We stood utterly alone in a moonscape of tumbled gray rocks left behind by the last Patagonian glaciation, the view of the full Chalten massif stretched before us – the best view in the house. Filling our field of view were the striking pinnacles of Cerro Torre (3102m) with its ever-present cap of rime ice[1], and its companions Torre Egger (2900m) and Cerro Standhardt (2800m). …
The firefly sparks of a dozen headlamps sketched out the trail above our camp, with only the faintest pre-dawn glow to indicate the presence of the towering massif above. Climbers and trekkers had been hunkered down through the rain and wind for a month in the little boomtown of El Chalten, Argentina, awaiting this first clear stretch of weather, and…
