Towards the end of my time in El Chalten this January I teamed up with two new friends from Colorado, Ben Collett and Josh. We were all keen to attempt the mega classic 1600m route on Fitzroy called Supercanaleta. This route splits the Granite monolith of Fitzroy clean in two, firing a direct 1000m ice couloir, topped with 600m of mixed climbing up to HVS. Without doubt one of the most aesthetically pleasing lines I’ve ever seen.
As per usual the forecast deteriorated still further as we walked in, leaving Fitzroy completely plastered in a thick veil of white to a very low level. The final rocky section of the route meant that this plastering of snow would not only be very hard, but also extremely time consuming. While several other teams left for the climb, we decided to take the opportunity to sleep, hoping a day of sunshine to clear the mountain would allow us the best chance of success.
We set off from camp at 22.00 on Friday for a significantly clearer Fitzroy. We were also blessed with a nice track in the snow, leading us right to the base of the route. By 1am the three of us had crossed the bergschrund and moved together up the lower 200m of the ice couloir. There was a peaceful calm in our recess, with excellent neve ice and the wall far above bathed in silver moonlight. There were however three parties rappelling down from above (headtorches visible in the pic behind our gearing up spot), we were soon to pass. I spotted a belay on the right and clipped in, bringing the others up.
Josh bent down to adjust his crampons, when Suddenly the silence was broken by a large object whistling out of the shadows. It hit him square on the knee. He sent anguished screams soaring up the couloir above, as Ben and myself gave him some time to recover from the blow. I could only hope it was a standard ice hit, which regularly left one with a large bruise to show, but allowed progress to continue. This selfish positivity soon evaporated, however, as sobs were interspersed with pleads of no and certainty that we weren’t going any further. Our only hope was that this wasn’t as bad as it sounded!
There is no helicopter rescue in Patagonia and it took over 7 hours to reach the base of the route from the road head! I lead the two rappels below and was relived that he could follow with Ben’s help, even if at a slow pace. Pleased to see two exhausted Ecuadorian friends at this point, we were able to combine four ropes and lower him to an area of safety below the route. By the time I joined them, a kind Japanese team had moved their bivi shelter up the hill to protect our casualty.
Leaving him in safe hands, two of us powered back over to Piedra Negra camp, covering what had taken over 2.5 hours the night before, in less than 1.5 hours. Here we used a satelite phone to raise the alarm with the local voluntary rescue team and rallied as many people as possible (about 10), marching our new found troops back over the col. We joined the other rescuers a couple of hundred meters below where they’d been. They had constructed an impressive stretcher from poles, a rope and some pads. The wound had been bleeding out and a splint had been constructed for our partners leg, which actually used the metal spine, removable from a podsacs back support!
We were lucky enough to have a paramedic in our team and many strong and able people. Before long we were joined by several other people, many of whom had been on the go for over 24 hours, but keen to lend a helping hand. It was really humbling to see so many able people coming together, to work so hard to successfully help a fellow climber. There were people from the US, UK, Ecuador, S Africa, Switzerland, Norway, Japan and Argentina (and that’s just what I remember).
We carried him down steep snow slopes, round and over crevasses and up over a very steep pass. The local rescue team use 300m static ropes to haul over this pass; we belayed at 60m intervals and used good old fashioned man power to clear the col. It was great to hit the soft snow on the far side, enabling a leg supported bivi sack slide. The relief in seeing the local rescuers powering up to camp just below was incredible. They were both thankful for our efforts and keen to take over from this point.
It took around 13 hours from the time of accident to arriving back in camp and about 4.5 hours more to get back to El Chalten medical center (with the combined help of a quad bike with Josh’s leg hanging off to one side!) I think this is probably the least critical rescue from this route, but it is certainly a record time. It really was a privilege to be involved in a rescue with so many good people and re-assuring to know this is who you are surrounded by in these mountains. Thanks a lot to all involved!
Our lucky partner (given the situation) had a clean fracture of the patella and is hopefully due for a relatively fast recovery.
crookclimbing 