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Desmochada, West Face,
‚Puerta Blanca', 1300 meters, 5.10/A0
First Ascent at the 9th and 10th of February 2007, Mario Walder (Austria) and Alexander Huber (Germany).
At the 7th of February Mario Walder and I hiked in from Campo Bridwell to 'Niponino', the camp directly
below the walls of ‚El Mocho'. As the weather still was quite a bit unstable we decided to wait for another
day and only hiked to the begin of the route to check out how everything looks like.
On the morning of the 9th of February we started at 6am and hiked to the base of the West Face of 'Desmochada'.
This steep granite spire was first climbed by Jim Bridwell and was named after its characteristic summit: a
hundred meters long, fully horizontal knifedged ridge of monolithic granite.
‚Puerta Blanca' starts at the left end of the West Face of Desmochada and it follows the obvious ramp system
to the begin of the couloir, which seperates the ‚Silla' from ‚Desmochada'. Climbing up that snow and ice gully
will bring you to the ‚Puerta Blanca', the narrow col between ‚Silla' and ‚Desmochada'. The route then follows
the North Buttress directly to the summit of 'Desmochada'.
We climbed the first 300 meters of easy and low angle ramps to the start of the actual climbing, where we roped
up: a beautiful, grey pilier of best granite. After six pitches we gained again easy terrain and continued to
the big ramp. Seven wild pitches brought us to the couloir between 'Silla' and 'Desmochada'. The Coloir with
is 40 to 50 degree steep snow and iceslopes is anything but hard and finally we reached the 'Puerta Blanca',
where we spent the night.
On the next morning we climbed the 250 meters high buttress, which leads directly to the summit. First two
pitches of mixed climbing in iced up cracks, then four pitches of beautiful and pleasant climbing and at 12
am we reached the top of Desmochada. After many rappells we reached our tent on 'Niponino' at late afternoon
and made it back to Campo Bridwell at the next morning.
We made the first ascent of ‚Puerta Blanca' without any previous exploring, without any previous preparation -
fully alpine style from Camp to Camp.
Because of the snowfalls in the days just before our ascent some parts of the wall had been iced up and made
the climbing difficult. Due to the cold and icy conditions we didn´t fully repoint all of the pitches
(french free, difficulties up to 5.10).
Even though technically not really hard, the route is highly alpine, challenging and very long. Especially in
its lower part, the route is exposed to some objective dangers. Due to its ever changing terrain, the climbing
demands experience in how to approach such a complex wall logistically and tactically. To repeat the route,
we recommend to bring Cam 0 - 4, a full set of stoppers, 3 ice screws, crampons and piolets. Even though not
necessary, it might be sensible to bring a small set of pitons. Despite the rappell belays, there is no gear
on the entire route.
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