Cerro Torre - Via dei Ragni — Women's Alpine Adventure Club

Grade VI, 95deg snow/rime/ice, M4, 1000m

Jeff and Priti on the summit of Cerro Torre

The moment I saw the mythical looking wind sculpted domes, and the blue tunnels carved through rimed ice-towers on Cerro Torre, the Via Dei Ragni route had captivated my imagination. For years, I had dreamt of climbing through the magical landscape myself. When my husband Jeff and I started our climbing sabbatical in 2020, we put this route on the top of our list.

In 2019, at the beginning of February, we saw a fantastic weather window in Patagonia, and we flew down from Seattle to climb Fitz Roy. In a 9-day magical whirlwind of constant movement, we summited Fitz Roy via the Franco-Argentina route. While on the summit of Fitz Roy, looking down at the surreal summits of Cerro Torre, we were determined more than ever to come back the following season.

We arrived in Patagonia, Argentina on New Year’s Eve and for a month, storms rolled over the Argentinian pampas and crashed into the towers of Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy, with no good weather windows.

I wasn’t surprised by the bad weather, this was our fourth trip to Patagonia, and our 6th consecutive year of watching the weather. But at the start of February the biggest weather window Jeff and I had seen in a year showed up on the weather forecast. We were so ready!

We hiked in to the Torre valley and camped at Noruegos, the Norwegian camp on the Torre side of the valley. It’s closer than the Niponino camp to the Col Standhardt that crosses the Torre range and allows access to their East faces including the Via dei Ragni route on Cerro Torre.

The next day we climbed up steep snow to Col Standhardt and descended down the other side, with Cerro Torre watching over us the whole way. Several rappels deposited us down to the Circo de los Altares (Cirque of the Alters), an impressive crescent of white-capped peaks and toothed spires.

*Bivy site at Noruegos, with Fitz Roy behind*

From the Col Standhardt the climbing to the camp at Col de Esperanza involves steep snow climbing and easy mixed terrain. Looking up at the ethereal rime ice towers above, my heart soared. This was the stuff dreams are made of! A gleeful smile plastered my face while we set up camp under a full moon.

The next day was a rest day of sorts. We moved camp a few hundred meters up, just below El Elmo (the “Helmet”), a prominent plateau below the steep, technical climbing. This camp set us up well for a summit push the next day. The faster and stronger climbers had gone straight to the highest camp the day before and were now battle-axing the bullet-hard blue ice and cleaning the cotton candy mushrooms of the summit, carving their way up.

*On the way up to camp below the Col de Esperanza*

We camped beneath the first rime ice pitch that ascends the Elmo. Early in the morning, before sunrise, we started our summit push. Jeff led the steep pitch up the Elmo and the mixed pitches after. I took over for the ice pitches, the ice headwall, and we arrived at the base of the first mushroom.

Cerro Torre has three rime ice mushrooms to climb on the Ragni route. The key is finding the natural ice tunnels, sculpted by the wind, that provide the easiest and most secure way up and through the billowing, loose rime mushrooms.

Climbing through the tunnel in the first mushroom

Climbing through the first tunnel, as big as an elevator shaft, lined with vertical blue ice, was the coolest thing I had done in my life. Finishing my lead up through a snowy squeeze, I brought Jeff up into the sunlight. The sun shone in a clear blue sky, and barely a wisp of wind blew, it was perfect.

When we reached the final mushroom we saw the vertical rime crux of the route. The previous parties had dug a half-pipe in the bottom half on the unconsolidated rime, and a tunnel for most of the second half. But at the top of the tunnel was a short section that stepped left into loose steep rime. This section was the crux of the crux, scary, unprotectable and overhanging.

The party in front of us had attempted the pitch but they were about to turn around because they lacked the ice tool wings that provided any sense of security in the rime. We had rented a pair of wings, a Petzl protoype, at the local gear shop Viente Oeste. We offered to let them use our tools, to get everyone to the summit. We all held our breath as we watched the Argentinian climber knock huge chunks of rime off and the route disintegrated before our eyes.

Climbing with my ice tools without wings seemed like it was going to be impossible. But suddenly I remembered a bit of advice from Marcus Pucher: “just punch your fists into the rime.” It worked amazingly! Punching and stemming into the rime, I climbed the manufactured tunnel, while eyeing the chunks falling off, the disintegrating ice, and the growing holes in the tunnel. Climbing through the burrowed tunnel in the mushroom was definitely the coolest experience of my life.

Walking up to the steepest point on Cerro Torre on a perfectly still, clear day was absolutely surreal, basking in the bright orange-red glow of the sunset. The 200 miles of the Continental Ice Cap stretched before us and the Pacific Ocean now clearly visible. Behind, on the other side of the Torre Valley, small, wispy clouds hovered over the summit of Fitz Roy. We were lucky to get perfect lighting to fly our drone around for 30 minutes alone before we headed back down to our tents at El Elmo for the night.

Standing below the peak after the descent, I felt immensely humbled and awestruck by the amazing people, the incredible peaks and my good fortune to be around them.

Follow along as Jeff and I continue our climbing sabbatical at alpinevagabonds.com

IG: @prittyright @jeff_t_wright

Also thanks to the American Alpine Club Live Your Dream Grant for supporting this trip.

Recommended Reading:

The Tower, Kelly Cordes

Patagonia Vertical, Rolando Garibotti

Enduring Patagonia, Greg Crouch