My motivation was really low, all the commitment and energy put in the climb seemed to run away, this season i knew the east face of the central tower Alpine style was not going to be possible.
My chilean friend Rodrigo Zapata and I made an attempt on february the 12th, patagonia gave us and amazing day, hard to believe!!, pretty warm and pleasent to be climbing in !!.. no wind!!.
After a quick brakefast early that day, we left our bivy place located in the morraine high up the ascencio valley, heading towards las torres glacier right on the foot of the east face of the central.
After crossing the glacier we found that the conditions were barely perfect, there was anything compare with last seasson wall conditions, this time it was dry!!!, just a few patches of snow were covering some passages of our route, nothing serrius to avoid.
Without hersitation we headed to the begining of our line, we had chosen Waiting for godot, a route Austrians had climbed (big wall style)the previous seasson without succes of finishing it to the top…Our plan was to climb fast and make it to the summit!
In total, we climbed 5 pitches, about 300meters (5 10+) on a terrain which was really tricky the route finding. Time was running quick, it was late in the afternoon, and hight above the col bich we could see that currents of strong wind were starting to blow throght it, We had still Way to go!! our original plan of going fast throght the first section of the climb was somehow stuck!!… We decided to rapel down, in my mind some new ideas and strategys were growing mixed toghether with an un discribeable feeling of frustation, we abandoned the wall.!!!
I knew this year it was over , my friend Rodrigo, did not have any time left and he had to fly back to Santiago ..
On february 17th an other epic weather window came, this time i wanted to push my limits solo and face my deepest fear. For this i chose Monzino route which follows the southern ridge of the north tower. I had previuslly climbed it in 2008.
If the weather was fine i could unleast get a good try!! I thought.
I woke up at 2am and a short preparation i hiked up to the base of the climb hight up Silencio valley, i was in a state of high awareness hard to describe… there was not time, my only partner was the sound of my heart and the wind,that in one point had completaly disappearded. When i was climbing towards the col in between the central and north tower!!.. There was not even a breeze.
Motivated and without hersitation, i rope soloed a single 65m pitch after the col, which went up to 5 10-, after this, free soloed all the way to the summit block, which i rope soled too!
I was laying in the sun.. hard to believe!!!.. My spanish friends Pedro and Adrian almost died scaping from a very strong storm 3 days before my climb…. After all, life smiles again!
In total i spent 4 hours from the bigining of the climb to the summit and 14 hours base camp to base camp. I actually did not want to climb fast or make any record, i made my way up complately safe, feeling before moving again, making sure that tha decition taken was the right one! Fighting against mediocrity and laziness, trying to do everything as perfect as i was able to. Giving me the oportunity to learn and push myself further.
Two days after the north tower sent, i roped up with my local friend Tomaz Marusic. We chose an amazing line call Taller del sol, a super classical paine route on the west face of the north tower grated 5 10 + which i wanted to climb time ago!.. life was smiling, and sharing this intence and pure adventures with Tomaz was like to be reborn in a farytale land!
Beaten by sudden winds and into the clouds we climbed during the afternoon and Thereby we were climbing the last pitches.. We knew that the weather window was gone .. Even this we decided to continue and push the limits.
The music of a song was showing up time to time in my mind….. free yourself from mental slavery!… fight agains mediocrity!! And after a while in such weather conditions we did any longer knew exactly where the boundaries of mental slavery and mediocrity were when we got near by the false summit, we had reached a place with pretty much no visibility and very strong wind… it seemed we were going to be flown away….. Was it a dream two days ago when i soled the monzino?
The mediocrity dialogue ended by that time, i was down climbing and meeting Tomaz 50 meters down below…we were scaping from the lion mouth.
Rappeling in such conditions was a tricky bussines, we got the rope stuck many times,many times we had to reclimb the pitch and un stuck it. Hard job after many hours of pushing on the wall.
But after all Laughts and smiles were on our faces when we reached the ground, many hours of adventure were already part of the past, even no summit, we had complitted succesfully a nice route on the west face of the north tower, we had made the right move of the game!!… life smiles!!
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