Our Extreme Honeymoon Adventure in Patagonia

"My best vacation is your worst nightmare" - Jim Bridwell

The Approach

At 4:10 AM we leave camp. It is probably around 37 degrees and windy as we begin our approach to the east col. Ahead of us somewhere in the darkness is our objective: to reach the peak Aguja Guillamet, a prominent peak at the northern end of the world famous Fitz Roy Massif. If you look at the logo for the Patagonia clothing company, its the peak at the right most side. I feel surprisingly good despite hiking 7 hilly miles to our campsite the day before, and then enduring a nearly sleepless night with howling wind. I have that same jittery and nervous excitement like I I'm on the start line of a marathon.

It's January 1, 2026. Instead of celebrating the new year and end of our 3 week honeymoon with a night on the town, Devinne (my wife) and I are hiking before the crack of dawn in the remote Patagonian wilderness towards a crazy alpine climbing objective. I wouldn't have it any other away.

The route, called the Brenner-Moschioni (or Brenner for short), begins after an approach up a steep 40-45 degree field of snow and scree before getting to the east ridge. From there it’s 7 pitches, or about 1000 vertical feet of rock climbing of varying difficulty from easy class 5 all the way up to fairly advanced 5.10c crack climbing. From there, the route links up with a couple other routes up summit ridge which consists of another 4 more pitches and 600 vertical feet of easy to moderate climbing before hiking up a final 600 foot, 30 degree sloping snow field to reach the summit. And at that point you’re only halfway done. You still have to rappel and hike down.

The route up Guillamet. The red arrow represents the approach. Point A is the East Col where the climbing begins. Point B is roughly where the Brenner route meets up with a couple of other routes for the last push to the top of the peak, at point C. This picture was taken by me the day before our ascent from our campsite at piedra negra.

Devinne and I have been planning this trip for over 2 years, but I have been dreaming of doing something like this my whole life. I have climbed a good number of high 14000 foot peaks in California, and have been an avid outdoor rock climber for the last 7 years. I've spent many long days running and hiking in the mountains, but have never done something this audacious. This attempt at "alpine climbing" is a style of adventuring that combines all of the skills I've learned and turns them up to 11. While I am used to mountaineering over snow fields with crampons, scrambling at high altitudes, and pure rock climbing: this climb will combine all of those techniques and add a few more. Add to that, powerful environmental factors like wind gusts, rapidly changing temperatures, the presence of ice and water on the rock, and shear 1000 foot drop-offs, and you've got a difficulty that far exceeds any rock climb or mountaineering trip I have done up to this point. In other words, this climb is about to blow everything I had ever done out of the water.

I thought I’d be over the moon excited, but I couldn’t help but feel nervous. In just the last 4 years in this part of Argentinian Patagonia near the town of El Chalten, which is a synonymous name for the region, there have been countless alpine climbing accidents including 3 deaths on the exact route we were about to do. Most of these accidents have occurred to people like us without experience in the Patagonian alpine peaks who got in over their head. However, there are also plenty of accidents involving seasoned Patagonian climbers who do everything right. Fierce weather including gale force winds, snow, and rain can come out of nowhere. Even if the weather is nice, and actually especially if it is warm, avalanches and rockfall are common ways in which people die out here. Notably as well, rescue services are nonexistent aside from a loyal group of volunteers who have to travel on foot over the same treacherous path that the climber took to attempt a rescue. If you manage to survive a fall or accident, it could be tens of hours if not days before someone could get to you. All that is to say, climbing here is much harder and dangerous than almost anywhere else in the world. You might be safer trying to summit Mt. Everest. At least there, you can get a helicopter pickup.

As nervous as I am about my own abilities, I am way more nervous about Devinne, who's experience is more limited. While she frequently goes to the climbing gym with me and is an avid endurance athlete, but she lacks a lot of the experience I have rock climbing outside and adventuring in the mountains. In fact, her very first multipitch climb, or rock climb outside that is taller than about 70 feet, was just a few days before this when we climbed in the relative safety of a crag right in the town of El Chalten. Now she is about to attempt to climb a 2000 rock peak half a world away from where we live.

Luckily, we are guided by Tomás Aguilo, a seasoned El Chalten climber and mountain guide for over 20 years. He's led this exact expedition numerous times. His pedigree as one of Patagonia’s most elite expedition leaders indicates that even if things get hairy, he’s the guy you want by your side. He's been in every situation, and climbed every peak here. Seasoned Patagonian climbers have to be meteorologists to some degree, and Tomás has assured us that in looking at the many weather models he has assured us that conditions are prime for a New Year’s Day ascent on this route.

With all of this rattling around in my head, I try to focus my energy on the fact that I am climbing a peak in the Fitz Roy Massif! I have watched so many movies and videos of climbers taking on these peaks, and now here I am with my incredible wife actually doing it. As the sun begins to rise over the windswept austral landscape, I can make out the jagged peaks and massive glaciers that dominate the region. The El Chalten region is best known for The Torres and Fitz Roy groupings of peaks, or massifs, but as we ascended I can see so many more mountain peaks and glaciers off in the distance. Just west of where we are is the massive Southern Patagonian ice field which stretches for over 200 miles along the border of Argentina and Chile. It’s the second largest ice field in the world, but you can’t see it at all from the town of El Chalten. You have to travel like we did into the mountains. While I have seen glaciers before and spent a lot of time in the mountains, I have never seen a landscape as bizarre and threatening and beautiful as the vast sheet of ice and peaks blanketing the western horizon.

Sun Rising over the western horizon as we continue our approach. The Southern Patagonian ice field is in the far background. Photo taken by our guide Tomás at 5:43 AM. 

I don't have too much time to gawk at my surroundings; the steep terrain of snow and rock above us beckons my full attention. About halfway on the approach to the east col, the snow field gets steep enough that we needed to put on crampons and tie into a rope with each other for safety. I’ve hiked up steep snow fields before but nothing nearly this steep. The snow field reached a 45 degree angle which is about the threshold of where you would actually need to climb. For context, Mt. Shasta’s Avalanche gulch, our training ground, tops out at about 35 degrees.

The snow field eventually ends and we are left with a little bit of class 3 scrambling over large loose boulders. It is here that I realize a hazard that would make this ascent a lot harder: icy rock. We are constantly dodging areas where water has frozen onto the surface of the granite making what could be a perfect step or hand hold impossible to use as either.

1st Pitch

We reach the east col at 6:10 AM, exactly 2 hours after we started. We are right on time with our general schedule, which is to get to the east col around 6 AM, and then climb the peak in about 6 hours to reach the top by noon. If there is going to be any foul weather, it is likely to happen in the afternoon, so we want to be on our way down by then.

Still on relatively safe terrain, we take a quick break to have a snack, use the bathroom, and rope up. This is where the rock climbing will begin.

I take a second to look around at the south side of the col, opposite from where we just came up. The south side is blanketed by the Piedra Blanca Glacier. This thing is crazy looking. There tons of crevasses that look like they are hundreds of feet deep riddled across the mass of ice that are like trap doors waiting for someone to dare cross them. If you wanted to climb up the easier Amy Couloir route, you'd have to first cross this glacier. This option is clearly a no go.

Devinne climbing with the Piedra Blanca Glacier below her

I turn my head up to the east ridge and the route that we are about to attempt. The rock is a sharp granite. Its strikingly similar to the granodiorite rock that you would find in California's Sierra Nevada, except its rougher textured. In a vacuum, this rock would actually be easier to climb in some ways than somewhere like Yosemite which has a much smoother texture. The roughness of the rock makes it easier to smear our feet and press up steep sections. On the down side, the roughness is a lot harder on the skin and makes the climbing more painful. Also, the texture of the rock will not help us if its covered in ice.

A selfie at the base of the Brenner route above me. Photo is taken from the east col.

We are generally feeling good at this point, but the wind has started to pick up and the rock feels ice cold. It did not feel particularly inviting to take off my hiking boots, thick wool socks, and gloves to slip on my tight climbing shoes in preparation for the climb. Immediately I feel my feet and hands start to go numb.

We begin climbing around 6:30 AM. Tomás is the first to go. He will lead each pitch and then set up an anchor. He will then belay both Devinne and I to follow him up before starting the next one. Once Tomás reaches the top of the first pitch, Devinne starts climbing with me following about 10 feet behind. 

The first pitch is easy, albiet cold. Before we start climbing I elect to put my gloves back on. I am hoping I can leave my gloves on for a little while before we get to anything actually hard. We fly through this first pitch and our spirits are high. However, my body is cold, my hands are numb, and I cannot feel my toes.

2nd Pitch

The second pitch is supposed to be another cakewalk pitch. Another warmup before the steeper stuff. Almost immediately, however, I realize we might be in for some trouble. Right off of the deck, our guide Tomás struggles with a short 10 foot section. He placed not 1 but 2 cams for protection in the crack along the route, signifying that he actually needs some protection here. He did not fly through it as I would have expected.

Once he reaches the top, Dev is next to go. This section causes her some trouble as well. It takes her a few tries to get through it as well before advancing onto the next anchor.

It really does not make sense. This is a big juicy flake on subvertical terrain. It looks easy to just step on the textured and grippy rock to advance upwards. However, I soon find out why this thing was causing so much trouble: ice. There is a thin layer of ice coating the top of the ice where my foot needed to go. Instead of a simple lieback move, I had to do a weird motion with my left foot in the crack sort of and my right foot out wide. All that is to say, it is not graceful or fast. 

My gloves are now off. The climb has now really begun. By the time I get through the pitch my hands had thawed, but my feet are still numb. 

When I get to the top of the pitch, I can tell that Devinne is starting to get a bit stressed. We are up high now, the dropoff is scary (even though we are totally safe and tied in), and the terrain is only getting more difficult. Her stomach is also hurting and she needs to go to the bathroom, which is pretty inopportune given that we are hanging on a rock face. It is clear that we are pretty far out of her comfort zone. Heck, this is even getting scary for me. Alas, we pressed on.

Devinne and I finishing off the second pitch at 8:00 AM.

3rd Pitch

The 3rd pitch is slated to be the hardest of the day. It follows a 150-foot right diagonal crack on vertical terrain. It is a sustained 5.10c difficulty. The quality feels like a good solid Joshua Tree climb. Before we go, we see Tomás strap on his special crack gloves, a piece of gear that neither Devinne nor I have. They are helpful to protect the backs of your hands when you climb up a crack. On smooth or softer rock, you can get by without them. However on the sharp textured granite like this, things were bound to get uncomfortable.

Devinne is the first to go up the crack, and she is off to a slow start. The climbing is difficult; it is a 5.10c after all. Crack climbing is so much more different than climbing in a gym on plastic holds that it almost doesn't help at all. Even seasoned climbers have trouble when they are first learning to crack climb. 

Undeterred, Devinne presses on. She jams and kicks and fights, and occasionally pulls on the cams and gets yanked up a bit from Tomás's belay. For someone who has only crack climbed once in her life, she is doing a great job on tough terrain.

I let her get ahead by about 20 feet before I get started myself. I start out smooth jamming my hands and feet with pretty good technique. I feel great. This is the kind of climbing I had been dreaming about. The dreaminess ends after about 10 feet when the crack widens. Instead of being able to do perfect hand and foot jams, I now have to wedge part of my left arm and leg into the crack in order to get some purchase. Instead of this majestic and flowy climbing motion, it turns into more of a wrestling match with the rock where I am uncomfortably shimmying my way up the now off width crack. I am determined, however, to climb every move today, ideally without falling.

By the time we get up to the belay ledge my ankles are both gushing blood and I have at least 6 cuts on the outside of my hands. My body is sweating but my toes are still numb. My body starts to ache, but luckily the next pitch is supposed to be a bit easier from the terrain we were just on. It has just taken us about an hour and a half just to complete this pitch.

The 3rd Pitch crack: the crux of the climb.

Devinne and I polishing off the 3rd pitch. Photo taken at 9:30 AM.

4th and 5th Pitches

We take a beat before we start the 4th pitch. Devinne is finally able to go to the bathroom in a crazy way that only she can tell. We regroup and get ready to press on.

The 4th and 5th pitches were supposed to be a bit easier than the 3rd, but they turn out to still be pretty difficult, especially now with battered hands and feet.

The fourth starts out on what would normally be pretty easy climbing, but it is in the shade and is chock full of ice. This is another section that would normally be a walk in the park but we are now grunting and shimmying up.

Eventually the 4th pitch opens up to some solid crack climbing up a series of dihedrals. It even seems like Devinne is getting into her grove. The 5th pitch starts similarly with another long dihedral of perfect climbing.

I tell Devinne: "Hey just one more section and we are home free, last hard part"

This last hard part is not to be overlooked, though. It starts with a delicate traverse across a ledge the width of about my big toe. Then I have to pull up and over a slightly overhanging ledge using a pair of parallel finger cracks and a money, absolutely glorious juggy hold. However, the juggy hold is completely iced over and unusable. What would be a super fun gym V3, is becoming a tough grinder of a section. I fall multiple times trying to get through it, giving louder and louder grunts of frustration each time I can't get it. Tomás tries to help me up the section by giving me a bit of extra tension, but I refuse to be helped. I want to make it through under my own power. Finally, I plant my left foot on a blank and textured part of the wall. Then pushing off with that and pulling with my right hand in the finger crack, I desperately reach for the ledge and catch it.

Panting, I make it up to Devinne and Tomás. While still catching my breath, Devinne takes a look at her watch and sees that it is already almost 1 PM! We are already well past the time that we were supposed to summit.

6th and 7th Pitches

To expedite the last 2 pitches of the Brenner portion of the route, Tomás elects to simul climb it. This is a style of climbing mostly reserved for easy terrain where the leader and follower are climbing at the same time. The benefit is that you can move faster since you don't have to wait to get belayed up. The drawback is that if you slip, you could fall upwards of 20-30 feet and potentially get injured.

This terrain is akin to the first pitch that we did, but now with my exhausted body and mind it feels hard and terrifying. I don't think I am ever in any real danger of taking a big fall, but it sure feels like I could at any moment. Devinne and I move through this section slowly and carefully, which kind of negates any of the time that we should be saving by simul climbing. We reach the top of the 7th pitch around 1:45 PM.

At this point we have a decision to make. Do we keep going a couple more pitches, or start heading down. The weather is holding up pretty well, and with the help of the long austral summer day, we still have plenty of daylight. However, we are tired both physically and emotionally, and it is highly unlikely that we'd be able to summit. Most that we can probably get is 2 more pitches.

While normally I might be more inclined to get as far up as we possibly could safely, I am not reluctant when Devinne says that she is quite ready to head down. We have a quick bite to eat at that spot, and then began our descent.

Devinne, Tomás, and I at the top of the Brenner portion of the route.

The Rappel

Our descent begins with the most extreme rappeling that I have ever done. We decide to rappel down the Amy Couloir, the route I mentioned earlier that starts on the scary crevasse filled glacier Piedra Blanca. After a brief lesson on rappeling for Devinne who has never done it before, we begin to go down.

The Amy Couloir is like nothing I have ever seen. It is a 60 degree chimney about the width of my wingspan that is filled with snow, ice, and loose rocks. As I said earlier, it is typically the easiest way to get up Aguja Guillamet, but given that the snow is quite melty, it would have been too dangerous to go up. Too much rockfall and avalanche potential. However with the anchors that are pinned into the sides of the chimney in the rock, we are able to safely rappel down.

Devinne descending the 2nd of 4 rappels

Looking up at Devinne while I come down on the first rappel

The first 3 rappels feel a little bit scary at first, but are relatively uneventful. We try to be careful not to kick rocks or snow down, but that is nearly impossible. Some debris falls down but does not touch anyone.

Our 4th and final rappel almost seems unnecessary from our vantage point. The slope is now about 35 degrees and getting flatter. It really seems like we should be able to just walk down. Tomás mentions that we still need to rappel because there is a crevasse in the way. It must be pretty small because as far as I can tell, aside from a little bump along the way, there isn't much of anything between us and where the snow levels out.

The looks are deceiving from above, because as I come down over that little bump, I swing into what is a full on ice cavern. This is a no joke, legit crevasse that would be impossible to pass without ropes and gear. As I drop over the crevasse, I can see how cool it is on the inside. Giant icicles hang down like stalactites. The thing looks like it just keeps on going down a hundred feet like a deep sea cavern. After getting a little bit stuck trying to get out from inside of the crevasse, Tomás helps pull me out.

Coming over the crevasse on the last rappel. The Amy Couloir is up the obvious snow gully.

Inside the cavernous crevasse that we rappeled over

After regrouping, we begin to hike back to the east col across the Piedra Blanca glacier. We attach ourselves to ropes just in case we encounter any more crevasses, but alas, we are able to steer clear. We are back at the east col by 4:15 PM.

The Descent and Closing Thoughts

The rest of the descent is relatively uneventful. We scramble down to where we camped at Piedra Blanca and pack everything up. We have a snack and then head on down a little after 6. We reach the cars in the parking lot just after 10 PM. It has been a full 18 hour activity.

This adventure was as extreme as I have ever had. But what does that mean? I remember coming to that conclusion immediately after rappelling over the crevasse, but I couldn't immediately put a finger on why exactly. 

It wasn't the hardest or most physically taxing day I have ever had. However, it was a hard and physically taxing day that was also a step out of my comfort zone with the exposure and sustained difficulty in climbing. I can still viscerally remember how frozen my hands felt gripping the rock early in the day, how scary it felt trusting my feet on the friction of the rock when I couldn't feel my toes, and how amazing it was to complete each pitch and take in the view that was completely different at each pitch level.

Between the climbing, the environment, the snow field hiking and scrambling, and rappelling the couloir and crevasse for 18 hours straight: this experience truly worked me physically, mentally, and maybe spiritually. It was also absolutely gorgeous and a landscape like none I have ever seen. It was probably the coolest thing I have ever done and I will remember it clearly for the rest of my life. That, is what made it extreme.

To close, I wanted to give a couple shout outs.

I first have to give a shout to our guide Tomás Aguilo who took us up. What an incredible experience, and of course would not be possible without him.

I also have to give a huge shout out to my lovely wife Devinne, who was an absolute trouper and really excelled in territory that was well beyond what she had done previous to this. She is a rock star and I am so lucky to be married to her. While it is unlikely that we will do extreme activities like this all the time, I am so grateful to have someone like her to explore with.