Torre Norte, Torres del Paine

James summits!! It was a wee bit windy for standing up!

Eight days to bag a summit in Torres del Paine is optimistic to say the least, people come here for months and sometimes don´t even get to see the summit let alone climb one! However this was all the time, food and fuel that we had. James and I struggled getting all the appropriate pieces of paper required and lost several days between administration offices in Puerto Natales and park head quarters pleading with anyone who looked official. Everything fell into place just as we were giving up hope and wondering if you really need a permit after all, there aren´t going to be any bureaucratic park rangers half way up one of these mountains we thought. Suddenly the fax machine sprang into action and produced a stamped application form sent from Santiago
after the man with the pointy hat had jiggled the wires at the back.

With permit in hand and very heavy ruck sacks on back we stomped our way up the valley to the Japanese base camp which became our home for the next week. Here we fell quickly into the routine of the alarm clock going off every morning around 2am, pushing snooze as many times as possible before getting out and checking the weather, if this was good breakfast of porridge was scoffed down before marching further up the valley high above the tree line into the land of wind and granite. It takes four hours of hard walking up loose unstable scree and talus to get to the base of the route and its heart breaking to get half way only to have clouds appear out of no where and to feel rain, sleet, snow or some combination of the three driven on the wind.

Did I mention the wind, the first morning we hiked to the bottom of the route and we thought everything was go till we heard a gust roaring round the strangely named silent valley. I thought Ireland was a windy old spot but it doesn´t compare to here. I´m sure you´ve all tried the lean or recline back in the wind trick at some stage in Ireland, you would literally be blown away into the next valley by some of the gusts. Anyway we got all our equipment to the base of the route and looked up to the col Birch a third of the way up the tower and 150m or so up our route. The noise of the wind been squeezed through this 3m wide gap between the Central and North Towers sounded like a jumbo jet taking off! Another day we thought and tromped back down the knee twisting loose scree for another day of endless games of chess and talking about food!

We had three false starts over the six day wait and I had given up all hope, there had been quite a bit of fresh snow which would now mean ice in the cracks of the climb. However the mountain blinked and although conditions were far from perfect, we managed somehow fumble our way up the tower in all our stormy weather clothes. I was surprised to say the least, we just kept our heads down and our eyes on the weather and the next thing that happened was that we had run out of mountain! Short congratulations take a couple of photos and lets get out of here before the real weather wakes up. We down climb and abseil and our ropes didn´t blow away or get wrapped around some spike of rock out of reach despite the ever increasing gusts!

We get back to the bottom of the climb and I feel humbled and honoured. I know also that Patagonian climbing deserves its reputation.



Old beer cans from bygone climbers, these rusty Guinness treats need a tin opener to get to the elixor inside! There was a large stash of these half way up the scree slope near the Bonnington bivioac.

The Japaneese camp crew from left to right Witeck (South Africa), Dave (USA), Jonathon (Spain) and James. If its worth a mention Jonathon was the chess champion after many a day waiting!
A wide van and a narrow bridge, James walks away from the Torres, Torre Norte is the twin peaked spires above and left of the van.