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Aguja Poincenot. Camilo Lopez & Anna Pfaff. Aguja Poincenot We woke up at 3 am at Paso Superior and started a brew. Our gear was already organized from the day before so we were set. We drank a pot of strong coffee and set out on the approach towards Aguja Poincenoit. It was cold so the glacier was firm and we crossed easily overcoming a few large open crevasses along the way. Snow fall started as we arrived at the base and clouds covered the rising sun. We questioned the weather for a minute but decided to continue and started to organize our ropes and gear for the first pitch. The first pitch was a traverse across thin ice and mixed terrain leading up into the ramp of the Williams route. We followed the 70-80 degree ramp up the West face for 6 pitches of steep neve, and verglass covered rock. We dodged ice falling from the top, that sounded like bombs and exploded into a million pieces against the rock face . The ramp ended under a steep chimney filled with thin ice, this being the crux of the climb at M5. The chimney ended under a thin roof crack where we traversed left to the anchor. From this anchor we traversed another 60 meters across a snow covered ledge to the last 9 upper pitches of the head wall. We followed the rock weakness climbing the ice filled cracks and snow covered ledges wearing our crampons and using ice tools. The conditions of the upper pitches made for M3, M4. terrain. We arrived on the summit at 9:30 pm. The moon was full and we had amazing views of the snow and ice covered Fitz Roy . We were spent from the long and demanding climb so we decided to bivy one rappel down from the summit instead of rappelling all the way and trying to find the anchors in the dark. We had no bivy gear but the weather was predicted to hold over night and the sky was clear. We found a good spot in between a small flake and the wall. There we flattened out the snow and built a larger rock wall for more ¨protection¨ We stacked our ropes and endured one very cold open bivy. When the the sun broke through the clouds,we went into reset mode, re-organized our gear and started down. We did 15 rappels down to the base having to do a few anchor replacements and traversing over some blocky sections along the way. We returned to the base at around 10 am. We re-organized our packs and started our way back back to Paso superior. We are very happy about this amazing climb!! It was just the two of us and the great giant Aguja Poincenot. We have only 12 days left before our time here in Chalten is up. The weather is predicted to be high winds and rain for the next ten days... we hope to get at least one good day to retrieve our gear stashes from Niponinos and Paso Superior. Although the trip is not over yet, We are headed to Cochamo Valley in Chile!! The Yosemite of South America!!! Cheers!!! Camilo Lopez & Anna Pfaff |
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