A selection of photos from the last month

Steak dinner last night with our U.S. climber friends Jay and Torey. Moustaches are all the rage down here!

This ones in here for those that are sick of work.

Mother spider with lots of babies, if you look closely on her back.

Sue half way up another 5 star granite crack Bariloche.

Torre Principal, near Refugio Fray, Bariloche

Elaine and Paul, Bariloche. The effects of too many months of travelling are easily seen.

Craig Starkey leads the way!

Sue gets handy with the camera, a lizard in the hills

Fitzroy in Patagonian Argentina

Evening light, camping beside a lake called C.A.B. near Bariloche, nothing to do with the criminal assests bureau unless Martin Cahill brought areas of Argentina!

Condors in action near Bariloche.

Rule no. 1 Never eat anything bigger than your head!

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.

A walk in the park, Torres del Paine.

We flew from Santiago to Punta Arenas where we ate fine hamburgesas and walked to the sea to throw a stone in the Straights of Magallan. We had seen our first steaming volcano out the window of the plane as we flew south above the Andes. We then took a bus for a few hours north and finally arrived in Puerto Natales. Our home for the next few days, we settled in a hostel and scouted out the local bakery. Our plan was to head to Parque National Torres del Paine on Tuesday morning. Brid & I to walk what is know as the circuit, ( a 7 day circumnavigation of the towers in the park) and Joe & James, having jumped through many hoops of bureaucracy to climb Torre Norte. So with the teams decided we filled up on local treats and did a large grocery shop in town. Us girls needed to carry all our food for the 7 days as well as our tent and sleeping equipment and raincoats, hats, suncream, fuel for the stove and three quaters of a kilo of cake! Needless to say our bags were on the heavy side and we only had one outfit of clothes each. So we took a bus with Joe & James to the park entrance and wished them the best on their climb. The hardest part of our journey had arrived. We needed to put our bags on our backs and start walking!

So, day one we walked 16.5km to Puesto Seron and I ended the day by being sick and Brid had to eat dinner alone. Day two we walked 19km to a camp site by Lago Dickson having turned the corner around to the north of the park with a wonderful view accross Lago Paine. We wandered along the flood plain of the river in very hot sun with very little shade. Once we had set up camp we closely examined Brid´s feet to discover that blisters were appearing. She was suffering and we had many days of walking left to go! A chat with porters that were walking with a tour group informed us that bad weather was heading our way. We decided to rest ourselves and stay by the lake for the following day and sit out the storm. Over the next four days we walked another 42km through old burnt and new regenerating forests, though a high mountain pass and down to the edge of Glaciar Grey; 27km long and 4km wide. Huge chunks of ice fall from the end of the glaciar and float down the river. The deep blue icebergs give a vivid colour to the grey glacial melt water of the river. I crept out of the tent at night to get a wonderful view of the stars, with no light pollution from anywhere. We were also lucky enough to here the tap, tap, tap, of a woodpecker and to spot it at work, pecking for it´s dinner.

We spent an extra day lounging about at the camp site beside Lago Pehoe and spent our evening practising our spanish on locals and tasting pisco sours. We enjoyed a boat journey along Lago Pehoe before catching a bus back to Puerto Natales for pizza. We had just pampered ourselves back to full health and washed off seven days of dirt when Joe & James returned triumphant from climbing Torre Norte.

Santiago

Guillermo full of fish!
Merial, and her new tree in Santiago


We arrived in Santiago to beautiful sunshine much to the delight of Sue who had just brought two new dresses leaving New Zealand (these are modelled by Brid and Sue above in the photo). We hooked up with James and Brid, met with Max´s friends Pablo and Maca from Cambridge for dinner, Mum´s friend Merial Bacigalupo who convienantly needed a tree planted in her garden upon our arrival before we guzzled her fabulous dinner. Also a glutonous meal out with Dad´s collegue Guillermo who took us to their old eat sea food till you drop haunt ¨La Tasca del Altamar¨. I should also mention the numerous coffees, strolls up Santa Lucia and Cerro San Cristobal parks in the city centre.