Great Success, Magnificent Failure—Colin Haley’s Patagonia Season

Petzl Team alpinist Colin Haley has just finished his 12th trip to El Chalten, Argentina, where he had what he calls “the most successful climbing trip I've ever had anywhere.” The trip saw Haley and several different partners (including Sarah Hart, Petzl athlete Martin Olslund, Marc-André Leclerc, Alex Honnold, and Jon Schaffer) tackle a variety of undone or rarely done projects, which he outlines below.

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Coming March 17 - Come watch Colin present on his 2015 Patagonia season at Petzl's North American headquarters in Salt Lake City

The season started off slowly, with lots of bad weather, but then the climate changed in a big way, and the past month and a half I've been in the mountains nearly constantly, with barely enough time between weather windows to rest and repack. I can say with confidence that it's been my most successful Patagonia season ever, and in fact it's probably the most successful climbing trip I've ever had anywhere.

Over the past decade I have been striving to improve as a climber, mostly with big goals in Patagonia in mind. However, it's not like I'm a hugely better climber than I was one year earlier, a season with relatively little success for me. In the mountains, ultimately a lot of factors have to come together at the same time, and this season I was lucky enough to time and time again have the three big factors line up: good weather, good conditions, and a good partner.

[Left] Martin Olslund following a fantastic pitch of steep ice on Tomahawk, during an integral ascent to the summit of Aguja Standhardt. Photo: Colin Haley. [Right] Colin Haley leading the crux pitch of Rubio y Azul, on Torre de la Medialuna. Photo: Sarah Hart.

A rescue and Rubio y Azul

My first alpine climbing opportunity of this season in El Chalten came on December 14th, when I was partnered up with my wonderful and very motivated girlfriend, Sarah Hart. We hiked into the mountains with fairly ambitious plans, but those got derailed in order to help rescue two young Italian climbers who had run into trouble. After the rescue we had one day of good weather left, and made a very enjoyable ascent of Torre de la Medialuna, by Ermanno Salvaterra's impeccable route, Rubio y Azul.

Tomahawk and Aguja Cuatro Dedos

I was next back up in the mountains two weeks later, on the first of three very successful blind-dates of my season (climbing with a new partner). I partnered up with Martin Olslund, a young Norwegian climber who is currently one of the strongest in Scandinavia on traditional ice and rock routes. On the first of January, Martin and I made an integral ascent of Tomahawk on Aguja Standhardt, a route which had only been successfully completed two or three times in the past. The route is a dream of an alpine ice climb, with several pitches of dead-vertical ice plastered in splitter granite chimneys. Martin and I took one rest day up at the Niponino bivouac, then on January 3rd snuck in a quick ascent of Aguja Cuatro Dedos just before the storm rolled in.

Starting in mid January, I teamed up for three weeks with Marc-André Leclerc, who is essentially the Canadian version of Martin: young, motivated and well versed in difficult traditional climbing. Marc had very lucky timing, arriving in Chalten just at the start of the first big wave of good weather.

[Left] Colin Haley leading a pitch of Venas Azules on the south face of Torre Egger, during the first ascent of the Travesía del Oso Buda, the first south-to-north Torre traverse. Photo by Marc-André Leclerc. [Right] Colin Haley leading high on the north face of Cerro Torre, during the first ascent of Directa de la Mentira. Photo by Marc-André Leclerc.

Reverse Traverse and Cerro Torre North Face

With a forecast for four days of stable weather, we headed straight for my top objective: a south-to-north, "reverse traverse" of the Torres (Cerro Torre, Torre Egger, Punta Herron and Aguja Standhardt). This had been my biggest project in Patagonia in the past few years, and I had made one prior attempt in 2012 with Jon Walsh. This time things went without a hitch, and after three full days of climbing we made it back down to the glacier, exhausted and extremely content.

We barely had time to celebrate, and a few days later we were back in the mountains for an attempt on the Southeast Ridge of Cerro Torre. We climbed well, but were turned back 4 pitches from the top by icy conditions on the most difficult pitches. After hiking back to town we looked in disbelief at yet another good weather window in the forecast, and took just one and half rest days before returning to the Torre Valley.

For the last climb of our time together, Marc and I headed for the north face of Cerro Torre, another unclimbed project that had been high on my radar for a couple years. Yet again things went as well as one can hope for, and after two days of climbing we had succeeded in making the first complete ascent of the north face of Cerro Torre.

Torre Egger and Torre Traverse in a day… almost

For the last couple weeks of my season, I teamed up with Alex Honnold. For our first blind date we made the fastest ascent to date of Torre Egger, which went very smoothly. Alex is pretty inexperienced in big mountains, but is incredibly talented as a rock climber. Considering how little time he has spent climbing on ice and mixed terrain, he was impressively efficient.

Since Torre Egger had gone so easily, Alex suggested that we try the Torre Traverse (the original north-to-south version) as a daytrip, without bivouac gear. My first reaction was that it was a totally unrealistic idea, but soon changed my mind, convinced that it was such an awesome idea that it was worth trying regardless.

Alex Honnold at a belay on Torre Egger's Huber-Schnarf route, during our near-miss, "magnificent failure" one-day attempt of the Torre Traverse.

As luck was generally on my side this season, we got an opportunity to try just a week after Torre Egger. In the end our "opportunity" turned out to be only a 20-hour period of good weather, with us starting the first pitch literally minutes after it stopped raining. We climbed very efficiently together, naturally with me leading all the ice and mixed and Alex leading all of the rock, but with both of us simul-climbing the vast majority of the terrain. About 20 hours after starting, and having topped out the north face of Cerro Torre, only two easy pitches stood between us and the summit.

It was here, however, that my good luck ran out, and we were hit by a rapidly materializing gnarly storm. After coming so far we both wanted badly to finish the objective, but the wind gusts were so strong I thought it wasn't safe to continue. We made an emergency decision to descend the west face, thus committing ourselves to a very long return to civilization via the South Patagonian Icecap. When we finally reached the road we had been going for 53 hours, and we had almost nothing to eat for the last 36 hours. Despite failing on our objective, I consider it to be a "magnificent failure," and one of the best days of climbing I've ever done.

Torrisimo and home…

After a couple days of recovery, I returned to the mountains once more, this time with Jon Schaffer. We had a nice time making the first ascent of Torrisimo, a small but sharp, previously unclimbed spire just east of Cerro Torre. We hiked out of the mountains late that same night, and I spent the entire morning frantically packing my things, having just five minutes left to take a shower before hopping a bus to the airport. The season was busy until the very end, and even now back in the US I’m still tired!

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