Patagonia 2023: Matteo Della Bordella talks about his new journey into the mountains at the end of the world

Patagonia 2023: Matteo Della Bordella talks about his new journey into the mountains at the end of the world

Patagonia 2023: Matteo Della Bordella  - es

For Matteo Della Bordella, 2023 opened with a new expedition to the mountains of Patagonia.
These difficult and marvellous peaks, characterised by great walls of fiery red granite rising in the extreme south of the American continent and where technical climbing in the environment can be pushed to the highest level, have now become his second home. In fact, this is the twelfth time that Della Bordella has returned to Patagonia, to pursue the great dreams that have made him one of the greatest contemporary experts of these peaks, with ascents such as the first ascent of the unclimbed west face of Torre Egger (completed in 2013 together with his friends Matteo Bernasconi and Luca Schiera) or the recent first ascent in salpino style of the east face of Cerro Torre, where Matteo, roped together with David Bacci and Matteo De Zaiacomo, traced in the austral summer of 2022 the Brothers in Arms route, dedicated to the unfortunate Corrado Pesce, a very strong climber killed by an avalanche just after having reached the summit of the Torre with them. These are fickle mountains in Patagonia, where it is not enough to be good and prepared to succeed. Here, it is always the wind and the storms that have the last word. They come incessantly and violently from the Pacific Ocean, to the west, and decide the fate of every expedition. The infamous 'mal tiempo' is part of the myth and also part of the charm of this land, and the season that has just ended, in this respect, was worthy of the best Patagonian tradition. "This year I was able to dedicate a good three months to the expedition,” says Matteo, “but in the second half of my stay, the weather was constantly bad, and even in the first month and a half, the windows of good weather were always too small to be able to carry out the projects with which my companion Leonardo Gheza and I had set out. So, as experience has taught us, we had to adapt and improvise, accepting the opportunities that Patagonia made available to us and betting everything on speed.” The opportunity to 'warm up their engines' for Matteo and his partner came just a few days after their arrival, with a first short two-day window, of which they took advantage to open a new route on the east face of Aguja Mermoz (2732 m), in the Fitz Roy group. 


Matteo remembers: "Although it is a 'minor' peak compared to the gigantic Fitz Roy next to it, the Mermoz, especially on the east face, offers a beautiful wall of at least 500 metres in height difference, very vertical and furrowed by several crack systems. It was a goal I had been thinking about for some time, also because up to now there were only two other routes on the wall: the famous and beautiful Pilar Rojo and the one opened by Casimiro Ferrari in 1995. This seemed like the right opportunity to go and have a look!". The two Italian climbers were joined by the Belgian star climber Sean Villanueva and the three of them, after 12 hours of climbing, succeeded in opening their new route: a demanding and tiring crack ascent, completed in complete free climbing without bolts, with difficulties up to 7b. After a beautiful sunset on the summit, accompanied by the sound of the flute that Sean brings with him on every climb, the three began their descent by abseiling down the Pilar Rojo route, returning just in time for the arrival of the expected storm...

 

After this first 'warm-up' ascent, Della Bordella and Gheza were able to begin to focus on one of the goals they had set out with: the complete traverse of all the peaks of the Fitz Roy group, an endless ride of over 4000 metres of positive altitude difference on ever-increasing difficulties, which, to date, has only been completed twice: the first to make the traverse in a north-south direction were the Americans Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold in 2014. The author of the crossing in the opposite direction was Villanueva himself, in 2022, with a marvellous solo feat. "Once we returned from Mermoz, the forecast was for a new and wider window of good weather, although it was not clear how long it would last,” Matteo continues. “We knew that this could be our only chance, so after a few days' rest in El Chalten, we immediately set off again. Our forecast was to take at least five days to complete the crossing. The first difficulty was to balance the loads in our rucksacks, to have enough food and equipment without making us too heavy, given the difficulties we had to face. In this delicate phase of preparation, the support of Ferrino was once again very useful, as it provided us with its Blizzard model high-altitude single-pitch tent. A product that the Turin-based company has further improved and modified to meet our needs, making it even lighter. I also had the Instinct 45-litre rucksack with me, which I have already had the opportunity to appreciate: it is large enough to carry loads of multi-day climbs and, thanks to the removable strap, is also very comfortable while climbing.”

 

On January 16th, after reaching the Guillaumet Pass, Matteo and Leo started their great course with an unorthodox technique compared to the normal rules of roped progression, but which represents the only way to achieve such goals, as Matteo himself explains: "We decided to climb in continuity, always moving at the same time along the face, without ever setting up belay points. I was in front until the summit of Guillaumet, then Leo took the lead, until we reached the summit of Mermoz. It only took us six hours to get there. Conserving progression on such difficult terrain is a technique that requires great experience and maximum confidence in one's own abilities and in those of one's companion, but it is the only way to tackle such long climbs, where safety is also given by the speed with which one is able to progress". The first day's climbing continued for another five hours on the ridge line, up to the 'Bloque empotrado', the huge wedged boulder from which the Fitz Roy pillar is accessed. After the bivouac, Matteo and Leonardo set off from there to tackle one of the most challenging sections of the traverse, represented by the legendary route opened solo in 1979 by the great Renato Casarotto: "Here too, we started off on a conservative basis," Matteo recounts, "but after a few hundred metres we had to start climbing with rope pitches. The difficulties of this itinerary are decidedly greater than those stated in the guidebooks, and retracing it further increased my esteem and admiration for Casarotto, who in those years and alone was able to make a decidedly futuristic climb!" After a second bivouac on the summit of the Pillar, the two climbers finally reached the summit of Fitz, but there they were met by bad news over the radio: the window of good weather was already closing and a new disturbance was already upon them.


With so many other peaks still to be climbed (the complete traverse of the Fitz group also includes the ascent of Aguja Poincenot, Aguja Rafael Juarez, Aguja Saint-Exupery and Aguja De la S) Matteo and Leonardo preferred to interrupt their ascent, abseiling down the Franco-Argentine route. "After this attempt, Patagonia did not give us any more opportunities to try the traverse again,” Della Bordella concludes. “In the weeks that followed, the weather was almost constantly bad, although in a brief interval between disturbances I did manage to repeat the Rayo de luz route with Kico Cerdá, a beautiful itinerary on the west face of the Aguja Guillaumet, completely free-climbed.”
This new Patagonian trip has left Matteo with memories and food for thought that go beyond the purely mountaineering context: "The extremely reliable weather forecasts that we have available today allow us to make the most of even the short intervals of good weather and to move more safely, managing to avoid finding ourselves on the wall in the middle of the infamous Patagonian storms. Unfortunately, however, climate change exposes climbers to new dangers: in the twelve years since I have been frequenting Patagonia, I have seen the conditions of its glaciers and walls change radically, often making once-safe routes extremely risky. This season's high temperatures, for example, have transformed the descent from Fitz Roy, which I had climbed several times in previous years and which this time proved particularly dangerous and constantly exposed to falling rocks and ice. Unfortunately, even this powerful and wild land, seemingly far removed from the rest of the world and the problems that beset our daily lives, suffers from the impact of human activities on the planet's environmental balance. To directly experience this influence really makes an impression and forces reflection on the urgent need to do something to change our behaviour.