On December 3rd Jorge Ackerman and Colin Haley were the first to climb to the summit of Cerro Standhart via its south face. Their 500m route, El Caracol 5.9 A1+ AI3 M4, was completed in a single twenty-five hour push from the hut.

Jorge leading the first pitch above the Standhardt Col ©Colin Haley

In February 1977 Britons Brian Hall and John Whittle made the first attempt to climb Standhart via a chimney to the right of what would become Exocet eleven years later. After a large fall they turned back and turned their attention to the south face several weeks later. They made it within twenty metres of the summit, but were shunned by the summit mushroom and forced to descend. Variations on the same line were attempted by numerous strong parties over the following decades but none were able to summit.

Jorge starting up the first pitch on the south face, mixed climbing up and left, with the summits of Cerro Torre and Torre Egger in the background ©Colin Haley

Colin Haley arrived in Patagonia at the start of November and had a productive few weeks when he teamed up with local Jorge Ackerman to climb Torre Egger by the O’Neil-Martin route. After a route finding mistake and finding some pitches usually climbed in rock shoes requiring crampons, they retreated back to the Niponino bivy. After a day’s rest, a weather window encouraged the pair up to the Norwegos bivy to attempt another route from Tim O’Neil and Nathan Martin, Festerville, which takes the north ridge of Cerro Standhart. They awoke to strong winds and decided against the exposed route and chose to attempt the unfinished British route.

Jorge on the summit of Cerro Standhardt ©Colin Haley

All went well until a large snow shelf on the south face, where a couple of route finding mistakes and subsequent pendulums cost the team valuable time. After finding the summit mushroom unproblematic, they arrived on top at 9pm having climbed the last few pitches in their belay jackets. This allowed them to traverse the ridge to make the relatively straight-forward descent down Exocet. El Caracol, the snail, refers to the lack of speed on some of the pitches and the less than straight nature of the route they chose.

Sources
Colin Haley - Cerro Standhart, El Caracol
PATAclimb - British Attempt