Fitz Roy - North pillar


10. Mate, Porro y Todo lo Demás

900m 6c

Bean Bowers and Rolando Garibotti 1/2008, to top of the pillar; Matjaz Dusic and Lovro Vrsnik (Slovenia) 2/2011, to the summit (first integral ascent).

Description. Climbs an obvious line on the northwest face of the Goretta pillar. It is a fantastic climb, with unmatched rock quality and climbing that is always engaging, but never hard and always easy to protect. A very fun outing. There are no fixed anchors or any fixed gear on the route.

History. The route was initially climbed to the top of the pillar and saw 5 or 6 repeats to that point before an integral ascent was completed. The first ascent party took ten hours to the top of the pillar. The name of the route was an attempt to keep up with Pedrini’s nearby “argentinismo” (Chimichurri y Tortas Fritas). Dusnik and Vrsnik did the first integral ascent of the route, climbing it over two days, making one bivy 20 pitches up and reaching the summit at 9PM of their second day. Thomas Melling (Norway) and Magnus Eriksson (Sweden) followed behind them, making an ascent of the lower part of Mate-Porro to Gringos Perdidos to the upper Casarotto route.

Approach. Eléctrico Valley to Paso Cuadrado to North Fitz Roy glacier. Once below Fitz Roy’s north face climb easy snow (45°) to the base of the route (500 meters vertical gain). The approach has been done in tennis shoes with aluminum crampons, but late in the summer hard ice could pose a problem. Boots, steel crampons and a light axe are recommended.

Pro. Two each camalots to #4, camalot #5, nuts.

Descent. There are no fixed anchors on the route so unless you want to leave a large portion of your rack behind, you will have to reach the top of the pillar to descent the Casarotto. This descent only takes a few hours (4 hours for a competent party). From the top of the Bloque Empotrado (chockstone at the col) rappel west back to the base of the route where, if you plan to climb just to the top of the pillar you can leave boots, crampons and other.

Photos (click to enlarge)

Fitz Roy north face

Fitz Roy north and west face

Fitz Roy north pillar

Fitz Roy north pillar

Fitz Roy north pillar, upper part