Aguja Guillaumet in Patagonia receives its Wake Up by Alessandro Baù, Claudio Migliorini, Francesco Ratti

After having got their bearings in Patagonia repeating Pilar Rojo (Kurt Albert, Bernd Arnold, 1999) on the east face of Aguja Mermoz in mid-January, Italian alpinists Alessandro Baù, Claudio Migliorini and Francesco Ratti made good use of a short "ventana" on Tuesday 31 January to establish a new route on Aguja Guillaumet in the Fitz Roy massif.

The trio set off from Piedra Negra at 3:30am and returned to their tent 30 hours later, having forged a 425m line past difficulties up to 7a/A2 on the mountain's east face before descending down the west face.

In his preliminary report, Baù explained "Conditions were quite bad due to the snow that had fallen on Sunday night, but we decided to give it a try, aiming for the obvious crack system in the middle of the face. We struggled more than expected but finally managed to reach the south summit ridge in the dark. Having no bivouac material, we continued to descend slowly throughout the night. From fatigue, we slept at almost all belays. With the light, after 30 hours, we returned to Piedra Negra, tired but happy!"

Writing to planetmountain, they explained "It's a great line on a virgin pillar. We thought it would be easier, but instead it turned out harder than expected. And then the descent seemed eternal, not because it was really long, but simply because we were tired and descended slowly."

The route is called Wake Up, for obvious reasons, and is now Baù's second new route in Patagonia after the first ascent of Scrumble de Manzana on Cerro Piergiorgio with Giovanni Zaccaria in 2020.

Info: www.pataclimb.com