One Way to the Top of Cerro Torre

Base-to-summit, the link-up gained 4,600 vertical feet. From the summit, we descended the Compressor Route, as indicated by the arrow, then down the ridge facing the camera, and finally out of sight to the right, down to the Torre Glacier. We returned to our bivy camp exactly two days after leaving.

1) January 5, 2007: Start up the M-P at dawn with no real bivy gear, just belay jackets, water, a stove, and about a day's worth of food. The second carried a 5.5mm tagline. We divided the route into two huge leader blocks: I led to the Col of Hope, and then Colin took over to the summit.

2) Mixed traverse left into a couloir funneling from the serac, which looked the size of a parking garage and seemed stable. (No debris, no recent activity.) This past October, however, it ripped — twice — while four Spanish climbers tried to repeat the route. They escaped unharmed.

3) The sun released little barrages of ice and rock, spooking me. I tried to boogie but screwed-up the route-finding (typical...) and went too high before traversing back right again. The traverse took us out from beneath the serac.

4) The upper couloir (mostly hidden) led us to the Col of Hope, five long simul-climbing pitches and eight hours after crossing the 'schrund. The Marsigny-Parkin wasn't terribly hard, but featured super-sustained ice, frontpointing the whole way. Note: this photo distorts the relative heights of the route's lower and upper portions.

5) The Col of Hope, where the 1974 Ragni di Lecco West Face route wraps around from the ice-cap side. Mind-blowing views — west to the icecap, east to rolling pampas and ranchlands, south to enormous lakes, and above us, Cerro Torre. We rested and brewed for three hours, and then Colin took the lead through the wild rime.

6) "The Helmet" section, which Colin masterfully navigated by traversing far right, over flutings and up vertical, unprotectable sugar snow.

7) A little mixed climbing alongside relics (old fixed ropes and pins) from the 1974 Ragni di Lecco first ascent of Cerro Torre.

8) Top of the famed "headwall" pitch, which we finished at dark. Below the complex upper towers, we dug a tiny snow hole, crawled in, shivered, and spooned through the night. I made Colin wear the wig.

9) The upper towers, where we found several fantastic, wind-carvel tunnels with good ice. When we couldn't find tunnels, the climbing proved desperate — vertical and overhanging sugar snow with the route's technical crux (AI6-ish), plus a couple overhanging aid moves off horrible snow pickets. Gravity works against us — why not the same for the sugar snow?

10) Final snow mushroom was easy this year — some years it completely shuts climbers down. Thirty-two hours after crossing the 'schrund, we chilled on the summit for an hour without a breath of wind before beginning our descent.