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Tanja and Monika's Cerro Torre debrief: What it takes to climb with women - Part 2
Mar 8, 2005 14: 14 EST
Last week, the report of the first all-female ascent of Cerro Torre hit the news. Slovenian lady climbers Tanja Grmovsek and Monika Kambic-Mali completed the Compressor route on the impressive Patagonian Spire. Back at home, Tanja has taken the time to discuss the experience, which meant a great deal more to her than just the average climb…
“The snow on the left collapsed and I didn’t want to think that I might come here again. Oh, we were so high up! I knew we could make it, if… But we didn’t. Only the very top of the mountains counts in Patagonia.”
Today, part 2: A second chance
Andrej and Silvio celebrated their success on Cerro Torre and their new ‘Slovenian start.’ The girls had to give it another try.
The Powerbar fuel
“I really wanted to climb higher than the first time, all the way to the summit. My belief that we would make it to the summit kept me going. The weather forecast was good again. Unbelievable! We had to go and try! With only one full day of rest we moved to Noruegos again. This time we used new tactics: we would go even lighter, with bivouac bag, stove, four soups and four Powerbars. That should be enough to last from Noruegos to the summit and back.
Crowded route
We started on the Compressor route on February 7 at 3am from Norwegos bivouaq. There were already seven climbers ahead of us, all attempting the same route. The conditions on Torre glacier and the pitches to the Col were totally different from what we found the first time. A big serac collapsed that morning, making the lower part of the route even scarier. Most of the snow on the low angle pitches melted, requiring tricky rock and mixed climbing moves on smooth slabs. We spent seven hours climbing to the Col, three more than on our first try.
The crowd on the route didn’t make things easier for us at all. Sometimes we overtook other parties. Then they overtook us again, which wasn’t fun at all. We climbed the whole day, planning to make bivouac on the only ledge we recalled from our earlier attempt, above the first bolt ladder. But when we got there, a British team was already on “our” ledge. But they did finally give us some room to sit there with them. If we didn’t have enough problems, I poured two of our four soups over my backpack. We drank our last two soups like they were pure gold.
Things get tough at the Compressor
We continued climbing the next morning. By the afternoon we had reached the highest point of our last attempt. We continued on bolt ladders, with Monika leading. One pitch below the famous Maestri’s compressor, Monika shouted, “What’s happening?!” Then silence, nothing further. I waited and waited, growing got more and more scared that something serious had happened. But what?
The English team had made it to the compressor machine, which they found with many loose icicles hanging from it. Unintentionally, they had thrown down a large block of ice. The block fell on the head of one of the English men and cracked his helmet. As it continued to fall, it hit Monika’s shoulder. When I finally reached her, she was in tears, with pain in her eyes. Neil, from the English team, came down to help secure her. She could not move her right hand well – Later, in Chaltén, she’d learn she had three broken ribs.
The difference between very bad and extremely bad
Shit. Shit! What to do now? I looked up. We were only sixty meters from the top of the rock. Then I looked at Monika. I could not tell how she felt, very bad or extremely bad. So I started to encourage her, telling her it couldn’t be so bad, as she was still able to move her arm. Oh, no! We were so close to the summit again!
We were both so very hard-bitten. We decided to give it another try. With the help of painkillers Monika continued. She jumared with one hand on one of our half ropes that had been fixed in to the middle point by the English climbers, while I climbed right beside her last pitches to snow mushroom, tied up to the other half of the rope. In the middle of Bridwell pitch I could not reach the next hold, and didn’t want to fall on just one 8mm rope. So after a while, I grabbed our second hung rope and continued on it for a few meters.
When we arrived at the snow plateau, Monika was scared that she wouldn’t be able to climb to the real summit. The mushroom was not technically difficult though, and finally, at 9 p.m. on February 8, 2005, we stood on the summit of Cerro Torre. We hade made it!!! We were the first all-women team to climb this very hard and very amazing Patagonian summit.
Summit is just halfway point
The way back to life, abseiling through the night with injured Monika, was another epic story. We were all alone on the summit. Everyone had gone down already. The view was magnificent, but scary at the same time. Everything was so far down below. Monika told me later that she wished she could have BASE jumped from the top, so everything would had been over much faster. I knew that we would make it down with the same strength I had believed we would make it to the top.
Making it to the top is just half of the way though. I started to prepare everything for a long trip down. I was alone to do everything: to pull the ropes which were totally wet and, again, got stuck many, many times, to find the way, to get back the rope. Luckily, Monika was able to abseil by herself. It was hard for both of us. Monika was struggling with pain. We stopped on the ledge where we bivouac the night before just to rest a bit and continued rappelling in the morning. We did more than forty rappels from the top to the glacier Torre. We came to Noruegos in the evening, unbelievabley happy to stand on safe ground again!
Go Women!
Monika commented on our achievement on Cerro Torre: “This mountain is not for women. It’s a lot of hard work. I had enough this time.” I replied, “Go women! Try it!” And then we had a big party!
The weather was still good. So I went climbing with two young Slovenian climbers, Aljaz Tratnik and Rok Zalokar. In January 2005, they climbed along the Cassaroto route-North Pillar, 6b, A2, 1200m on Fitz Roy with Rok Sisernik. We repeated Buscaini (6a, 6c, 850m) on Ag. Saint Exupery (2558m) on the 17th of February in more bad Patagonian weather. But hey, this time we did it!
Slovenians Monika Kambic-Mali, Tanja Grmovsek, Silvo Karo and Andrej Grmovsek launched a climbing expedition to Patagonia on January, 2005. Monika and Tanja accomplished the first all-female ascent to Cerro Torre. Andrej and Silvio summited some days before from a new (lower and farther away) starting point.
The account has been written by Tanja Grmovsek, Marivor, Slovenia.
Images of Tanja and Monika’s climb, courtesy of Andrej and Tanja Grmovsek.
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