I recognised the fine spidery writing on the envelope before the stamp and Chamonix postmark. Andy Parkin is one of my few friends who still occasionally sends letters. In an age dominated by email it is always a lovely surprise when something hand-written drops through the letterbox. Inside was a letter and a small watercolour painting. Andy has given me several paintings over the years: ‘thank-yous’, I guess, for organising our expeditions. These evocative sketches and watercolours have developed into a unique and precious collection, mementoes of our time in the mountains and special places together. There was also a map. Looking at it I soon recalled the wind and rain, peaks and glaciers, southern beech forest, shoals of sardines and pods of dolphins that had accompanied our slow cruise along the Beagle Channel on Celia Bull’s yacht following our first successful outing to the Cordillera Darwin six years earlier.
Throughout that voyage, Andy had sat on deck, pen in hand, meticulously adding notes to the map. Gradually it evolved into a priceless document, detailing potential climbing objectives, features and hazards. Then one day in an ice-choked fjord a gust of wind plucked the map from Andy’s hand and dumped it in the water. Celia turned the boat around and I managed to scoop up the soggy paper with a landing net, however, the dousing and subsequent drying left their mark. It was difficult to make out the tantalising notes: ‘waterfalls’, ‘good pk snowy’, ‘face mixed’ and ‘looks good’. Soon we would be returning to Tierra del Fuego and while I had made two visits since our initial magical journey, this would be Andy’s first time back. The prospect was obviously exciting him. The map seemed both a fitting reminder of times past and a herald of adventure to come. One small map — so many stories.
Buenos Aires International Airport: the Yateses stood patiently in the queue for immigration. It was our first big outing abroad as a family since Lewis was born and he and Maisy had coped well with the long flight. Not that it had been without problems. Being just nine months old, Lewis had shared a seat with Jane, but the airline placed both Maisy and I in seats well apart for the 12-hour flight from Madrid. How a two-and-a-half year old was supposed to sit in a full plane, on her own and surrounded by strangers, for that length of time nobody would explain to us. Fortunately, a kind passenger offered to move and Maisy was able to sit next to her mother.
We had not been waiting long when an airport official approached us.
‘Come with me,’ she said, leading us into an empty aisle and straight to an immigration officer’s desk. We were soon on our way to collect our baggage, leaving the main queue behind. It was a very pleasant welcome and a courtesy that happily would be repeated many times during the following weeks. In Argentina, we soon learned, the elderly, disabled, pregnant women and families with young children have priority. For us it meant goodbye to queuing for the duration of our stay, and while I do not expect to be treated differently because of the children I cannot deny it was nice. What was even nicer was the response of ordinary people. Everywhere we went we were made to feel welcome and the children were fawned over. Such warmth is in stark contrast to the UK where the faces of proprietors and customers alike often drop the moment a family walks into a café, restaurant or pub. Sometimes I think it would be more helpful and honest if places simply put a sign in the door saying ‘children not welcome’.
We caught a taxi downtown and found a hotel in Congreso, an old district right in the heart of the city, surrounding the Congress building. It was the children’s first time in a big city. They were used to life in a rural hamlet where the background ‘noise’ amounts to little more than sheep, the mewing of buzzards and an occasional passing tractor. What would they make of Buenos Aires, a conurbation with around 13 million inhabitants? Wide, tree-lined boulevards led to massive plazas, some roads are six lanes wide in either direction and the roar of traffic is deafening. Baby Lewis seemed fairly oblivious to his new surroundings while Maisy was at turns excited, puzzled and amazed. She spent a long time staring at a family who were living rough on a plot of waste ground near the hotel; they looked to be eking a living collecting paper, cardboard and scrap.
‘What are those people doing daddy?’ she asked.
‘That’s where they live.’
‘Oh,’ she replied, obviously having a think about that.
The following day we went to La Boca, another old, but mostly working class district built by Italian immigrants, part of which had recently developed into a vibrant and colourful entertainment area. The district is also home to the famous football club — La Boca Juniors — a spawning ground for many leading Argentinian players over the years including Diego Maradona. Some of the many restaurants employ singers and dancers to attract customers. Lewis danced the tango with a very striking lady and Maisy was serenaded. It was all great fun. By now we had noticed that virtually every block had its own children’s play area. These oases for infants came to life once the sun had set and the stifling temperature dropped. It felt strange to be playing with the children in the centre of a city at eleven o’clock at night, but for Argentinians it was normal. Early next morning Jane left with Maisy and Lewis to visit Celia and Dylan at their home near Puerto Montt in Chile; they would join me later. Meanwhile I headed to the domestic airport and caught a flight to Ushuaia. For now, I had clients to tend to.
A year earlier while queuing at check-in to take a flight home from Buenos Aires, I had got talking with a man and his wife waiting in front of me. Rob Gearing was a likeable character and we connected immediately.
‘I might be interested in coming on one of your trips,’ he said at the end of our conversation. True to his word, he was now about to join me for an attempt on Monte Francés. Rob was also bringing his 11 year-old daughter, Ellen, together with his friend Noah le Mare and Noah’s son Jack. I had never taken children into remote mountains before; even though they would not be climbing, their participation presented a new challenge, one I welcomed but that also made me a little nervous. In recognition of this extra responsibility I bought a satellite phone. Obviously it could be helpful in any emergency, and it would also enable the children to talk with their families back home.
Ellen and Jack had a great time, my initial concerns soon turning to delight as I saw how much they were enjoying themselves. At our camp in the forest Noah kept them entertained with bush-craft lessons, woodland walks and nights sleeping around a fire in a nearby cave. The two youngsters brought a completely different dynamic to the trip, to such an extent that it almost seemed secondary when, with the other clients, Rob and I slipped away from camp for three days and climbed the mountain, while Noah stayed behind to look after the children.
Back in Ushuaia Jane had arrived with Maisy and Lewis and I began preparations for Andy’s arrival and the next phase of the trip. We had hoped to attempt Monte Francés’s unclimbed South Face, but I had looked carefully at the face while taking my group up the standard route — the South West Ridge — and seen that it was bare of the necessary snow and ice. Without that frozen mantle, climbing would be so dangerous as to be out of the question. We would need to find another objective.
There were other hitches. Mono was busy, and so I had to look for an alternative boat to take us to the mountains. With some difficulty I managed to find the Zephyrus, whose English owner Andy Whittaker kindly offered to help us out. This Andy was also a climber and was slowly making his way northwards through the channels and islands that stretch northwards up Chile’s west coast from Cape Horn to Puerto Montt. He had generously offered to take us into the Cordillera Darwin for free on the understanding that we would all climb together. When I first arrived in Ushuaia, Zephyrus was out of the water and Andy was carrying out repairs to the drive shaft and propeller. Thankfully when I next visited him the vital work had been completed and he expected the yacht would be back in the water by the time the other Andy arrived.
To my relief everything seemed to have finally fallen into place and there was still time for a weekend out of town on a family camping trip with our friends Luis and Carolina and their children Marco and Luca. It was a joy to relax after the organisational demands of the previous weeks — but perhaps premature.
The weekend over, I telephoned Andy to make some final arrangements before our departure on Zephyrus.
‘The gearbox has broken,’ he said despondently. ‘I won’t be able to take you.’
It was devastating news and I sighed as he went through the details. The boat was going to have to come out of the water again and the repairs would take days, possibly weeks depending on how quickly he could get the parts. Andy Parkin was due to arrive from Chamonix in less than a day and I had only a little over two weeks left before my flights home. Now our plans were in tatters.
‘I might have found you another boat,’ Andy W continued.
‘Yeah?’ I replied, clasping at the lifeline.
‘A Belgian guy called Marcel; if you come and see me in the morning I’ll introduce you.’
Marcel de Letter was a tall, powerfully built man in his mid-fifties with an agreeably straightforward manner. Terms for the charter of his yacht Iorana were quickly agreed and I dashed to the airport to meet Andy. We were to sail the following day. There was no sign of Andy at the arrivals gate; my climbing partner was not on his scheduled flight. Suddenly, all bets were off again. When Andy telephoned Luis and Carolina’s house later in the day and related how a delayed flight from London to Madrid had knocked on, I could only laugh. Having rearranged his flights he would be with us the following morning.
Luis kindly lent me his car to go to the airport; I was running late and arrived to find Andy sitting outside on one of his kit bags. He looked completely drained.
‘Good flight?’ I asked. He did at least manage a smile.
There was little time to relax. As we drove to the harbour I told Andy about my own problems and the lack of snow and ice on the South Face of Monte Francés.
‘I’d be keen to go back to Seno Pía,’ he said, untroubled by this turn of events.
‘Sounds good to me,’ I replied, remembering our previous visit. There was hardly a shortage of objectives in the Cordillera Darwin — only a handful of the peaks had been climbed after all — and we had Andy’s map.
It was a struggle getting our baggage to Marcel’s yacht. The rusting pier had been severed from the mainland by a road-widening project on the seafront and wobbly planks spanned the gap. Bags then had to be passed up on to a large abandoned motorboat that was riding high on the tide. Then they could be lowered down to Marcel on Iorana. The same process was repeated with the children.
‘I’ve been talking to Marcel,’ Jane said when I finally made it on to the boat. ‘He asked me if I was coming along with the children. What do you think?’
The question threw me for a moment. Jane and I had talked about this possibility before leaving home, but I had then shelved the idea, Zephyrus would have been too small to take us all anyway. However, as Marcel pointed out, Iorana most certainly could. In the swirl of the previous days events I had failed to notice.
‘I don’t see why not,’ I replied, coming to my senses at last.
The fine detail was hammered out in a matter of minutes. We agreed a price to cover Jane and the children and Marcel set about getting extra supplies. Jane and I would have to go back to Luis and Carolina’s to pick up things for the children, and so we decided to all meet back at the boat in two hours. Andy was relieved, at least now he had time to take stock, have a coffee and do some shopping. Together we made an unlikely crew: two childless bachelors in their fifties and a family with two young children. It promised to be an interesting journey.
The sail to Puerto Williams was a relaxing interlude but it was late in the day when we arrived in the harbour. We were in Chilean territory now and needed immigration clearance, but after visiting another boat the officers decided to knock-off for the day. Marcel was furious; he had hoped to steal a march on an approaching storm by leaving immediately and motoring through the night. It was not to be. The immigration officers did not come aboard until late next morning and it was lunchtime before we were able to depart. Back out in the Beagle Channel we soon ran into strong head-winds and were forced to take shelter in a small bay. Failure to leave the previous night would cost us dear.
On the fifth day out of Williams we woke to silence. The wind that had blighted our progress thus far had finally dropped. The morning was wet but still. We slipped anchor and motored west past the Chilean naval post at Point Yamana, and as usual a figure waved to us from the balcony. A little later we passed Isla del Diablo — Devil’s Island — guarding the entrance to the north-west fork of the Beagle Channel. Tantalising glimpses of snow and glaciers above the northern shore offered hints of the mountains above. The rain teemed from a leaden sky and danced on the flat calm sea.
Later, I recognised the line of rocks — a submerged moraine ridge — that marks the entrance to Seno Pía. Marcel carefully guided Iorana through a gap in the rocks and entered the fjord itself. After all the delay and difficulties I found it hard to believe where we were and nervously expected the wind to return, but it stayed eerily quiet. As we crept further along, the rock walls steepened, dropping straight into the water in places. Clumps of trees clung on improbably steep ground. The place was just as dramatic as I remembered. Ice appeared and became denser as we slowly approached the head of the fjord, where two huge glaciers spill down into the water. We got out Andy’s water-stained map and lit upon a ‘face mixed’ marked above the righthand glacier. There was a suitable place nearby for a drop-off. However the cloud was low, obscuring the mountains. We needed more visibility before committing ourselves.
‘We cannot stay here,’ Marcel declared, pointing to the ice cliffs. Whenever great blocks broke off into the water, huge waves rippled down the fjord. We called it a day and went back to a beautiful anchorage in a tiny bay below a waterfall six kilometres back down the fjord.
That evening I was standing on deck with Maisy when a pod of dolphins entered the bay. A smile radiated across her face as they bobbed past the yacht before returning to deeper water. It was a fitting surprise — I had already seen a whale early one morning while holding Lewis in my arms.
We had been carefully watching the air pressure throughout the bad weather. That evening it climbed above 1000mb — a very rare event in this place — but during the night it blew hard. The ensuing day of torrential rain made a joke out of the rising barometer.
A week had now passed. Up to now the trip had felt more like a boating holiday than a mountaineering expedition. We still had to find an objective, climb it and make the journey back. Time was tight. To add to our worries Marcel expressed concern about dropping us off near the head of the fjord. On a previous visit he had struggled to escape from our present anchorage due to the amount of ice in the water. If a lot of ice calved from the glaciers it might prove impossible to pick us up. As climbers, it was not a scenario Andy and I had even considered. We would simply have to trust our luck on this; and up to now luck had been a commodity in very short supply.
Next morning at least brought signs of hope. It was still, the rain had eased off and the cloud was slowly lifting. We slipped anchor and motored back to the drop-off. Nobody spoke. The atmospheric beauty of the place was overwhelming. At times I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rising.
Marcel grounded the yacht on a muddy stretch of the shoreline. Unloading our gear was easy. Marcel simply passed the bags off the bow of the boat and we waded them ashore. Jane brought the children on to the deck of Iorana and Andy and I stood on the beach with our gear and waved ‘goodbye’ as the boat left to wait at the anchorage.
‘I’ll see you in four days,’ I shouted at the departing yacht.
‘Call me when you need the pick-up,’ Marcel yelled back.
In a hurried frenzy we set up base camp in a small clearing in the forest next to a stream. Then we left for a reconnaissance. The glacier nearby was relatively easy to cross, however, the moraine on the far side did not extend above the icefall as we had hoped. We tried to go higher on the glacier but soon found ourselves weaving up through huge, unstable séracs. The cloud had lifted enough now to reveal some good-looking faces on the peaks above.
‘This is no good,’ Andy said eventually.
‘We could try the other side,’ I suggested. ‘I think we could get up that gully above the camp, which would bring us on to that shoulder above the icefall.’
We dashed back to camp and exchanged mountain boots for wellies. We would need them. There was bog in the lower section of forest, but it quickly gave way to steep, wooded slopes thick with undergrowth. Soon I could only make progress by swinging up through the branches and roots. I had never come across terrain like this, even in this densely forested part of the world. Then I realised why. There were no signs of guanaco. The inaccessibility of this place had kept out even these resourceful grazers. There were none of the faint trails I had become adept at following and in their absence the vegetation had grown unchecked.
Eventually I managed to force my way up to a steep gully. I had already left Andy well behind. The loose boulders in the streambed above provided a different challenge. Higher, a waterfall barred the way, the walls on either side coated in dripping moss. To continue this line of exploration I would have to climb the spout. Apprehensively, I took the plunge. On the steepest section a chockstone dislodged beneath my feet, leaving me hanging from a loose block by one hand. It was a relief when I pulled clear of the water, though there was still a series of mossy shelves to surmount before escaping the gully. The angle eased but pushing through the head-high beech as I neared the upper treeline was like wading through an uninterrupted hedge. Two hours after entering the gully I burst out into meadows covered in what I affectionately called cabbage daisies. The sun was shining, swallows were darting around feeding on insects floating above the flowers and the views down the fjord were stupendous. With time pressing, I tried to hurry across the meadows. The ground proved frustratingly awkward. The knee-high daisies poked through wet snow and the slope was steep. Snow slipped from the daisy leaves when trodden on and the stems broke off in my hands when I tried to use them for purchase. Staggering progress was regularly interrupted by barely controlled bum slides until I reached a shoulder and could look down on the glacier. The view was not encouraging. Although we could drop down on to the glacier it was still very broken and higher up there would be a further band of séracs to negotiate before reaching faces above. The approach was simply not safe and the lines on the faces looked bare of snow and ice.
I retraced my steps and met Andy just above the treeline. He looked drained and was dripping wet.
‘You cannot be fucking serious,’ he said angrily. ‘How are we going to get up here with rucksacks on?’ It was a fair point. They would snag on the vegetation and the extra weight might make climbing the gully near impossible. Slips and falls had made Andy’s time in the gully even worse than mine. I told him of my observations beyond the meadow and with the day drawing to a close we set off down.
The descent of the gully was unpleasant — a series of barely controlled falls — but mercifully fast. Soon we were back in our forest camp discussing options. Should we try and approach the face and force a way up it, or go for a more modest objective? We wandered down to the beach and took turns looking through binoculars at a peak at the head of the fjord.
‘I’m still keen to have a go at one of those faces,’ Andy said.
‘I understand that; but how do we get to them? Given enough time I’m sure we could find a way, but we’ve used up a day already.’
‘This peak up here looks like it will go,’ Andy said peering through the bino’s. ‘There’s a broken ridge above this lower buttress that leads up to a short face.’
‘And we can get across the glacier.’
‘Exactly.’
‘It’s got my vote.’
‘Let’s do it then.’
We might have decided on an objective but there were still potential obstacles — notably the forest covering the lower buttress. As we knew only too well, it hid unpleasant surprises.
A clear, cold night left a hoar frost on the grass and a skimming of ice on the fjord. The barometer remained absurdly high, but cloud was drifting in over the mountains. After a leisurely breakfast, we packed our rucksacks, re-crossed the glacier and headed directly up the hillside. Initially we followed a streambed until it became too steep and forced us into the forest. It was slow going but at least we had gained height without having to fight through the denser undergrowth found lower down. The forest soon became more broken, trees giving way to expanses of rough grass and cabbage daisies. Route finding was often difficult and Andy was struggling to drag his weaker left leg up such tricky ground, yet we continued to make progress. Occasionally the sun broke through the cloud and cast shafts of light on to the fjord now far below, highlighting reflections of the peaks above its dark, still water.
At about 1000 metres, rock slabs covered in deep snow formed a faint ramp line that we followed leftwards until the rocks gave way to the ice of a small glacier. Now I was able to move quickly for the first time in the day and soon reached a shoulder below a faint rocky ridge. I threw my rucksack into the snow and sat down on it to admire the views.
‘This will do,’ I shouted to Andy when he arrived. We chopped out a platform, put up the tent and began the laborious process of melting snow.
The ridge above ran up to another glacier split by a band of séracs. A ramp line led into a basin capped by further séracs below the summit. It all looked reasonable and the weather, although not perfect, seemed to be holding.
Marcel had lent me a walkie-talkie, so I called the boat. It felt strange to be talking with Jane from such a location, knowing she was just a few kilometres away. She had only accompanied me twice before on my own climbing trips — the trips to Tierra del Fuego and Pakistan I mentioned earlier — and then she had left us at base camp to get on with our climbing. In both cases I had not spoken to her again until the climbing had been concluded. Here we could speak whenever I wished, but I did not feel like I wanted to say much.
‘Are the kids having a good time?’ I asked.
‘Yes, we’ve been on the beach most of the day. We made a fire and cooked some sausages.’
‘We’re at the shoulder,’ I explained rather pointlessly, as Jane had no idea of exactly where we were. I could hear Maisy talking in the background. ‘We’ll try for the summit tomorrow. I’ll call before we leave.’
The radio allowed us to talk, but it remained difficult to communicate across the divide of circumstances. The yacht was physically near yet I still felt we were incredibly isolated. I went to sleep happy, confident of a good day ahead.
The alarm signalled the start of summit day and I heard Andy getting ready to light the stove. Yet again I found myself admiring his meticulous and tireless dedication to this crucial task. I sat up, slid towards the porch and opened the tent door.
‘You’re not going to believe it,’ I said excitedly. ‘It’s crystal clear.’
Andy poked his head outside.
‘Looks like we got lucky kid.’
The view was astonishing. There was not a breath of wind. In all my time in the Cordillera Darwin I had not seen a day like it. From our perch we were looking straight down Seno Pía to the Beagle Channel, Isla Gordon and even Isla Hoste at least 30 kilometres to the south. Both islands were covered in snow-capped peaks, offering limitless scope for new climbs and exploration for those with time, transport and an adventurous inclination.
We ate a leisurely breakfast, already savouring every moment of our special day. At nine-thirty I called Iorana and told Marcel that we were about to leave. He was astounded by our relaxed approach, but I assured him we knew what we were doing. We had already decided to leave the tent and go light, reckoning on return by nightfall. For once, we were so confident of the weather holding that we simply left everything inside the tent and set off.
Good, hard névé on a rocky rib led back to glaciated terrain where the rope came out as we crossed a series of snow bridges over deep, wide crevasses. We reached the sérac band and made for the most gentlyangled central section. It was a strange feature — a colossal block of ice that had slipped down the mountain, with either side massively undercut. Andy made short work of leading a pitch up the front on 50-degree ice. Following on, I was about halfway up when a ‘boom’ sounded as I drove in my axe and a vertical crack shot through the ice. I realised my blow had split the block in half and I suddenly had the irrational fear that one of the halves could slide down the slope.
‘Which side of the crack should I climb up?’ I yelled up to Andy, who did not seem to be sharing my concern. I tried again and he gestured to my right. Personal crisis over, I climbed on to join him and continued up the snow slope above. We moved together, and though the snow was very deep in places the outcome was never in doubt. With just day packs on our backs and the sun riding high we could enjoy the moment and the ever expanding views. I led through the upper sérac to the summit ridge and another peak appeared to the west. It was higher.
‘We should do that one as well,’ I said to Andy as he joined me on the top, and so we did.
The second peak proved more of a grind. At one point Andy was sinking so deep into the snow that he had to repeatedly pull his left leg out of the post-holes with his right arm.
‘I don’t think I can carry on with this much longer,’ he complained, but the ground improved and he cast the negative doubts aside.
‘It might not be the hardest mountain I’ve ever climbed,’ Andy said as we shook hands on the summit, ‘but it’s certainly one of the best.’
We savoured the views that had now opened out to the north and west, took endless photographs and pointed out potential future projects. It was remarkable to think that not a single person lived in all the territory we were now blessed with surveying.
As the shadows lengthened we made our way down, reaching the tent just before nightfall. By lunchtime the following day we had reached the glacier and I got on the radio to summon our pick-up. Later, as we ferried bags to the shore, we watched Iorana slowly advancing up the fjord through the ice. There was more high cloud today but it was still an idyllic scene. As the boat approached the shore we could make out figures on the deck.
‘Hello stinky bum,’ a child’s voice echoed around the fjord. We laughed at Maisy who was smiling and waving frantically from the back of the yacht. The magical silence of the previous days was broken and now a different life beckoned.
‘Which mountain did you climb?’ Jane asked when we were back on the boat.
‘Those two,’ I replied, pointing to the peaks directly above.
‘I told the children you were climbing that one.’
‘How did you know?’
‘I didn’t, but it was the only one we could see from the anchorage.’
Marcel had a bottle of sparkling wine chilling on ice collected from the fjord. It was a nice touch. He had also caught and cooked a centolla (king crab), which was sitting on the table in the cabin.
‘We’re going to name the mountains Iorana one and two,’ Andy told him.
‘What does it mean, anyway?’ I asked.
‘It’s Polynesian for “good day”.’
It seemed appropriate. It had been a good day.