Climbing in Patagonia is legendary. It is a place of epic proportions with stories of great difficulty and hard technical climbing amidst some of the worst weather in the world. Anyone’s climbing resume will jump impressively with an ascent of any of these routes. But not every climb here has to be teetering on the knife edge between success and disaster. We have climbed here enough to get to know the weather patterns and how to play the timing and when to push and when not too. Experience does count in this, the “Home of the Wind.” The North Tower is a double summited peak with the south summit being the higher. It was the first of the three towers to be climbed in 1958 by the Italian expedition led by Guido Monzino. The weather can be bad and the winds can often top over one hundred miles an hour. But when the weather allows climbing all of that is suddenly forgotten and the experience of climbing amidst the worlds finest mountains will never forgotten by the climber who is a true alpinist at heart. There is absolutely nothing that can compare with feeling the rough granite under one’s fingers and the rare blue sky days of Patagonia while ascending one of the world’s great alpine rock climbs.

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Itinerary
This trip outline is our ideal plan. But Patagonia has a habit of sweeping all of our best-laid plans away in the wind so be adaptable and be prepared to take whatever comes. This is all part of the alpine experience. There are no guarantees here but we will be doing our utmost to succeed.

Day 0 Arrive in Punta Arenas, a small town at the southern tip of Chile and the capital of the Magallanes Province. Punta Arenas lies on the Straits of Magellan and has most of the amenities we need to equip ourselves for the mountains.

Day 1 Travel to Torres del Paine National Park. This is a three to four hour trip via private transportation. We will have time to sightsee and to visit the fishing town of Puerto Natales. We hope to arrive in time to meet our horses and to travel to the hut in the lower Ascensio Valley.

Day 2 We will carry a load of equipment up to our basecamp at the “Japanese camp” at the last trees in the valley.

Day 3 Move everything up to the basecamp and set up home for the next ten days.

Day 4 Start to move essential equipment up to the base of the towers. It was up here that the original British expedition to the Central Tower in 1963 established their camp and where Don Whillans developed his prototype “Whillans Box” to deal with the extreme winds.

Day 5 Move to Camp 3, only if not windy.

Day 6 Climb to the Col Bich between the North and the Central Towers. This is one of the most impressive places you will ever be with vast granite walls all around and views out onto the Southern Patagonian Icecap. We will fix ropes to enable multiple summit attempts and for a quick return.

Days 7-12 We hope for a good day to climb to the summit and back down. The climbing will be a mix of aid climbing and up to 5.9/10 free climbing.

Day 13 Return to the hut in the Ascensio Valley

Day 14 We meet our arrieros and their horses and return to the roadhead and meet our driver later in the day to return to Punta Arenas and celebrate (or drown our sorrows) with fine Chilean food and wine.

Notes
Patagonia is renowned as being the home of the wind. The weather can vary from bad to abysmal. So keep this in mind when you venture here since a big part of the game is waiting for clear weather. Patience is the key. There are plenty of hiking and exploring options but once it turns fine we move. Luck plays a big part and all we can do is hope for a nice fine day. But when it does clear there is truly no place on earth that comes close to the stunning beauty of this area.