Andy Kirkpatrick and Ian Parnell failed on both their objectives in Patagonia, bad weather causing them to abandon their winter attempts on Titanic (ED+: VI 5.10b A2 90 degrees, 950m, Giarolli-Orlandi, 1987) on Torre Egger and on Exocet (VI 5.9 WI6. Bridwell-Smith-Smith, 1988) on Cerro Stanhardt. They did however suffer.

Kirkpatrick, who recently signed up at Berghaus as a technical consultant, left Climb magazine as their gear editor, is writing his first book and is a technical consultant at Lyon Equipment (busy lad) did manage to make it back to the UK and in a mad dash drove up to Kendal for the Kendal Outdoor Retailer Show (KORS). On his way up from Heathrow (he'd just flown in from Buenos Aires) he picked up his kids and made it, just in time, for an after dinner presentation where, in his irreverent style, had the audience of outdoor trade types in fits of laughter which included pretending to be a polar bear and attacking Ian Smith of Climb magazine. Ian was armed with a spoon, but hadn't been fully trained in the defence against polar bears.

See this gripping photo-sequence: click here. Bear Grylls eat your heart out.