It took us five days to approach and carry our gear to the route, and we spent 11 days on the wall without touching the ground – 11 incredible days, and what an experience.

We climbed between February 8^th to the 20^th, and all of us reached the summit at 7:31 PM. Before the wall, we left our base camp during a storm and made sure to tie our tents down, before we went back to Puerto Natales (the nearest town) to buy some food and have a little fiesta (partying). On January 27^th, we hiked back up to our base camp in order to try the route. We were really excited and motivated during the approach to the base. We felt strong, and for the first time were looking up at the wall confident that we were capable of climbing this incredible line.

It was a very windy day. When we arrived back at our base camp later in the day after fixing the first few pitches our spirits were crushed when we saw that our camp had been destroyed by the winds. Our two tents were torn to bits and our gear was lying around all over the place exposed to the wind and snow. We looked around to see what was missing and hoped there was still enough gear left to continue with our project.

Courageously we started picking up our stuff. The wind was so strong we could barely stand. After a thorough search, we came to the harsh conclusion that Nico’s Djarango was destroyed, our two expedition tents irreparable, and the radio’s were no longer working, Mike’s sleeping bag and bivy bag were missing, and more than 2000 Euro (around $2400 dollars) in damage… Paf! Patagonia taught us the hard way. We wondered if it would still be possible to try Riders.

Oli had found a small cavity under a boulder where he had left his gear, which was untouched by the weather, but this spot was not wide enough to accommodate four people. Finally we came to the conclusion that our only possibility was to start digging out the cave to make it bigger. We dug like moles for two days and turned the small cavity into a true underground four-star hotel. Mike succeeded in borrowing a sleeping bag from a ranger, thus surmounting an essential obstacle. It was time to charge!