The story of a first ascent by Stefan Glovacz

Stefan Glowacz

Robert Jasper

Silence. Not the slightest trace of noise. The stillness burnt in my ears. Even Robert’s breath made no sound. Only small clouds of mist escaped from his mouth at regular intervals and vanished instantly in the icy air. I kept staring at the same point on the ceiling, as if my gaze could drill a hole into the crushing hopelessness. The halogen bulbs of my headlamp filled the ice cave with a harsh, cold glow. A thin velvety layer of frost covered our sleeping bags, ropes, pitons and dry rations. Three degrees Co below zero. I couldn’t help but think of the refrigerator-room of a slaughterhouse. However, instead of lying beside a frozen pig, I was sharing this cold-storage area with one of the world’s best alpinists and ice climbers, Robert Jasper, and that already for more than a week. Since days, a hurricane-force storm was raging outside. The snow and ice walls – over a meter thick – absorbed all sound and every ray of light. We were buried alive, submerged in a place not meant for humans. Nevertheless, we were here out of our free will and that for the third consecutive time. We were possessed by a seemingly unapproachable thousand-meter high north face at the end of the world on the Patagonia ice cap. This wall was as precious as a jewel to us and we courted it like a beautiful woman. Always at the same time of the year, in the months of November and December of 2003, 2004 and 2005, we struggled to the foot of the wall and twice had been harshly turned back. Diva Murallтn enchanted us and – with a total disregard for logic and common sense – we would have returned even a forth or a fifth time in case we failed again. Until she would give in to our desire.

Review

Years ago, a picture of Cerro Murallтn, an almost unknown mountain even among expedition climbers, had captivated Robert and me. On this photograph, a huge, mostly overhanging pillar soared up some 600 meters, followed by a ridge leading to a 400 meter high section of rock rearing up like a gigantic, breaking wave. The perfect line was of unsurpassable simplicity and beauty. Our appetites were additionally wetted by the words of the great Italian Patagonia climber Casimiro Ferrari, who wrote about Cerro Murallтn: “If Cerro Torre is the mountain that left its deepest mark on me and if Fitz Roy was the technically hardest, then Murallтn was the peak that put my mental and physical powers to the toughest test.” What kind of mountain must it be to make the great Casimiro Ferrari pay such obeisance? It took him four expeditions between 1979 und 1984 to first reconnoiter an approach to Murallon and subsequently to climb the colossal northeast pillar. He started out with many helpers and in the end, reached the summit with only Paolo Vitali and Carlo Alde.

Prior to Casimiro Ferrari, only one expedition had been successful on this peak. It was the untiring Briton Eric Shipton who, together with his partner Jack Ewer and the two Chileans Eduardo Garcia und Cedomir Marangunic, reached the summit plateau in January 1961. Their route from the northwest is perhaps the easiest line. However, the weather conditions were so terrible, that it remains uncertain if the team really climbed the highest ice mushroom. So the first ascent of Cerro Murallтns remains a question. To Robert and me, these details were unimportant. The Murallтn summit is formed by a one-kilometer long plateau with small, technically easy protuberances. Therefore, Robert and I consider Shipton and his team to be the first ascentionists of Cerro Murallуn.

An Excurse on Discovery

In many cases, remarks and recounts of older climbers are the impulses that make the younger generation take up a challenge. I believe that at the cutting edge of alpinism in the years to come, the sole aim will not be to go higher, faster and harder than the others. The quality of an expedition is not measured by its spectacular aspects, but by the creativity regarding the choice of approach and the goal. There is still a lot of new ground to be discovered in alpinistically undeveloped regions that are just waiting to be found. Their special attraction is that they are hard to reach.

Robert’s und my generation and even more so, the younger climbers, will again become discoverers. All of the well-known worthwhile mountains like Trango Tower or Cerro Fitz Roy have been or will soon be developed. But beyond the horizon there still are walls and peaks that have never been photographed or described – some are still mere phantoms of the imagination. These visionary goals are there to be discovered through setting out for the unknown in search of our dream route. Obviously, one could take the easy way and be flown in by a chartered airplane or a chopper. However, that would kill the expedition spirit – the specter of uncertainty and adventure. For me the logical development of modern expedition climbing lies in the adoption of a “by fair means philosophy” – the conscious renunciation of as many artificial aids as possible during the approach and on the mountain – as well as in the attempt to climb the most remote walls of this world.

The New Goal

When we first started to study the geographic position of Cerro Murallтn with its cumbersome approach and almost insurmountable logistic problems, Robert and I began burning with enthusiasm for this gigantic lump of rock and ice at the end of the world. Cerro Murallтn – also called the “forgotten wall” in Patagonia – rises into the sky to the south of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre like a huge fortress. With 2831 meters, its elevation by no means marks a superlative.

However, the technical difficulties and the remoteness of our pillar make it quite a challenge. To penetrate into this desolate wilderness is an adventure in itself. For this reason, the mountain will never be a magnet for the mass public like the neighboring Fitz Roy or Cerro Torre. None of us had any illusions about the spiteful weather and winds. Back in 1994, Robert had set a record on Cerro Torre with an ascent of the peak in sixteen hours from base camp. Some years before, I had received my baptism by fire – or, more correctly, by ice – during the filming of Werner Herzog’s movie “Cerro Torre: scream of stone”. We knew we would find heaven on earth, which, however, could at any moment turn into hell. We had been warned and expected the worst. But what we got was much, much worse.

2003 – The First Attempt

The shortest distance from the last outpost of civilization – the Estancia Christina – to Murallon is 40 kilometers as the crow flies. It took me, Robert, our cameraman Sebastian and Klaus the photographer almost three weeks to carry our equipment and provisions through pathless terrain and dangerous glaciers to the foot of our wall. Filled with awe, we stood under our pillar. Robert and I realized that our equipment and – most of all – the remaining time, would never suffice to reach the summit via the planned route. We both silently pledged that we would come again. In spite of everything, we managed to pluck a very nice first ascent at the right edge of the north face. It also was a 1000-meter high pillar graded 5.10+/M8, that we were able climb in alpine style with Klaus. We called this route “The Lost World” and deposited most of the gear at the foot of our original goal for another attempt the following year.

2004 – The Second Try

This time we planned to reach our mountain from the north via the ice cap. The approach was double the distance of last year’s, but we only had to do equipment carries from Piedra del Fraile up to the Passo Marconi. From here, we pulled our belongings over the ice cap on sledges.

Four days without a breath of wind, a crystal clear blue sky and hard snow turned the approach into an extremely exhausting, but nonetheless pleasurable experience. It was the typical Patagonian lull before the storm. On the morning of day four Pater, Sebastian und Tobias set out for the Estancia Christina while Robert, Klaus and I picked our way through the little valley between Don Bosco und the north face of Cerro Murallтn.

For the next five weeks we had to fend entirely for ourselves. We did not see a human soul, no other creature, neither a flower nor a tree. When we reached the foot of the wall in the evening, we realized that it was impossible to build a safe ice cave as a base camp like in the year before. There was not nearly enough snow. The next day we constructed huge snow walls around our tents so we would not be entirely without shelter in the advent of the devastating storms we knew would come. By evening, the good weather had already turned into a nightmare. Within an hour, the force of the storm increased. The wind carried the snowflakes horizontally over our wall and in no time buried the tents standing in their lee. At two o’clock I awoke from my restless slumber. Snow, hard as concrete, was pressing against the side of my head. Starting close to the ground, I began pounding my fist against the roof of the tent. It was buried under a layer of cement-like snow almost to the top. Panic began to well up in Klaus and me we had to get out of here as fast as possible. Robert was lying beside us in an even smaller tent and had surely been completely covered. The back of our tent had already caved in. Like two maniacs, we carved out a 2-meter long upward-leading tunnel using our cooking pots. Outside hell had broken loose. The gusts of wind repeatedly blew us off our feet. We battled the elements with our pots and shovels until eight in the morning. Murallтn’s welcome was just as stormy as his farewell had been a year before.

Without a snow cave, we were devoid of protection from the storms as there is no sheltered site for a base camp at the foot of Murallтn. Shoveling like mad, it became clear to us how vulnerable we were. If one of us got injured, we would have to rely entirely on ourselves, despite our fancy satellite telephone. During the night, our limits had been clearly shown to us. The weight of the snow bent the tent poles. By the second night, we were stumbling like punch-drunk boxers. We had become pawns in the game of the elements. However, this is exactly why the mountains in Patagonia count among the biggest challenges alpinism has to offer! On Cerro Torre or Fitz Roy, you at least can weather the storms in base camp, but on Murallтn under these circumstances, every storm day could mean the end. The mountain was playing cat-and-mouse with the tiny two-legged intruders. Two days after showing its claws, the kitty started to stroke us. Up went the air pressure, the storm died down and in the morning the sun shone from a cloudless sky. While Klaus started to put the camp in order, Robert and I finally laid hand on our dream pillar. It was an incredible feeling to climb the first meters in these hostile and grandiose surroundings. For almost two years, we had prepared ourselves mentally and physically for this moment. In this instant we were rewarded for all our deprivations and trials. From pitch to pitch the climbing got harder. Robert and I had decided from the beginning to do without bolts entirely, even at the belays. We were climbing in wonderful cracks and corners. As we gained height, the wall got steeper and steeper. We had brought 850 meters of fixed line the rest would have to be done alpine style. Late at night, we rappelled down to base camp.

It was incredible. Although the air pressure had only increased by a few millibars and seemed to predict unstable conditions the spell of good weather lasted for over a week. The following days we climbed until we could barely lift our arms. Every morning we started out at the first light by four in the morning, hiked for two hours up to the start of the climb and continued our ascent with jumars until we reached the high point of the previous day. Robert alternated every day in leading while Klaus documented the climbing. At the belays we put in pitons in most cases nuts worked well as protection in the pitches. Most of the climbing was at a level of 5.11 to 5.12. We were out for a pure free ascent, but 400 meters up, we reached a compact overhanging section split by a fine crack. To speed up our ascent we aided the two pitches, planning to free them later. We estimated the difficulties to be hard 5.13 – or even a digit more. After five days of climbing, 600 meters of elevation and 17 pitches, we stood on the top of our pillar. Half time.

Climbing simultaneously along the easy ridge, we reached the second section of the north face. Setting up the belay on a narrow ledge, the sight above almost took away our breath: the wall curved outward like a huge petrified wave. The first two pitches were extremely overhanging with technically very hard cracks of every width. I was able to free the first pitch at 5.13. On the second, I had to succumb to aid, but it should also go free. Late in the evening, Robert aided another overhanging pitch. For the first time we began to believe that we actually might reach the summit. From our high point, it was about 300 meters of elevation to the summit plateau. It would take one day in alpine style, or two at the most to reach the top. Small wonder that Robert and I were rather euphoric while rappelling down to base in the dark. During the recent days we had experienced breathtaking moments, magnificent climbing in an indescribable scenry.

Murallтn had been merciful, but during the night, the mountain started to display its ugly side. Hardly had we downed our Simpert Reiter rations, when it started storming again. A few hours later we were reinforcing the poles of our tents it was getting worse and worse. During the next day, the storm tore the flysheet of Robert’s tent to pieces. With needle and thread in our numb fingers, we tried to repair the damage scantily while the storm was pelting us with slush. We felt like participants in a demonstration being driven away by police water-canons. The storm continued all day, getting stronger and stronger. In the evening, we had to take down Robert’s tent. Now the three of us had to lie in a small two-person tent. Each of us spent the night clinging to a tent pole, in the morning our flysheet also tore to shreds. It was apocalyptic.

We broke camp on the glacier und moved to a high plateau in the hope of being better protected from the worst gusts. The following days were hell. We deposited the polkas, a bag of climbing gear, skis and most of the Powerbars at the foot of a talus gully leading up to the plateau. The storm continued to rage with consistent intensity for several days. It began to snow. We put up the tents at the only feasible site, the best of the bad ones. But then it began to get warmer, the fresh snow started to melt, and in the night torrents were pouring from the rocks turning our campsite into a sizable lake. In the morning, the tents were swamped in several centimeters of water. Everything got drenched. It continued to storm, the rain turning again to snow. While pitching the tents on a new campsite, my Thermarest mat blew away for the remainder of the expedition I had to lie on the aluminium bags of our dry rations.

Then the barometer started to rise again, the storm let off and after more than three weeks Murallтn re-emerged from the storm clouds. With our scantily repaired tent, dried sleeping bags and fully recuperated we covered the two day hike back to base camp on the plateau in one push. On the following day, the sky was cloudless, but hurricane-force winds were raging around the summit. In the evening, the pressure already was declining. Despite all this, we stuck to our attempt, knowing it would be our last. Belaying each other, we jumared up the often alarmingly frayed ropes for 400 meters before our ascent was brought to an abrupt stop. The completely tattered ropes above were hanging from a few shredded strands of cord. Then the upcoming storm saved us from the decision. We had lost the Patagonian poker for good. We cleaned the first 400 meters of fixed rope and deposited it on the plateau with the rest of our equipment. Then we returned to the Pascale Hut in another forced march and reached Estancia Christina the next day.

We had lost and won simultaneously. We had climbed most part of a route on one of the hardest mountains of the world. To us it was a magic line worth a good struggle. We were possessed by a dream and knew that only if we realized this dream we would be free again in our feeling and thinking. This time the dream had “Gone with the Wind” – and with this the route had its name. I am describing the second expedition in such detail so the reader will get am impression of the troubles that make the climbing in Patagonia so immensely difficult.

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