A new route on the wall "Serrania Avalancha" in Chilean Patagonia.

"The route’s name is "Espiadimonis" (dragonfly, in Catalan) and has a graduation A4/6b, 1300 meters climbed until where the wall lost its vertical and then 200 meters more of elevation to the summit (max. IV +), easier terrain with a stretch of snow.

After fixing the first 350 meters until first wall camp, I stayed 32 days on the wall alone, without descending (from 8th February to 10th March).
For abseiling (for the same route), it took 3 days.
Of the 32 days, 16 were spent in the portaledge without being able to climbing or maneuvering.

As for the activity itself, commenting that it is a wall that emerges from a lake, it had to be reach the wall with boat (inflatable). There is already a route in the wall ("Araucania"), but did not reach the summit, which was virgin.

The approach is valdivian forest, being necessary to open with a machete to go to find traces of "way". It takes about 8 hours, if you know where to go, crossing a pair of wild rivers.
I hired two climbers who helped me with the haulbags, we did 2 carries loading each 25 kg.
For the descent I did five 25 kg carries alone.

Apart from the numerical information I want to comment the experience from almost two months alone in the area.
It rained a lot, which is normal there. Heavy rains can last days, so that the wall was transformed into a kind of canyon river by falling waterfalls, making it impossible to climb or do any kind of maneuver, hence the 16 days (not consecutive) I spent in the hammock without doing anything.
When it rained it was impossible to rappel through some of the sections of the route, so I had frequent doubts whether the summit or the rappels could be possible.
As always I went without any means of communication, no telephone, no radio, no weather reports.

After climbing and once I started carrying the haulbags down (it took a week), I realized that I could not cross the rivers. Because the rivers we had crossed with water until the middle legs were completely impassable. I had to wait 4 days to cross it and I was really lucky that they were 3 consecutive days with no rain that came down the river level considerably.

There are plenty of situations and anecdotes to tell of the nearly two months I spent there, this is only in broad terms the data from that experience, where the climbing was the less important.

During the 3 days of abseiling I had lots of problems with stocked ropes, so I had to cut rope in a couple of occasions and there it is. I tried my best to recover them; repeat length, hang on it, nothing worked. I say this because for me that is rubbish that remains there.
Comment also that on the lake there are old remains of a hut and I found trash in it too. From the little that it has been frequented this area; I think these kind of things are what really matters."
 

Sílvia Vidal

www.vidalsilvia.com