Senda Real Friday, 31 Mar 06 @ 07:33 pm

Doing the whole circuit of the ice climbing worldcup means to delay multipitch and long ice climbing trips to the end of the ice season. Global warming makes it harder to find good ice conditions except in the Candian Rockies or in Alaska in March. To explore a different way of ice climbing Albert Leichtfried, Hermann Erber (photographer) and me started into the summer of Chile. Coming directly from Norway with up to –35°C it was kind of a change to get out of the plane in Santiago at +30°C. But our desire was not to go to the beach but to climb the south face of Marmolejo somewhere between 4000 and 6000m altitude.
After some relaxing days in the refugio Alemane (or also called Valdes) in Buenos Morales (3 hours east of Santiago) and a nice bath in the hot springs close by we started to transport our stuff of 200kg with the help of 3 horses and 2 horsemen. These horses are genetical absolutely different than the ones I know from Europe, cause they are able to climb up paths, where normal tourists are having a hard time to come up. But as different as the horses are the deals between locals and gringos... The horsemen dropped our stuff about 10km before the point of our arrangement! (Never pay before a deal is finished!) The result was two days of carrying and a necessary rest day.
But the blessing in disguise was that we found the perfect base camp at 3400m. In the middle of this stony desert we were honored with a spot of 200m2 of grass, clear cold water and also a 20°C hot spring.
Less funny were the 2 hours approach to the base of the wall: In this gravel desert you have to do 20 steps to make one vertical meter, accepting to slide down every second step. Expecting to open a hard mixed multipitch line, we brought tons of gear. With all that weight you will expect that this hike was not a big pleasure.
As a welcome of the mountain we became witness of a huge icicle falling down directly where we planned our new line!
It was warm, too warm for this southwest facing wall. Also the dimensions of the hazard became clearer, when another "little" icicle came down, which has been more than 20m long. These signs were very clear: No way to do a step into this wall!
Very lucky we explored another ice wall right around the corner. This time clearly south facing, which means cold and shady at this side of our globe. Seeing this fantastic ice fall, Albert and me came to the same point of view: The most overhanging and outstanding line we have ever seen! It was a mixture of some overhanging glacier ice - no idea how many years or ages old- and vertical icicles and columns.
After some days preparing and carrying stuff to our second camp, we were able to climb "Senda Real" WI 5, WI 6-, WI 7-, WI 7+, WI 6-. Maybe the hardest ice route at this altitude.
I’ve got to say, that I’ve done some harder glacier ice on our home training area "Pitztaler Gletscher", but I’ve never done or seen an ice line like this.
At this moment in ice climbing doing figure fours is normally not a very big deal any more, but doing this at 4500m altitude, not with booties but normal ice climbing shoes on your feet, is a real challenge.
After finishing the wall at around 4800m it seamed to be a piece of a cake to walk up to the real summit of Marmolejo (another 1300m and 5km), but the 2-3m high "penitents" (we call it "Büßerschnee") nearly cut our legs. As beautiful this kind of snow formations are, you will learn to hate it after some hours of fighting to get forward.
After a trip like this we would highly recommend some rest days in the refugio Alemane! You will need some of their awesome steaks and some liters of the fabulous local red wine.
Thanx again to the help of Ben Firth, who already did "The Nook" on the southwest face, Eduardo alias "Edel" from Santiago, who was helping at some points of communication troubles, transportations and food sharing and finally Andi, boss of the refugio and also communication manager.

All photos by Hermann Erber

archiv:

Weltcup Finale in Hemsedal/Norwegen (Tuesday, 07 Mar 06 @ 07:48 pm)

The Indian Creek (Wednesday, 31 May 06 @ 02:28 pm)

Petzl Rock trip in Millau 06 (Monday, 03 Jul 06 @ 03:38 pm)

Free Mathis Route (Wednesday, 26 Jul 06 @ 05:21 pm)

A Long Way to a Short Cut (text: Flo Scheimpflug) (Sunday, 12 Nov 06 @ 07:57 pm)

Law and Order M13, Diebsoefen Oesterreich (Monday, 18 Dec 06 @ 10:35 am)

aktuelle Artikel