Climbing

01 / PATAGONIA

Through the narrow windows.

In January 2020, my partner Mike Finkowski and I were gifted three perfect weather windows in a three-week trip to the Chaltén Massif. Our first started the day before we arrived, leading to a manic unpacking, repacking, and marching into the Torre Valley to attempt the classic ice route Exocet on Cerro Standhardt. We had a fantastic run up the route, but Mike was stopped in the final ice chimney due to high temperatures and delaminating ice.

In the next window, we climbed the diminutive (by Patagonia standards) Aguja de l’S by the east face, and I was blessed with my first Patagonian summit and my first Patagonia last-pitch lead: a beautiful overhanging finger crack with a view thousands of feet down the soaring valley. We began our retreat just as the winds started in earnest, and off the summit I experienced the distinctly Patagonian phenomenon of watching the ends of my rope flutter 30 feet above my head while rappelling.

Finally, the crown jewel of the trip was hiking through a snowstorm to bivy at the base of Aguja Poincenot, and waking short hours later to summit via the Whillans–Cochrane, the route used for Poincenot’s first ascent in 1962. To be clear—‘There’s no cheating in climbing, only lying!’—we stopped 20 feet below the true summit as the wind had picked up to around 60 mph and the risk calculus to complete that final stretch of blank, unprotectable slab just didn’t pencil out.

02 / YOSEMITE

Life on the wall.

El Capitan rises roughly 3,000 feet above Yosemite Valley. I have climbed three of its major routes: the Salathé Wall, Lurking Fear, and The Nose—first over five stormy days, then again in 23 hours and 56 minutes.

The faster ascent was built on the slower one: systems practiced until they became dependable, decisions made while tired, and thousands of small actions completed without drama.

03 / ALPINE GRANITE

The pursuit of mastery.

The Red Dihedral on the Incredible Hulk; the Beckey–Chouinard on South Howser Tower; a first ascent on The Guardian in Colorado’s Grenadiers. Different terrain, seasons, and weather change the specific challenges like river grit polishing a stone. Each outing, the fundamentals remain the same: plan well, move deliberately, communicate clearly, stay cool, and allow no cascading failures.