El Chalten, mid-December: we plopped down in the yard of Albergue del Lago, our launching point for basecamp in the mountains. The mass of clouds known as the "Wall of Hate" so obscured the peaks I started to wonder if Cerro Torre even existed. It was starting to look like another expensive camping trip. I took a nap.

     Patagonia seems like the ideal place if you want to talk the talk. Sure this happens everywhere, but in Patagonia it sounds exotic. And with conditions not even a Slovenian would climb in, you can leave empty-handed and no one will fault you for dragging out that time-honored chestnut: "Awww, yeah, we got shut down by the weather, dude. We really wanted it, ya know [make steely-eyed "I really am a hardman" look here], really wanted it, but man, what can you do, ya know? Live to climb another day, bro."

     Maybe my biggest fear of Patagonia was to come home with nothing to show but that damned excuse and some webbing-shaped calluses on my feet. I'm the king of goofing off, so I can handle some weather. Still, even if I fail — and I fail a lot — I don't want to be like that. There's a difference between being smart and making excuses, and it has nothing to do with the level you climb at, what your best send is, or any of that bullshit. If you love it, at a certain point the cartwheels stop and you go up.