So without question even though the year is only a couple months old, one of the most badass things I will get to do in 2009 is stand atop one of the spiky summits of Argentine Patagonia. To make it even better it was a great birthday gift to myself (yup another year older). If you haven’t been following the Vertical Carnival blog check out the spiky summit I’m talking about below and click to read more about the approach into the mountains.

      Argentine Patagonia became pretty famous in the states when Yvon Chouinard drove the Pan American highway in his Econo-line van from California in 1968. Soon after the face of Fitz Roy, one of the peaks of Argentine Patagonia, became the logo of Chouinard’s new brand ‘Patagonia’. I call it Argentine Patagonia because the mountain range runs through Chile as well, and houses other spectacular places such as Torres del Paine. The little town of El Chalten is the last town at the foot of the mountains, and its where trekkers, climbers, and mountain peepers base themselves, and it was our home while we waited out the notorious storms that form when the cold air from the ice cap (on the other side of the range) meets the warmer air of the plains to the east.

This project was a collaboration of efforts between The North Face and Sender Films, who is producing a television series for National Geographic Television. My job was to shoot killer still images and video of our trio of athletes (Find them on facebook: Renan Ozturk, Cedar Wright, and Sean Leary) for use by The North Face and Nat Geo.

The approach to El Chalten involves flying into Buenos Aires and onto Calafate, in southern Argentina, then jumping a 3 hour bus to El Chalten. The crux is getting into basecamp in the mountains with all of your gear. The hike in is 8 uphill hours and includes tyrollean traverses over rivers, jumping crevasses that run through the middle of glaciers, and sliding over moraines that have massive blocks awaiting the slightest change in air speed to make them tumble.

We carried equipment and food for a week, add to that my camera equipment and the load was close to 75lbs… not exactly light. Still we made it in and on the last day, after a week of work and shooting (and with reports of a massive storm on the way) Cedar and I stayed a made a quick alpine ascent of Rafael… and did the march back down to town in the pouring rain. 

Definitely a summit to remember! Check back to hear about some the gear we brought up with us; also the crap I wish I left behind and the essentials I wouldn’t leave behind again. 

tk

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