Aguja Guillaumet Squared

I am grateful to Saule Zukauskaite, Arunas Kamandulis, and Gediminas Simutis for this fantastic opportunity to climb in Patagonia. Saule, Aras and Gedas proposed this trip to Mammut for the 150 year project and it was selected. Thanks to Mammut for choosing me to accompany this talented team of young climbers.

For more information on Aguja Guillaumet look here.

We climbed the routes: Brenner-Moschioni  350 m 6b and Comesaña-Fonrouge 350 meters 6b+

The view from my window at my posada, Inlandsis, the day of our departure

Buenos Dias and the waning Luna

Gedas, Saule and Aras... ready to giv'er

definitely 6 tons!

Starting the grind...

We started our march to the promised land on December 12th. We ended up camping in the valley at Piedra del Fraile after taking a load up to Piedra Negra. On December 13, we hiked from the valley at ~500m, changed up our loads at Piedra Negra (~1300m) and continued up to Paso Guillaumet where the rock climbing begins, a few pitches of quality rock climbing gets you to the aesthetic crux pitch.

At Piedre Negra, ready for action

The left summit is Guillaumet

The crux pitch on the Brenner-Moschioni

Saule on perfect alpine granite

loving the shadows and the cracks

Rising to the ridgeline

Looking back at the ridge we climbed

Summit Shot ~2579m

We gratefully summited at 8:30pm after ascending a little over 2000m from the valley.

starting the descent with fantastic views

the shadow of the aguja in the valley below

We rappelled the Guillot couloir into fading light.

Finishing the rappels, back to the Paso Guillaumet for a midnight snack

We arrived back at our tents around 3 am. We spend the next day resting, recovering and sheltering ourselves from the heat and the sun. Climbers say they haven’t seen it be so hot here in previous seasons.

On December 14, we decided to head back up Aguja Guillaumet–to minimize our time on the not so frozen snow. Aras, Gedas and Saule did a great job of leading us up the approach on snow, keeping the momentum on the route and up to the Amy couloir.

Crux Pitch of Comesaña-Fonrouge

Fitzroy group shadow on Pollone

a happy guida

Gedas leading the rappels

the last rappel

Racing down to beat the heat

Gratefully back at the trailhead, without our packs on our backs

crammed into the taxi