familiar?  There were 18 people who worked from 2am til 7pm to get homie out. A small follow up, he is ok. Fractured tib/ fib but on good spirits.

What an exciting first trip up to Patagonia! Pretty full value. Now, once again we will wait out th weather. Rainy day. Good day for siestas and empanadas!  I hope y'all are stayin warm up in the Gunnison Valley!mwe miss you guys! Xxo