New Sends We Cared About: One of Patagonia's Hardest Free Routes Gets an FA (and more)

In an attempt to make space for the newsworthy ascents that occur with ever-increasing regularity, we’re launching a new weekly series in which we try to celebrate a few outstanding climbs that for one reason or another caught our attention. We hope you enjoy it.—The editors

New free route in Patagonia is likely the Fitz Roy group’s hardest

A recent climb that (nearly) passed under our radar was Pete Whittaker and Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll’s first free ascent of Anda p’alla! on the West Face of Aguja Guillaumet. The 1,600-foot route was established just the month before, at 5.12b A0, and the first ascensionists tipped them off that the thin crack would probably go free at 8a (5.13b). On Instagram, Whittaker described the crux pitch as a “thin seam with awkward body positioning and flaring finger jams,” which he was able to sort out on his first attempt before lowering off and redpointing the pitch.

Whittaker is well accustomed to climbing hard traditional pitches in few attempts: In 2014 he flashed El Cap’s Freerider (VI 5.12d) and just last December he flashed the 5.13d roof crack La Fuerza de la Gravedad. So perhaps it’s not that surprising that Whittaker can churn out 5.13b first free ascents on his first trip to Patagonia. Clearly the 31-year-old is operating at a level of crack-climbing fitness that few others can relate to. Indeed, classically understated Brits like Whittaker are doubly tough to relate to since boasting of any form seems drilled out of them at birth.

Thankfully there is an excellent video of Villanueva O’Driscoll coming up to Whittaker after his successful lead: “Fuckin’ eh!” he says, wrapping Whittaker in an unreciprocated bear hug. “That was incredible… good lead, man… brilliant… really well climbed, man… impeccable… that was fucking awesome.” 

At least he can give us some context.—Anthony Walsh

In the dead of winter, big wallers make hard-aid FA in Greenland

Hard-aid expeditions don’t hold nearly as much weight in the greater climbing community as they used to, but I’d argue that nailing up a remote big wall in Greenland is just as hardcore as it ever was. That was my first thought after hearing about Marcin Tomaszewski and Pavel Haldas’s recent escapade, anyway: a 26-day odyssey during which they established FRAM (VI A3 M5; 2,300ft) on Greendland’s Oqatssut Wall.

Gripped reported that the pair climbed for seven hours each day for 14 days—using up every minute that the Arctic winter sun afforded them—and battled up loose rock, sketchy slabs, and deep chimneys. Temperatures dropped as low as -40 ℉ on the wall, and Tomaszewski said they “were on the verge of extreme frostbite every day.” 

Perhaps that’s why FRAM is the first big wall to have ever been climbed during the Greenlandic winter. —AW 

At 65, Jean-Pierre Bouvier’s still got it

Some climbers enjoy moving sideways as much as they enjoy moving up. And in Fontainebleau especially, traverses have garnered enough enthusiasm to have fostered a separate grading system, which accounts for the pump-factor of longer lines. Longtime climber Jean-Pierre Bouvier, 65, has made the first ascent of another impressive traverse to add to Font’s ranks: the 60-move, back-and-forth sweep of Contre-courant (9A).

In an interview with Grimper last January, Bouvier said, “In all these years at high level [climbing], what hasn’t changed much for me is this irresistible taste for traverses.”

(We should note that Font boulder grades are significantly different from our V-scale: a traditional 7A Font boulder, for example, equates to V6; however a 7A traverse is V4. At the far end of the scale, a 9A traverse is not V17, but closer to V13.)

Regardless, Bouvier’s ascent follows a history of hard climbing: He was the first climber to do a 7C+ (V10) in Font and he established a number of 9A traverses—some of which haven’t seen repeats. It’s safe to say that, after some 50 years of climbing, the senior Frenchman is still crankin. —Delaney Miller

Why is one of America’s best mixed routes only now seeing so many repeats?

I’ve often been interested in the fact that some classic climbs get blasted by traffic while other equally classic climbs go mostly unclimbed for decades before being randomly brought back into the limelight again. And it’s been cool to watch that happen this season on Deep Throat—a IV 5.9 WI 6 M7 in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado. 

The route was first climbed by Will Gadd and Jeff Lowe in January 1997, and it was immediately lauded as one of the great hard mixed routes in the lower 48. In Fifty Favorite Climbs (published 2001), Gadd calls its third pitch, a huge roof-dihedral feature full of dangling icicles, “the best pitch I’ve ever done.” 

Yet until this year Deep Throat saw only a handful of successful ascents—first by Ryan Jennings and Kevin Cooper in 2006, and later Josh Wharton and Stanley Verba in 2014. But then, earlier this year, Jesse Huey and Matt Segal went out there and climbed to within 50 feet of the top before bailing because Huey, after a very impressive lead, ran out of ice screws. Just four days later, Quentin Roberts and Maury Birdwell voyaged out there and did the climb in its entirety, with the apparently fearless Roberts leading the third pitch. A week later, Jackson Marvell and Matt Cornell climbed it. And then Huey returned with Brian McMahon and made it to the top.

In case you lost track, that means that Deep Throat has seen as many successful ascents in the last six weeks as it saw in the entirety of its 26-year lifetime. 

And with all the climbers calling it amazing, it begs the question: Why did it get so little attention?

Well, in part it’s because Deep Throat is “a serious route,” as Birdwell told me by phone. It’s more like an alpine climb (serious choss, fickle gear, crazy exposure) than a roadside ice climb. It has also had a reputation for rarely forming, though Birdwell says he’s not sure that this is actually accurate. Instead, as Josh Wharton noted in an excellent video about his 2014 ascent, it may just be easier to convince yourself that the tiny daggers of ice hanging from the roof aren’t climbable than it is to convince yourself that an attempt is a good idea. 

But also, there’s the history. “Deep Throat just had this aura to it,” Birdwell said, “in no small part because Jeff Lowe whipped on it. When you’ve got Will Gadd and Jeff Lowe, two of the hardest of the hard, taking multiple days to piece this thing together—I think that’s pretty intimidating.”

But now it’s back on the map. As I write this, another strong party is engaged in an attempt. 

“I think it could probably get done a lot more,” Birdwell added. “I mean, it is a serious route. It’s real mountain shit. You definitely have to know what you’re doing. But it’s also incredible. It’s by far the coolest ice route I’ve ever done. And the wildest route of any kind I’ve ever done. I would encourage folks to get up there.” —Steve Potter

Also read:

• New Sends We Cared About: A WI 6+ Free Solo FA (and more)
• Matteo Della Bordella on His Aguja Mermoz FA and Finding New Challenges in Patagonia
• One Great Way to Ruin Your Climbing Career? Get Addicted to Exercise