At the end of January we started our expedition. Two days of hiking and horse riding that included some treacherous river crossings brought us to the place where the Turbio II, III and IV meet, “la horqueta”. A little higher, deep in the rain forest is the hut Don Ropo, a rustic wooden hut built and held by Osvaldo and Gabriel Rapoport. This was our starting point for our access to the Turbio IV valley.
From here on, we were required to transfer loads from the horse backs to our own backs and hike another day to reach the upper hut, Don Chule. Following small trails through dense forests and crossing two zip lines we arrived at this quaint and welcoming hut. Constructed by people in the local climbing scene and a known climbing legend Sebastian de la Cruz, this hut became our base camp for the next month. Especially on those days with heavy rain we were grateful to have such a luxurious shelter.
We used the first days to explore the valley, look at different walls, visit some existing lines and repeat some pitches to get a feeling of the granite. We then decided to install our bivy at the Mariposa lagoon to try to open a new route up “El Cohete”, a so far unclimbed feature.
El cohete from the approach
We started opening ground up and fixing a couple of pitches but days with heavy rain forced us to go back to the hut to seek shelter. We were lucky that the periods of rain never lasted more than two days and were interrupted by a couple of good days that we used to make progress on our route. In between, we hiked down to get our resupplies that the horses had carried to the Don Ropo hut. This was also the opportunity to get the treat of Osvaldo's amazing “tortas fritas” and a wooden heated shower that he and Fede would heat each time we arrived. Their welcoming warm atmosphere made it hard to leave each time.
Up on the wall our objective was to open a route that would be nice for people to repeat. This involved a big amount of cleaning: cracks were full of plants and deep roots while slabs were covered by lichen. While we were pushing our line further up into the unknown, we were also working hard on the pitches below to make the climbing enjoyable. Lots of hard work shared between the five of us! While opening involved quite some aid climbing, the cleaned pitches offer amazing, varied and sustained free climbing up to 7b+. We couldn’t believe the quality of the rock on each single pitch and the variety of corners, cracks, flakes and slabs we found.
Caro North free climbing P12 + Caro & Belen at the summit of P12
Most of the route is sustained climbing in the 6c/7a range on trad gear. We only placed bolts where it was necessary to avoid exposed sections.
600 m divided in 13 pitches (most of them 50 m long) lead us to the top of the Rock Pillar of Cohete. From there we were able to climb a line of 650 m of AD 4a scrambling up to a snowy ridge and the first snow summit.
Fay on the extension of the route, the 700 m ad scramble snow ridge
More than a month of hard work, logistics and tactical choices paid off and at the end we created “Apollo 13, 7b+”.
The route is bolted with 10 mm stainless steel bolts, two of them on each anchor and equipped to rappel down. We added bolts in some pitches to make the climbing enjoyable and safe.
From here, the adventure was not finished yet. In addition to the normal loads and hike that an expedition's end brings, we had the chance to packraft the whole Turbio river to Puelo lake. One full day of navigation (category I river) through these pristine landscapes challenged our skills on dry land and brought us safely to the port where another boat would pick us up before the last lake crossing back to civilization.
Text: Caro North
Pictures: Julia Cassou