A mountaineering adventure on the Patagonia northern icefield brought four friends together to explore, share, and get challenged in a complex expedition in this remote part of the world.
In October 2023, Valería, Jorge, Pedro, and I departed on a multi-faceted adventure in Patagonia's Northern Ice Field. While the preparation of this journey started months ahead and included many hours of route and logistics planning, Patagonia stayed true to its nature. It provided many surprises, challenges, encounters, and hidden gems. The following tale shall relay some of them.
The Garden of Dreams
It is hard to recall how the seed was first planted for this project. Maybe on a NOLS course in the valley of Los Ñadis, where Jorge and I worked together? Or was it while Pedro and I climbed an unnamed tower near Cerro San Lorenzo?
The idea of going on an expedition on the Northern Ice Field intermingled many dreams and conversations between the four of us. Pedro had tried to access Cerro Pared Norte on a NOLS course. Valería and I had talked many times about the next steps to get Valería into the NOLS mountaineering program. Jorge had gone to the valley Colonía on a course years ago. I dreamt of discovering the Northern Ice Field and crossing it one day by kite. Pedro had ideas of contributing to glacier science by combining mountaineering with data collection in places where few get the opportunity to set foot. But most importantly, all of us were excited to go to the mountains together.
The Rothberg-Birdwhistell Exploration Fund of NOLS served as a catalyst, and fertile soil put the vision together, and the project was watered. From there on, the planning of the route, equipment, access, and logistics all grew organically among the team despite being split into three continents and spending most of our time in the field. As spring arrived in Patagonia, the project came to life. We all united in Coyhaique at the NOLS base and gathered the tools to bring the shoot onto the Campo de Hielo Norte (Northern Ice Field), where mountaineers plant their dreams.
El Arco Glacier, approaching and searching for an entrance into the Northern Icefield. Photo: Jorge Peña
Valle Colonía and Don Evarist
The first step of a journey on the Ice Field starts on the Carretera Austral. This remote gravel road that crosses the Chilean Patagonia from North to South is an adventure.
With a truck filled with six hundred pounds of equipment, we covered three hundred and fifty kilometers to reach the end of the road in the valley of Colonía. That is where we encountered Don Evaristo. Fewer and fewer Gauchos still live a traditional life in remote Patagonia, and Don Evaristo is one of them. Local customs entail stopping to introduce oneself when reaching these rarely visited lands. So we paused at Tres Limones camp and drank maté in Don Evaristo’s home until midnight, listening to his stories of chasing wild cows in the valley. Feeling honored to witness this disappearing culture, we took the time to help him with some camp chores the next day. This is how feeding sheep, collecting eggs, repairing a roof, and checking on the newborn lambs became part of our journey.
Celine Jaccard, Vale Vargas, and Jorge Peña preparing the gear for the first movement into the Colonia Valley. Photo: Pedro Binfa
The Windstorm, the Eggs, and Freddy
While Don Evaristo offered to let us stay at his camp for the rest of the month, the call of the mountains was strong, and so we started the long process of portaging. Each of us had two heavy loads to transport, which included three weeks of food and fuel, camping and mountaineering equipment, skis, and packrafts.
The first load was carried to the entrance of Lake Colonía, which we would later cross-paddling. At the lake, the winds blew at forty kilometers per hour, and the waves were too big to consider navigating. With a forecast of winds increasing to one hundred kilometers per hour in the next two days, we decided to take shelter for the night of the storm, away from falling trees and went to Cochrane, the closest town.
Stopping at Don Evaristo’s camp on the way to greet him, the sheltering mission became a new project, which included selling Don Evaristo’s eggs in the village and bringing back salt for his animals as well as Freddy, his companion. Among the many other stories of the valley we learned while driving Freddy to camp Tres Limones, we discovered that Freddy is an eager accordion player. And so, we made plans to celebrate the end of the journey with the Gauchos when we returned from the glacier. But first, there was still a long journey ahead.
Celine Jaccard, Pedro Binfa, and Vale Vargas crossing one of many streams on the approach to the mountains. Photo: Jorge Peña
The Crossing of the Lakes
The route we chose was a new access to the Northern Ice Field through the glacier Arco, which could only be accessed by waterway through two sections of Lake Colonía followed by Lake Arco, portaging the equipment on the land sections that connected them. An efficient tool to reach unexplored remote locations, paddling on long flat bodies of water with heavily loaded packrafts, skis on top of it, and some headwinds took its toll on our spirits. To be fair, with Jorge, Valería, and Pedro being avid paddlers, it was mostly me who expressed my urge to be done with the water and start climbing.
Thankfully, the sunny weather, floating icebergs, and first glances at Cerro Pared Norte were powerful sources of motivation. That section was completed in two days, which each individually felt like three days, starting and finishing in the dark, loading the boats, paddling, transiting to hiking mode, shuttling the two loads, transitioning back to the water, and so on.
Jorge Peña, Vale Vargas, and Celine Jaccard packing for one more day on the approach to Cerro Pared Norte. Photo: Pedro Binfa
The Glacier Arco
To reach Cerro Pared Norte, the climbing objective of the expedition, and the location of an interesting divide of the Northern Ice Field to collect snow samples, the Arco glacier seemed like an appealing option. While that choice was not the easiest, it offered fairly direct access to the peak and the possibility to explore a new entryway.
We were excited but also aware of the hard work and the possibility of being shut down. Maps and satellite images suggested a lot of steep terrain on the glacier and the surrounding slopes. Still, it also showed a few options that may (or may not) go, which was enough to trigger our curiosity.
The first part of the glacier was the moraine, which proved challenging, with unstable scree, talus, and boulders and a rockfall hazard coming from the bordering slopes. Arriving at the ice was a welcoming relief. Before entering glaciated terrain, Valería and I took time for mountaineering classes, discussions, and practice. An important goal of the project was to provide tools for Valería to continue gaining more experience in the mountains and be able to be a proactive member of the rope team.
The terrain delivered various conditions, requiring a wide range of skills. The toe of the Arco glacier was bare ice with some crevasses and moulins. It transitioned rapidly to the firn zone and eventually to a fully snow-covered glacier before reaching an icefall. We reached the heart of it before transitioning from skis into ice climbing mode. But rapidly, giant crevasses blocked our way, shutting down that path. Fortunately, we got a glimpse of a potential way through steep slopes of rocks and forest from the icefall.
Celine Jaccard navigating the Arco Glacier. Photo: Pedro Binfa
Climbing in the Woods, a Patagonian 5.10+
Since the start of the lake crossing, the weather has been great every day, pushing us to make the most of it and go from long days to longer days. As soon as we were denied access via the icefall, we started going up the side slope as an alternative, first on a steep boulder field and then reaching a strip of forest hanging between two rockfall couloirs. We brought our load up until the woods became so vertical and the strip so narrow and exposed that it required ropes.
The next day, with skis on our backpacks, we fought the branches and spiky bushes, installed fixed lines, and climbed up the forest. We finally reached the snow with great relief when the elevation gain was completed. However, a good section of dense bushes broken up by steep couloirs remained to be crossed to reach the Garden of Dreams. Each step of this section of the journey called upon resilience and the spirit of adventure to embrace the hard work it required. At sunset on the eleventh day of the expedition, Jorge and Pedro finally scouted an exit out of the forest and towards the Northern Ice Field.
Pedro Binfa Climbing the steep forest of Patagonia. Photo: Vale Vargas
Reaching the Promised Land, Patagonian Weather, and Difficult Decisions
The next day, another long day of hard work brought us to the entrance of the Northern Ice Field. The celebration of reaching this immense dream was also shared with a difficult decision. While the weather had been anything but the typical Patagonian spring storms with over a week straight of sun and calm to moderate winds, the window was nearing the end, and a storm was approaching. The exposition encountered on the Ice Field meant that we had to attempt climbing Cerro Pared Norte before the window closed and, therefore, double the travel speed in what would now be more difficult environmental conditions.
Valería was experiencing her first big exploratory mountaineering expedition. We did not spare her one bit and pushed continuously for long days to attempt to complete this ambitious, exploratory mission. At that moment, she recognized that doubling the workload would be difficult and remove the pleasure of the process. In a healthy group discussion, we prioritized everyone's well-being and enjoyment. We concluded that the best option would be for Valería and Jorge to rest before heading down toward more protected grounds before the storm, while Pedro and I would continue towards the summit and collect the snow samples. The decision was charged with emotions, caring for one another, and growing from being capable of making such decisions.
Pedro Binfa during the approach to our last campsite before the final summit push. Photo: Celine Jaccard
Cerro Pared Norte and Glaciology
What followed comforted us in our decision. The same day, as we reached the Ice Field and parted ways, Pedro and I continued towards Cerro Pared Norte and into increasing headwinds. With a couple of hours of daylight left when reaching the foot of the first icefall of the plateau, we decided to climb it before camping. The storm grew stronger as we made our way up the icy slope, and we reached its top by sunset in winds that were blowing snow so vigorously that we could barely see each other at the end of the rope. We set up camp behind a natural snow drift wall that offered minimal protection but a much-welcomed rest.
The next day offered better conditions, with slightly calmer winds and good visibility, which allowed us to reach the base of the Northern ridge, our path to the summit. The following day was spent in the clouds. The absence of visibility made a summit attempt impossible; however, it was an excellent day for science.
One of the objectives of this multidisciplinary project was to combine mountaineering with glaciology research, with the thought that the desire to climb beautiful mountains often leads expeditions to remote or unexplored territories that they want to value and preserve. Researchers often don’t have the means to get there, so very little is known about these gems of Mother Nature. This adventure aimed to narrow this gap by taking snow samples and geographical information that will contribute to a larger research project on water contamination and glaciology in Chile. With that goal completed, our conversations were focused on the weather, with some nervousness. The following day was the last opportunity to attempt the summit and get out of there before the big storm, but the forecast wasn’t so promising.
A little before dawn, Pedro and I peeked outside the tent and were excited to see the mountain illuminated by the stars. While the winds were strong, the visibility gave us the green light to attempt the climb. We gained the ridge and reached the summit moving efficiently, without needing to share many words in the gusting winds. The wind was so strong at the top that we couldn’t stand up, risking being blown off the cliff of the Northeast Face, but the views were nonetheless spectacular. The mission-driven mode continued on the way down, and we were back at the tent by noon. We took down our camp and escaped the Ice Field, chased by the storm. We reached the sheltered camp in the woods with the last light moments.
Cerro Pared Norte. Photo: Pedro Binfa
The Team Reunion
While grateful to have had the opportunity to be what we believe to be the second team to set foot on the top of that mountain, Pedro and I were also anxious to reunite with our companions and have the team feel whole again. On the second day of the descent, we found each other on the beach of Lake Arco and spent the night celebrating and sharing stories of the last few days. For the rest of the return route, we had a strong desire to take the time to enjoy life together in this beautiful part of the world. The matés in the morning lasted long, and the portages were interrupted by sunbathing breaks.
However, Patagonia kept us on our toes until the very end. As we took off for the last day of travel after a relaxing morning on the beach of Lake Colonía, we enjoyed paddling in perfectly still water. We looked forward to descending the river Colonía in our packrafts instead of portaging through the spiky bushes as we did on the way up. But the river was no piece of cake. The challenge wasn’t in the fun waves of the rapids but rather in the low water level with many exposed rocks, adding numerous portages and a few emergency boat repair patches to the adventure.
Behind each rapid or each shallow water section hid another one until well after dark. The Northern Ice Field cannot be accessed without hard work, which ensured we’d remember that. The expedition came full circle while dancing chamamé, a traditional dance of Patagonia, in the home of Don Evaristo, with Freddy playing the accordion.
The team reunited with Evaristo y Freddy. Photo: Pedro Binfa
A Sense of Accomplishment
The following days were part of a process of closure. Between the drive back to the NOLS base in Coyhaique, the additional rescue skills training practices, the equipment repair, maintenance, and clean-up, and a celebration hot tub, we dedicated time to transitioning out of this intense journey with grace.
The strong connection between each member and the rich energy that was felt despite the previous three weeks' hard physical work spoke of the expedition's success. We were all left with a sense of accomplishment of personal and common goals and pride for the intention and ethics that followed us throughout the expedition. While we might not recommend the glacier Arco as an easy access to the Northern Ice Field for future adventurers, we enjoyed every challenge that entailed exploring a new route, with gratitude for all the natural and cultural beauty that Patagonia offers.
Pedro Binfa and Celine Jaccard getting ready to climb some ice in search of an entrance into the Northern Icefield. Photo: Vale Vargas
The Rothberg-Birdwhistell Expedition Fund was established by the Rothberg-Birdwhistell family to support NOLS Instructors as they design and execute personal wilderness expeditions.
