On the notoriously cold and hostile south face of Aconcagua (6,962m) Italian Andrea di Donato and Andres Zegers from Chile made an alpine-style repeat of the 1985 French Direct.

At a little less than 3,000m in height, the south face is one of the world's foremost "big walls", and was also one of the first to be climbed.

In 1954 a French team took on the challenge of the central buttress, fixing the lower section but making a seven-day push to the summit in what was an outstanding achievement for the era.

The right side of the face has a difficult rock barrier in its lower section, and in 1966 Argentinians Jorge Aikes and Omar Pellergrini made a wide circumvention of this obstacle, traversing into the upper face from the right, then slanting up left to join the 1954 French route.

A direct line to the Argentinian route remained the obvious challenge, and in 1985 Jean Pierre Chassagne, Jean Marcel Dufour, Pierre Raveneau and Bernard Vallet did just that.

Fixing some rope on the lower slopes (already climbed in 1966 by Fonrouge and Schonberger as an alternative but much more dangerous start to the 1954 route), and 14 pitches on the rock buttress (V with a short section of A1), they reached the top of the barrier at 5,100m and then climbed to the summit on the Argentinian line.

In 1986 Slovenians Milan Romih and Danilo Tic made an alpine-style ascent, adding a more direct finish through mixed ground to the ridge right of the summit.

It is not clear whether this route has received an alpine-style ascent (or another repeat) since.

Di Donato and Zegers added a faster variant in the lower section by climbing an obvious ca 250m icefall, followed by easier snow gullies, immediately right of the rock buttress.

Starting up the initial snow/ice slopes, they continued directly to the icefall, climbing it at WI4. On the snowfields above they bivouacked at 5,400m. Next day they followed the French/Argentinian connection (70°) to 6,200m, where they made a second bivouac. The summit was reached via the 1954 French route on the following day (60° and V).

Their 2,800m ascent of the face had taken 50 hours.

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