UKC

Mush

© Rolando Garibotti.
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Rolando Garibotti climbing the summit mushroom of Cerro Torre
© Rolando Garibotti.

photo
Cerro Torre
The roaring forties is the name given to the latitudes between 40°S and 50°S, where the prevailing westerly winds mean business. Because there is less landmass in that part of the planet to slow them down, they rage across the Pacific, picking up speed and humidity. By the time they slam into the southern tip of the American Continent they are ripe for the anger management class served up by a series of jagged peaks called the southern Andes. The winds rise past the foothills, over glaciers and strike the higher peaks to the east, leaving a strong imprint of enormous frost mushrooms from Paine Grande in the south, to Murallon, Cerro Torre, and San Lorenzo much further north.

I have never been too fond of ephemeral, unstable ground. Waterfall ice has usually felt like the limit of what is acceptable to me, but the frost mushrooms are a far step beyond. I encountered their airy structure on Cerro Standhardt, on Paine Grande and on Murallon. Courtesy of partners willing to take the leads, my meetings with mushrooms were relatively benign. I felt great relief when, in late 2005, I pulled onto Cerro Torre's west ridge. The main difficulties were supposed to be over and the three mushrooms that stood between Alessandro Beltrami, Ermanno Salvaterra, myself and the summit had been climbed a half-dozen times starting as early as 1974. I relaxed, put my guard down and prematurely savored our success. I should have known better.

A friend had made two heart-shaped shovel-like contraptions to attach to the picks of our axes, with which we hoped to get more purchase on the unconsolidated frost. Since nobody had ever used such contraptions before and didn't know what to expect, we expected too much, taking only two snow-pickets for protection. Ale and Erman burrowed through the first two mushrooms making trenches their fellow country men in World War I would have been proud of. The pace was slow, but with only two pickets and unable to protect themselves with anything else, it took everything they had to get up.

The last mushroom, 200 feet of looming vertical cotton candy above. Ale took a stab at it, but retreated drenched and tired. Erman went next and managed a few more feet. I had led most of the lower 4000 feet of our climb and had hoped to skirt the mushroom terror, but in spite of myself, I offered to lead. Initially I charged ahead a bit too enthusiastically, but after two or three moves I realized that I was going nowhere. I stopped and breathed deeply, eventually finding calm. It took me nearly two hours to finish the lead. Slowly and patiently I cleared the snow overhead, dug a half pipe in the Pacific Ocean frost, compacted it into a small step in front of me, then sunk the shafts of my ice-tools and pulled myself up gingerly. Speed was everything, not fast, but slow. A fall was not an option with only two 80 centimeter pickets in 200 feet of mush.

By the time I reached the easy slope leading to the summit it was dark and snowing heavily, less than ideal conditions for reaching the top of a mountain as severe as Cerro Torre. My earlier eagerness had turned to calm sensory awareness—the result of leading a pitch with consequences that required my full attention. For once, the inconsistent frost proved useful when I dug a deep hole to lodge myself as an anchor from which my partners could jumar. As I sat waiting, I reached down, deep into the frost, hoping that the roaring forties winds had brought some sand and warmth from a distant beach far beyond.


Rolando Garibotti has visited the Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre Massif over 20 times, the first at age 15 when he climbed Aguja Guillaumet. His finest ascents in that area include the first complete ascent of the North Face of Fitz Roy in 1995, the first ascent of the North Face of Cerro Torre in 2005, and in January 2008 Colin Haley and Rolando Garibotti became the first people to climb the infamous Torre Traverse, linking the mountains of Aguja Standhart, Punta Heron, Torre Egger and finally Cerro Torre. Born in Italy, raised in Argentina, and currently living in the U.S., he considers himself a Bariloche national.

Read an interview with Rolando Garibotti about the Torre Traverse at UKClimbing.com here


Reproduced with the kind permission of Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd.


photo
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For more information Black Diamond Website

24 Feb, 2008
Awesome photo.
24 Feb, 2008
Agreed thats a brilliant shot
25 Feb, 2008
Great imformative article. Is the picture at the bottom entitled "Reproduced with the kind permission of Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd." advertising or just randomly dropped in for no reason? Surely the kind permission comes in the form of a large cheque...?
25 Feb, 2008
I suspect you got it the wrong way around, rather the article was reproduced with the permission of BD, and their "price" for doing so was an ad at the bottom of the page - which seems like a good deal for us readers.
28 Feb, 2008
That top mushroom picture is amazing!
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