Loma Blanca x2
February 21 - March 5, 2024
After a week in Torres del Paine, a place that bears more resemblance to Disneyland than actual wilderness, I got on a bus north to El Chaltén. A few hours after crossing the Chile-Argentina border, I got my first view of Cerro Chaltén (more commonly known as Mount Fitz Roy) 100 miles away across the pampas.
Quite an interesting experience followed. I can think of several explanations with varying degrees of woo-woo for this experience and other similar experiences over the next couple months in El Chaltén. While I have the neuroscience background to speculate about reductive brain mechanisms, I think this would ignore something real, and I’m more interested in tuning into the subtleties of my lived experiences and following these threads with wonder and curiosity. Anyway, goosebumps spread across my whole body along with the unshakeable feeling that I’d been there before and was coming home. I seemed to instantly grasp something fundamental about the region—some essence or form of consciousness distributed across the landscape, something elemental and ancient/timeless. The only other place I’ve ever felt this so strongly is probably looking at the Eastern Sierra escarpment from the Whites/Inyos, and to a lesser extent the Tombstone Mountains in the Yukon and parts of Capitol Reef in Utah. Here in Patagonia looking out the bus window, my eyes fixated on the endless escarpment of glaciated mountains above the bright blue waters of Lago Argentino. Each individual mountain was unto itself yet linked together in kinship. Looming way in the distance was the figure of Fitz Roy occupying the liminal space between the rolling windswept pampas and the glaciated fjordland beyond. Fitz Roy undoubtedly commanded the entire realm, a foreboding and righteous overlord, omniscient, omnipresent, yet understated at the same time, just existing in its fullness without seeking attention.
First glimpse of Fitz Roy
A couple hours later the bus was rumbling along Ruta 23 by the shore of Lago Viedma approaching El Chaltén. Drifting in and out of sleep, I found myself in a strange emotional state that was both unsettling and deeply alluring, some sort of apprehension mixed with desire and longing. This also manifested as a downright erotic charge coursing through my body. Again I can think of several explanations here, but it seemed to be occasioned at least in part by the landscape, like the landscape itself had a powerful charge centered around the Chaltén Massif that my body was picking up on and resonating with as the bus drew closer to the nexus.
Upon arriving in El Chaltén, my only plan was to find the cheapest hostel available where I’d stay for however many months I felt like and go into the mountains to shoot whenever the weather allowed. Based on extensive Google Earth scouting over the previous year, the perspective that I thought would best convey the character of Fitz Roy was a drone shot from near the summit of a peak called Domo Blanco. There were plenty of other places nearby that I also wanted to explore, but this was the one I really was fixated on. Based on my drone’s capabilities, it seemed like flying from the summit of another peak called Loma Blanca was the best bet (although I later learned how to hack the drone firmware which would have changed my approach to getting this shot). Very little info about Loma Blanca existed online. I reached out to a couple of climbers asking for beta with no response. So I figured I’d just do what I’ve done plenty of times elsewhere: identify possible routes on a topographic map and then read the terrain in front of me once I was actually out there. The topo map indicated a potential class 3 route to the summit with no technical climbing required, but I couldn’t tell with any confidence whether the route I devised would actually go. Being in the marginal zone of what I felt comfortable doing, I knew that weather conditions might be the deciding factor in whether I was able to climb Loma Blanca, and I was keen to make an attempt before any major autumn snowfall. Another complication was the notorious Patagonia wind. I’d need a calm window both for my safety and to make it possible to fly the drone.
A promising weather window appeared on the forecast starting two days after I got to El Chaltén so I packed up my stuff and headed to the edge of town to try my luck hitchhiking, and quickly got a ride to the Rio Electrico bridge. Fitz Roy’s sculpted granite appeared even more imposing from this perspective, like an extraterrestrial fortress, or a spear piercing the sky. It felt a bit silly to be going out here less than 48 hours after arriving in town, being completely unfamiliar with the mountain range and skipping all the popular jaw-dropping spots for this relatively unknown peak via a route that I wasn’t sure was even viable. But I knew most of the other spots could be reached later in the season in worse weather, so off I went. I headed up the Electrico Valley along river gravel bars and then through a beautiful forest. The process of getting to know a new mountain range is always invigorating to me. In the beginning, everything is fresh and unknown with limitless possibility. Any prior expectations I may have are always wildly incomplete. During initial forays into new places, I’m often just trying to gather sensory data to piece together later and begin to understand what the place is about and how to photograph it. I tried to take it all in, from the trees swaying in the wind to the gleaming granite towers impossibly high above.
Hitchhiking to Rio Electrico
After emerging from the forest into an open valley near Piedra Fraille, I started feeling uncharacteristically scared. It just felt wild and unforgiving out there due in large part to the howling wind, and I started panicking about pumas attacking me. I paused, reminding myself that puma attacks in the region are essentially a non-consideration, that I had the appropriate gear on my back for much worse weather than this, that I was standing in a perfectly flat valley right now, and that I have operated in far more challenging situations in the mountains many times. Though it’s always prudent to stop and consider these pangs of hesitation, one thing I value about all the time I’ve spent in the mountains is how it has helped me differentiate between fear and actual risk. As long as I’ve accurately assessed any real danger, it doesn’t really matter if I feel confident or scared— I can just do the thing regardless. This is true in the rest of my life too. As I kept walking, forward action predictably transformed fear and doubt into determination and expansiveness. I enjoyed skirting the edge of Lago Electrico as the sun set and set up camp on la playita on the west end of the lake. There I ran into a group of Brazilian climbers who showed me Rolo Garibotti’s guidebook writeup on Loma Blanca. Rolo, who I’d later meet and become friends with, is a world class alpinist and indicated that the “easy” route up Loma Blanca involved a steep headwall next to an icy waterfall. This didn’t inspire confidence but I decided to still go see what the southwest face looked like the next day.
Near Piedra Fraille
Rolo's guidebook... I ended up doing a modified version of route 1 shown here
Waking up shortly after sunrise, I ate a concoction of oats enriched with dulce de leche and started off toward the Marconi Glacier, knowing it might be quite a long day. I intended to follow the lateral moraine on the east side of the glacier to wrap around the cliffy north and west faces of Loma Blanca to the southwest face. Climbing up and down endless hills of loose rubble on the moraine was painstaking, but seemed safer than walking on the glacier given that I was alone in unfamiliar terrain and didn’t know whether the glacier was heavily crevassed. It took me about two hours to cover 1.5 miles on the moraine. I finally got to the scree slope I’d identified as the possible route and looked up in dismay at what appeared to be an impenetrable cliff face at the top of the relatively low angle scree, with a waterfall streaming down the cliff as described in Rolo’s guidebook. It looked like there might be a ramp system that circumvented the cliff to the left. It didn’t look terribly promising, but from my vantage point it was the only possibility that I couldn’t completely rule out given my skills and risk tolerance, so I decided to slog up there and take a closer look, knowing that as long as I diligently avoided no fall zones and irreversible moves I could always safely backtrack anytime without consequence aside from the displeasure of carrying a heavy pack up and down loose scree. To my surprise, as I reached the base of the headwall, the ramp system turned the corner and continued. Each time I thought I was about to get cliffed out, a narrow but relatively easy path to keep going presented itself. It involved a lot of traversing horizontally in the opposite direction but I eventually I wrapped around the cliffiest sections and was able to turn straight uphill where the slope angle eased off to about 45° through a gap between steeper sections. I dropped a gps pin here so I could easily find it on the descent too. The talus was steep and loose, but no worse than plenty of Sierra scrambles I’d done before. I felt surprisingly strong and was delighted to have been able to pick my way through this maze and avoid no-fall zones entirely by going one step at a time and continually assessing the terrain. Just like in Alaska and Nepal, I was struck by how transferable the skills I’d honed in the Sierra were to other ranges around the world. It was still a long slog to the summit but the routefinding was easy the rest of the way. Avalanches were frequently ripping down from the hanging glaciers on the opposite side of the Marconi Valley throughout my ascent. While I was in no danger of overhead hazard, it certainly added to the ambience and made clear how consequential this place is.
Navigating this moraine was extremely laborious
Avalanche below Cerro Marconi
Navigating the ramp system on Loma Blanca
I finally reached the summit after nine hours of continuous movement and 5000’ of vertical gain on lousy terrain with a heavy pack. The view was remarkable. I dropped my pack and scouted compositions along the summit ridge. The sun would be setting soon, the horizon was clear of clouds, and there wasn’t a breath of wind. These were the drone flying conditions I was hoping for. I set up my tripod thinking I’d shoot photos with my main camera while flying the drone. But much to my chagrin, there was a problem with the drone app on my phone that required an internet connection to fix. The five stages of grief washed over me. I couldn’t believe that I’d gotten myself up here in the right conditions as the sunset alpenglow was sliding up the west face of Fitz Roy and this stupid app that I’d tested a couple days before in town wasn’t working. Being so fixated on the drone shot I wanted, I found it difficult to appreciate the fact that I was still in an absolutely stunning place at sunset. After sunset, I set up my tent and spent an uncomfortable night right on the summit. The rocks were not the least bit flat, and the wind picked a bit.
Droneless sunset :(
I woke up at dawn after a fitful night of pseudo-sleep and enjoyed a vibrant sunrise up there. The light stayed nice and diffuse throughout the day. Countless condors were soaring on the thermals, and the view toward the Southern Patagonian Icefield was incredible. This was definitely among the most inspiring places I’ve stood.
Sunrise on the summit
Condor amigos
I began descending in the mid-afternoon, retracing my ascent route. Descending all the loose talus was heinously tedious and tough on the knees but overall uneventful. I slept that night by a small stream on the moraine at the base of Loma Blanca’s southwest face. Despite a full night of sleep, I woke up feeling deeply exhausted, not at all looking forward to the long hike back to the road. There wasn’t much of a choice though so I shouldered my pack and started listening to the audiobook version of Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being. Getting through the section on the moraine felt even more horrible on the return trip, no longer spurred on by the sense of adventure and uncertainty that existed when I was walking out here two days before. The whole walk back to the road felt long and laborious, but I managed to power through and hitchhike back to town with some daylight left to spare.
Scree skiing off the summit
Crossing Rio Pollone
Looking back at Loma Blanca from the road
I wasn’t quite sure what to do next. On one hand, there was unfinished business. I still really wanted the drone shot I was after and now knew the route. On the other hand, climbing Loma Blanca took a lot more effort than I anticipated and going back up there a second time sounded miserable. Plus I didn’t know if there would even be another viable window with no wind. As a side note, what a privileged problem to have! I spent the next few days in town resting and hanging out with my friend Anthony.
Anthony and our dirtbag feast
To my surprise, the weather models forecasted a twelve-hour stretch of low wind coming up in a couple days. It was a much shorter window than the previous one, but a second chance at the drone shot nonetheless. The thought of going back up there sounded terribly unappealing even after a few days of creature comforts in town, but I thought I’d probably always be disappointed if I gave up on the vision knowing there was an opportunity right in front of me to make it happen. Rick Rubin’s thoughts on the creative process spurred me on as well. I called my girlfriend to tell her I was heading back out. With a playful roll of her eyes, she said she knew I’d be going right back up there as soon as she heard about the drone malfunction. It took me a few extra days of hemming and hawing to realize she was totally right and knows me better than I know myself in some ways. I triple-checked that the drone was functioning properly this time and hitchhiked back to the Rio Electrico bridge on March 2, just four days after the previous outing.
There had been a snowstorm in the intervening days and I wasn’t sure what the conditions would be like on the upper slopes of Loma Blanca. I began hiking in gale force winds toward a menacing cloud of doom blanketing Loma Blanca and the Marconi Valley, sleeping on la playita at the edge of Lago Electrico that night.
Pequeña brecha?
Best type of hitchhike
Time to saddle up
La playita
Fitz Roy from near Piedra Fraille
Waking up early, I headed further up the valley to Lago Marconi and onto the lateral moraine of the Marconi Glacier again. It wasn’t any easier this time despite having traveled this section of moraine twice already. The wind continued unabated throughout the day. As I reached the southwest face of Loma Blanca and looked up at the clouds racing across the sky, it was clear that the summit was a bad place to be right now. With the wind being this savage at ground level on the relatively sheltered moraine, it was hard to fathom how violent it must be on the summit. My original plan was to climb Loma Blanca that day and spend the night up there to be in position for the forecasted clear spell. Looking at the actual conditions in front of me, it seemed far more prudent to spend the night sheltered on the moraine and wake up very early for a potential strike mission up and down the peak.
Lago Marconi
Saying nice things to the wind
Clouds pluming over Loma Blanca - video not sped up
This turned out to be a great decision all around. This particular afternoon and evening on the moraine turned out to be one of the most memorable experiences I had in Patagonia. Any attempt to describe it in words feels like a disgraceful approximation but I’ll try. The elements put on a drama of cosmic proportions. The glacial valley became a bombing range with cacophonous rockfall and serac fall along with the wind ripping through me. Violence, fury, beauty, and harmony all coexisted. No, they did more than coexist. They enhanced each other as inseparable parts of the whole. Watching this all unfold, my choices were either to wither in fear or meet and engage with this energy on its terms. I stood there in rapture for about five hours, letting the wind tear through me while sobbing, howling, dancing, and shooting photos. When out shooting in general, I often write down notes about the place, trying to put into words the essence of the place and what it made me feel. Perhaps the best way to convey my experience here is simply to share these unedited notes, along with the photos and videos below.
My field notes: cryogenic bombing chamber, freezing wind ripping through, creative impetus, rock walls emanating piercing gnashing shrieks that are silent (nontemporal gesture of this), good and evil heaven and hell all at once yet further beyond that polarity too, light and dark, being and nothing, timeless, eternal, oneness, cosmic murder wall on which forms and projections dance, uninhabitable yet life-giving, firm and substantiated and self-knowing and self-respecting, twisted gashed rock and ice adorned with all-consuming light, supremely beautiful but in a holy terror rather than nice pleasant sort of way, greet it with open arms and say yeah what’s up motherfucker let’s dance, feeling a spark of that same creative impetus mirrored within me and my body and sensing that romantic love+partnership+union is one of the ways this most wants to be expressed or like that’s how the divine in me wants to unfold and be realized and honored or like that’s perhaps how I can most closely approximate it as a human
At dusk, the clouds lifted and the wind calmed down. I set my alarm for 4:45am. Based on the inReach updates I was receiving, it looked like the spell of calm wind would last until maybe 2 or 3pm. I thought the light on the west face of Fitz Roy might get decent starting in the early afternoon depending on what the clouds did, giving me a narrow window to get the drone shot I was after.
Scrambling up the lower slopes of Loma Blanca in the pitch darkness the next morning was invigorating. I felt fully switched on, applying my accumulated mountain photography skills and putting the fitness I’d been intentionally building over the past eight months to good use. Early dawn alpenglow adorned Cerro Marconi behind me as I began navigating the ramp system I’d reconnoitered a week earlier.
Showtime
About an hour into the scramble
I arrived on the summit shortly before 11am after the long slog from the moraine up 4000 vertical feet of loose scree and talus. The light wasn’t great but there was no wind and I had three drone batteries so I did an initial reconnaissance flight to dial in my preferred composition and flight path to get there. Shortly after, a guy named Fabi Buhl walked up and joined me on the summit. I was surprised to have company up here. He’s an alpinist and paraglider and had just bailed on an attempt to climb the nearby Cerro Rincon with Colin Haley. As a consolation prize, he hiked up Loma Blanca to paraglide off the summit and shorten his return trip considerably. I took some telephoto shots of the distant Lago Electrico so he could look at the waves to approximate how windy it was in the valley. Then he took off and flew all the way back to Piedra Fraille near the road. I was quite envious, largely because I still had to descend all the shitty talus and scree and walk back across the moraine. After Fabi flew away, a rainbow halo formed around the sun out over the icefield. There was still no wind and the light on the west face of Fitz Roy had developed nicely, so I sent the drone up again, flying to my chosen spot and getting the shot I was after. Fitz Roy sat there in a surprisingly understated, anticlimactic way against the soft blue afternoon sky while still full well knowing its own omnipotence.
The perspective I went to all this trouble for!
I started descending at about 6:30pm. On the lower slopes I chose the wrong gully and found myself bear crawling with a heavy pack on a 45° slope of crumbly shale, smearing my forearms into the slope and doing whatever else I could to gain traction, taking several painful but inconsequential falls. Still a thousand feet above flat terrain with night fast approaching, I couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous this whole thing was. On the bright side, it was a great full-body workout. I made it down with the help of some butt sliding (made more difficult by the tripod strapped to the outside of my pack) and slept in the same spot on the moraine as the previous night. The next day, I hiked back to the road accompanied by the usual Patagonian medley of sleet, sunshine, and fearsome wind. About a mile from the road, I badly sprained my ankle. I’d sprained the same ankle in Arizona in January and it hadn’t fully healed. The irony of injuring myself on a flat, well-maintained trail through the forest after getting up and down Loma Blanca twice unscathed was not lost on me. I painfully hobbled back the rest of the way back to the road and sat there in a brewing storm for quite some time waiting for a ride to town. I was starting to think I might be spending another night out here when some kind souls picked me up.
Fourth time navigating this lateral moraine, the bane of my existence. Perhaps I should have just rented crampons and walked on the glacier.
Not what my ankle is supposed to look like
These two trips up Loma Blanca are among the most life-enriching adventures I’ve ever had. I’m glad I went for it as soon as I arrived in El Chaltén. I sometimes wonder whether my determination to follow through on my photographic goals serves me or harms me. I pretty clearly recognize the ultimate futility of ambition and striving, especially when coming from a place of ego even if only subtly. Yet, as exemplified by these trips up Loma Blanca, latching onto a specific objective often becomes a vehicle for a whole lot more. If I go seeking meaningful spiritual experiences, usually nothing happens. If I go with the sole intention to create the very best photographic work I possibly can and put all my energy into the logistics of making that happen no matter the obstacles, other interesting things tend to happen too. The best photography and most life-enriching experiences both tend to come from approaching my trips as devotional acts.