Monte Shipton 2002

MONTE SHIPTON/MONTE DARWIN A reconnaissance in the Cordillera Darwin of Tierra del Fuego Jan/Feb 2002

In February 1962 my father, Eric Shipton, climbed all three parts of the highest peak of the Cordillera Darwin in Tierra del Fuego with three Chilean companions Cedomir Marangunic, Eduardo Garcia, and Francisco Vivanco. A full account of the expedition is given in the Alpine Journal November 1962 publication as well as in the last chapter of his book “Land of Tempest.” Not only was this the first ascent but also probably the first attempt to get near this peak guarded on all sides from the Beagle Channel to the fjords to the north by ice cap. To his day the Darwin Range, a chain of mountains nearly as long as the Alps, covered in ice and rearing up straight from the sea, remains remarkably untrammelled by climbers. The chief reason for this is its inaccessibility, mostly natural, but in part political. Access can only be made by sea in a region suffering atrocious weather conditions. The greater part of the range is on a peninsula in the Chilean half of Tierra del Fuego, and mutual suspicion with Argentina has prevented land crossing from the now populated Argentine half of the island.

At the time the highest peak of this formidable range, placed at 54 24 S 69 51 W, had no official name. The Instituto Geographico Militar of Chile 1:250,000 map printed in 1954, the only cartographical resource used by the team at the time, merely marks the elevation point at 2469m. More recently the peak has been marked with elevation 2470m on the ridge map published by the French Laboratoire de Glacologie in Grenoble , and 2662m on the Japanese map of the range which has contours delineating the three parts all climbed by my father and his team in 1962 and referred to by them as I, (2662m) II & III.

In honour of the fact that their peak, is the highest point of the range they decided to call it Monte Darwin. However by doing so he left cartographers with a problem. My father acknowledged in his report that another peak (IGM marked altitude 2438m) further south (54 46S 69 29W) was already called Monte Darwin. The Italian mountaineer Alberto de Agostini himself marks it as such on his maps, and the IGM map names this peak Co Darwin. The reason seems to be that for a long time it was assumed to be the highest peak in the range, and was far more prominent from the Beagle Channel the most frequently navigated water around the Cordillera. My father and his team were happy nevertheless to transfer the name to their peak, the higher by around 40m. Although this satisfied the team at the time it left the problem of what to name the original Monte Darwin, and the situation does not appear to have been officially resolved. The problem was particularly important to the New Zealand Tierra del Fuego expedition of 1970, which made the first ascent of that (Agostini’s) Monte Darwin. They neatly resolved the situation by continuing to call their peak as Monte Darwin whilst referring to my father’s Monte Darwin as Monte Shipton.

The situation at present remains confused. Maps which are of a large enough scale to show the various peaks of Cordillera Darwin, of which there are few, are divided. Some retain Agostini’s Co Darwin and leave Monte Shipton/Darwin un-named while others have made my father’s transfer and left the old Monte Darwin un-named (the Japanese), and others have adopted the 1970 New Zealanders naming, for example the Chilean 123 Entel series map “ Cabo Froward”. To me the New Zealand solution seems the best as it both distinguishes the two peaks clearly and honours my father’s first ascent and his many achievements in Patagonia

In January this year I set out to have a good look at the two mountains with three New Zealanders, Paddy Freaney, and Rochelle Rafferty who had both come with me on our Mt Burney venture last year, and Bill King a veteran of Himalayan mountaineering like Paddy. I was motivated of course to retread some of my father’s illustrious footsteps, but the Kiwis were keen to have a look at the ground of the 1970 expedition which has become something of a legend amongst their climbing compatriots. We planned to traverse the Cordillera Darwin from Admiralty Sound to the Beagle, whilst making attempts to climb either Monte Shipton or, if not, to have a go at Monte Darwin. We would hire a boat from Punta Arenas to take us across the Magellan Straits and land us in Bahia Parry off Admiralty Sound at the site of the 1970 New Zealander Base Camp and make our attempt via the Cuevas Glacier to get onto the ice cap. Having achieved what we could on the ice cap we would make our escape by traversing the Cordillera to Yendegaia, an estancia on the Beagle Channel that I had passed through two years ago, from where we could get boat transport back to Punta Arenas. This is the ferry that makes the long passage from Punta Arenas, winding through the Tierra del Fuegan Archipelago to the Chilean outpost of Puerto Williams on Isla Navarino.

Our plan was naively over ambitious in view of the time and resources at our disposal, and the country we intended to tackle. But the plan looked fine to us on paper, and we liked its shape, being entirely left to our own resources to get back to civilisation. My father had the luxury of the Chilean navy for free transport to the Cordillera across the Magellan straits and to get collected from there. My late and rather limited attempts to gain financial support had borne no fruit, so we could only afford our boat to take us there but not back. The other flaws in the plan, the need for both more time and an inflatable boat and outboard to explore different access points onto the ice cap would become apparent.

I managed to persuade Jorge Gonzales in Punta Arenas to take us across the Magellan Straits to the Admiralty Sound with his converted fishing boat. Jorge is the first of the Punta Arenas fishing fleet to convert from fishing to opening up the tourist potential of the last great wilderness of Southern Patagonia, more in Puerto Natales have already done so. When I called at his house in Punta Arenas I could see that he had reservations about abandoning us to our fate at the head of Bahia Parry, a place surrounded by ice and forest. However I convinced him of our skills and assured him we would survive, make it to the Beagle Channel and that I would call on him on our return. Paddy and Roche who had arrived via Easter Island were already ensconced in Punta Arenas when I arrived, and with the arrival of Bill from New Zealand, Jorge took us 50 km down the coast of Peninsula Brunswick to Puerto Bulnes, where he keeps his boat Cabo Tamar, run by his two sons, Jorge junior and Alisandro. We set out southwards down the uninhabited coast of Peninsula Brunswick, but soon got a taste of weather as we were met by strong South Westerly winds roaring up the Strait. Jorge took us into the perfect shelter of a beautiful forested bay with the unlikely Gallic name of Bougainville, all the names of islands, bays and straits around the Magellan Straits having the names of often forgotten English, Irish, Dutch , Spanish and French sailors. The next day we ventured out again but the winds were still strong so we crept back to our haven. We were anxious to get started, but Gonzales brothers plied us with fine food and wine, and Roche, who was suffering an aeroplane flu, was glad of a respite. We made a foray ashore finding the little used track that leads down to Cabo Froward, the most southerly point on the South American mainland.
In the small hours of the next day the wind abated enough to venture out, and by dawn we made it across the Straits and entered Canal Gabrielle. This is a long narrow strip of water no bigger than a river that separates Isla Dawson from the Gran Isla of Tierra del Fuego, with wild untouched country on either shore. High above us on Tierra del Fuego the ice cap began. By lunchtime we emerged from the narrow Canal and started down Seno del Almirantzago, Admiralty Sound, a huge bay that runs away to the south eastwards from the Straits. We passed the various fjords that cut into the peninsula of the Darwin range to our South. Looking up Broken Bay where my father had been landed forty years ago, Monte Shipton briefly emerged from cloud. In the afternoon we turned into Bahia Parry the last fjord. The hour steaming up the fjord were crucial as we got vital glimpses of the glaciers and mountains around us we hoped to explore. Slowing right down Jorge slipped Cabo Tamar over a sand bar and we entered the Cuevas arm of Bahia Parry. We were soon met by floating ice from the Cuevas glacier that prevented Cabo Tamar going any further, and Jorge dropped anchor by the eastern shore, which we soon identified as the 1970 New Zealand base camp. Immediately we could see how hamstrung we were going to be without an inflatable. A great impassable bluff divided the beach from the head of the Sound, a four hour struggle through forest by land, yet two minutes with a boat. We persuaded the Gonzales brothers to ferry us round the bluff though the floating ice. Here there was a beach with a large river fed by huge unnamed glaciers to the east. Alisandro landed us and all our gear and supplies for six weeks on the side nearest our goal, the ice cap. Jorge was eager to leave fearful of being trapped by weather, which could blow up at any moment, so with a few farewells Cabo Tamar steamed away.

We had engineered an exciting situation. We stood on a spectacular uninhabited shore, separated by sixty miles of the wildest country in the world, some of which has still not yet been fully explored, from the nearest habitation at Estancia Yendegaia, which we had now to reach by our own efforts. Southern Beech forest surrounded our side of the fjord. The water was covered with shifting patterns of ice blocks on which sea lions occasionally basked, joined by flocks of geese and duck. Every few minutes great chunks of ice crash into the water, resounding like canon fire, ejected from the snout of the Cuevas Glacier which tumbles down from the ice cap above. The upper reaches of the ice were shrouded in mist, and our path onto it guarded by thick forest. To the east we could see hints of the glaciers feeding the river, which rushed into the sea where we had landed. Somewhere in that direction was our escape route.

As this was to be our base camp we had brought plenty of supplies. Some had to be carried on the ice cap and some for our trek out to the Beagle. But we could afford to have plenty of luxuries here which wouldn’t have to be carried, such as tins of corned beef and lots of chocolate. Roche, who had been far more diligent at gaining some form of backing, had been given packs of fish lunches by the New Zealand company Back Country. We even had the odd litre of vino tinto to celebrate our arrival. At any rate we were determined not to be like last year on Mount Burney when we had gone a little bit hungry with lunches of three biscuits and a cubic inch of cheese.

Our first problem was to find a route through the forest surrounding our camp to the side of the Cuevas glacier. Finding a way through the primordial forest near the sea is always a feature of travel in these parts. Leaving Roche to carry on recuperating from her jet fever we set off along the shoreline littered with ice. At the end of the beach we started struggling through the Southern Beech forest. There are two dominant species of tree here, lower down the evergreen Nothofagus betuloides and higher up, the deciduous N. pumilio. The under storey is often packed with “Calafate”, the prickly Berberis buxifolia, which made the struggle often painful as well as hard work. The shoreline proved impossibly steep and we were forced to try climbing our way out. This soon became demoralising especially with the rain that had set in. As we struggled over an impossible tangle of branches and thorns covering treacherous little gullies, we had brief glimpses of the ground ahead which seemed to be more of the same in every direction. This depressing scene was mitigated by the spectacular of the ice-strewn fjord opening out beneath us as we climbed. I was just about to advocate plunging down and starting again with a different approach, when we came upon the lead we needed, a guanaco trail. Guanaco, the small ancestor of the llama, are ubiquitous in Southern Patagonia and live in the wildest corners of uninhabited country. Here they had forged a very obvious route from the coast to the open country above the tree line. Our depression turned to elation and we had soon cleared the forest and found ourselves in open moorland. The rain stopped and condors appeared, the huge birds wheeling overhead and gliding close enough or us to look into their eyes and study the intricacies of their wings.

It was strange little Alpine meadow we found ourselves in. Bordered by glaciers on two sides and on another by the massive slabs of rock and ice of a nameless 2135m peak which rose dizzyingly above us. About 5 km of rocky bog the alp is dominated by the heath Empetrum rubrum and great areas of cushion plants, such as Astelia pumila and the bizarre globes of Bolax caespitose. We climbed to a little tarn and got our first views of the country we had landed in. To the South our route onto the ice cap looked hopeful. A few hours of open ground would take us to the moraine of the Cuevas Glacier, which curved out of sight behind the 2135m peak To the east we could clearly survey our escape route. This was a col next to the peak the New Zealand 1970 team had climbed and named Nuevo Ano. The route up a glacier and a snow ramp to the col didn’t seem to present any major problems, which was comforting, although we had no idea of course what it would be like on the other side. The Kiwis had gone over it in 1970 but there was no way of knowing how the ice, which is receding fast here, had changed in 30 years. The glacier from the col fed into a much larger glacier, an impossible looking monster all crevasses, and no easy lateral moraine to travel on. This led the other way round our peak 2135m to country which, as far as I know remains unexplored, a muddle of unnamed mountains and ice feeding the great Stoppani and Vedova glaciers. I had thought it a great option have a look at this “blank on the map”, but finding a way up this great nameless glacier looked all but impossible. To the North we had the breathtaking view of down Bahia Parry, bright blue waters dotted with the ice from the Cuevas glacier below us. On the other side of the water were walls of rock capped with ice that led up to the mist which covered the higher reaches of the ice cap and the great peaks beyond.

The guanaco trail down to the shore was not always distinct and our job the next day was to make a trade route up through the forest to our plateau. We had brought a small hand saw with us to help clear a path, and the next day, while we carried our first loads Paddy, stripped for action, cut a path and marked it with strips of blue plastic bag. There were several points where we got lost, once cutting a route in a false direction, Paddy inadvertently started trampling a little stand of the orchid Codonorchis lessonii. Over the next few days we carried loads up through the forest. It took us a few days to get established at an advanced base camp perched by the lateral moraine of the Cuevas Glacier. Once or twice, as we ferried our supplies across the meadow, along the trail across we had marked with cairns, we spotted our benefactors, a little flock of guanaco making their strange whinnying alarm cries. The weather remained reasonable but the top of the ice cap was always obscured by cloud.

On 30th January we set off up the moraine to find a route onto the ice cap. Setting foot on the glacier we found ourselves in a maze of crevasses both hidden and exposed. A rampart of ice to the south looked dangerous so we attempted to work our way towards the head of the glacier. The crevasses became more and more convoluted as we climbed into mist. Finally the mist cleared just as we had crossed some rather perilous snow bridges and revealed an impossible maze above. We had to admit that our only chance lay in forging a route up the snow ramparts we had passed earlier. It did look full of objective danger but we reckoned we could work a route. We decided to make our attempt the next day. The weather was settled so Paddy and Roche set off at dawn to make the first steps. Bill and I set off an hour later. Emerging onto the glacier we expected to see the other two on the ramp, but were surprised to find them where we had left the cache of skis and sledges we had left the day before. Paddy had started up the ramp, paused for a few seconds, when a great block of ice the size of a car engine smashed passed missing him by a few feet. Paddy, who had had a thousand such near misses before in his career in the SAS and on numerous climbs, was as jovial as ever, unperturbed by this close shave with death. However it was immediately clear that our attempt to get onto the ice cap by the ramp was out of the question. If it was the route onto a peak, which need only be climbed once, that would be one thing, but this had to be a trade route where we had to carry at least three loads.

It was hard to admit defeat so early on in the expedition. However from what we had seen some of the country above us, crevassed and steep, and prone to long periods of white out, we realised that we needed much more time to get to grips with it. We also saw that some sort of water equipment is vital here. From our position it was impossible to the reach the other side the Cuevas glacier, and our only option on this side had proved impassable. Without a boat we couldn’t try other routes onto the ice cap from the other side of the fjord.
However we still had to make the traverse to the Beagle, and had to be there in three weeks for our appointment with the ferry. We felt it was probably just as well that we had plenty of time to make our traverse. Finding routes through forest and across ice takes time and effort and it was good not to have to do everything in a rush. To make a serious attempt at Monte Shipton, we would need to be collected from our base camp and left with an inflatable, in fact just as my father had been.
We spent another day at our advance base camp before carrying gear back to the fjord. We climbed a little way up the nameless mountain behind us. The mist cleared from the ice cap and we got our first views of the two great peaks to the east, our Monte Shipton and Monte Darwin.

Our next goal was finding a way over our escape pass. First Bill and I forded the glacial river next to our base camp. This was fairly manageable in the morning with the flow a little lower, but excruciating nonetheless. We explored a way over the bluff to the New Zealand 1970 base camp beach. According to them it was covered in orchids, poetic license on their part, I think, for the profusion of Primula magellenica or the white Pernyetta pumila we found. Wading naked across freezing torrents is best not done too many times so we opted for a longer route inland from our base camp, up to the nameless glacier. In the next few days working from our base camp we explored various routes through forest and up gullies up to the glacier leading to our col, carrying loads each time. As well as the ice, forest and scrub, beaver dams have become a major feature here, and all over this part of the Tierra del Fuegan archipelago. Beavers were introduced from Canada to be farmed in the Argentine and, having escaped, have become feral. They are an ecological disaster. Their dams flood great areas of valley floor killing the trees. They manage to gnaw through huge sections of timber and decimate the trees in this way as well. Their vast construction works, nearly on a scale with human devastation, make travel even more work. We then carried one load onto the col itself. From our views of the pass a snow ramp led to the top, and it was a simple enough climb apart from threatening blocks of ice tottering above, and a white out which didn’t help matters. Dumping our load on the col, we went back for a well-earned rest day with the floating seals and crashing ice at our base camp. On our last journey up to the col the sky cleared over the ice cap as we climbed up a steep gully. We got one final superb view of the great rising dome of Monte Shipton to the west.

The second ascent to the col was more difficult as the ramp had become hard ice, and then, just as we topped the steep section, one of the tottering blocks fell onto the track we had just made. Leaving a load with most of our food to be collected later, we moved on down the other side of the col, getting our first views of Bahia Blanca and the country beyond. We hoped the receding ice would not present too many problems for our descent. We found a gently sloping ice field which was pleasing, but near the end of the glacier the crevasses increased to become a maze, and we realised we were perched above an ice fall. Getting down looked near impossible, but after attempting rather hideous ice gullies Paddy and Bill found an extremely fortuitous scrambling route round the side of the ice. It was gratifying to have crossed our first hurdle. Looking around for a camp in the glacial rubble was problematic and it was only when I climbed a huge bank of moraine that I found an ideal eyrie. The moraine channelled a stream above us creating a tiny meadow. Here we spent two nights waiting for the weather to clear so that we could retrace our steps to the col to collect our food.

Leaving our eyrie we carried only single loads. There was plenty of moraine to struggle over before we eventually left the glacier for the forest and bog below which we suspected would be hard going. From above we had seen the maze of little beaver dam lakes. In fact travel wasn’t too bad. Faint guanaco trails led through the forest and keeping close to the bank of the river proved a good technique for avoiding tussocky bog and the red cushiony moss or turba, as well as most of the beaver dams. In a day we were well onto the plain of Bahia Blanca at a point where our river joins the large fast flowing glacial outflow of the great Vedova glacier.

Roche and I walked across to inspect this. We saw immediately that getting to the snout of the glacier on this side would mean hours of forest bashing with unknown difficulties beyond. Across the river was a clear flat plain. The river had to be crossed, and it was a daunting prospect as it was wide and fast flowing. We all inspected the river and decided the crossing point we would attempt in the morning when glacial rivers are always lower after the cold of a night. Just after dawn we packed hurriedly, naked except for boots. Linking arms we waded across. The water proved to be waist deep and manageable in a group, though agonizingly cold. We carried on tramping for an hour or so to shake the ice from our loins before making camp on the other side of the rocky plain. Having crossed the pass and the river, we rewarded ourselves with a day relaxing on the plain, while guanaco and Fuegian foxes that wandered past our camp. We explored the snout of the Vedova glacier which ends in a huge glacial lake with great walls either side. It would have been impossible to climb over it. Walking towards the sea I climbed a small hill and looked over the blue waters of Bahia Blanca fringed by a long beach.

Our way next led up a small valley to the South East behind Monte Vedova, a 2000m peak above the glacier. It was slow work moving through dense Nothofagus bush, negotiating an endless tangle of branches and rocky outcrops, and we spent a night in this forest. Here again the steep valley is infested with beavers, whose construction works made progress even more difficult, the dams flooding any flat spaces. The trees felled by the beavers were everywhere and made the tangle even worse. We cursed the idiots who introduced these creatures to Tierra del Fuego, and devised a host of schemes for eradicating them. At last, as we approached the head of the valley, the country opened out, and after plenty more bush and beaver dams we climbed out onto the watershed. Glaciers flowed down on both sides from the peaks above. To the South East of this pass the Lapataia River flows to Lago Roca, a freshwater lake half of which lies in Argentina, on the edge of the Beagle Channel. The weather was clear and the mountains on either side enticing, so we planned a day exploring. But during the night the temperature dropped suddenly and a blanket of heavy snow fell. By morning we were covered with two or three feet of the white stuff. A day later the snow had gone and we moved on down the valley. Thick tangles of Nothofagus antarctica had to be fought through, but crossing the Lapataia river, we started finding guanaco trails which made progress through the forest and low tree scrub much quicker. On the second day we started finding signs of feral cattle, the first indications therefore of human presence. The Estancia Yendegaia we were heading for was a cattle station set up more than a hundred years ago. Over the years cattle have escaped into the bush. Now the estancia has been taken over by an ecological foundation who are attempting to clear the cattle from the bush. That evening we arrived and camped at an outpost of the Estancia, Puesto Lata, a tin hut I had passed two years before on a walk across the Cordillera that had led east. That evening horsemen from the estancia turned up on their way to Lago Roca looking for cattle. One of the vaqueros was Jose who I had met on my last trip here and witnessed my riding skills when I managed to roll down a bank onto a Calafate bush with my horse on top of me.
The next day was actually sunny and hot and we spendt it by the tin hut. I climbed the ridge 1000m above us collecting some Primula magellenica seed on the way. The views were stunning up the Lapataia Valley we had just come down and the other way across Lago Roca and into Argentina. Most spectacular though was the view to the western ramparts of the Cordillera Darwin, Monte Bove first climbed by my father in 1963 and Roncagli climbed by Hillebrandt in 1990.

Our travails were not over. The boys from the estancia had mentioned that the river draining the Stoppani Glacier was high. The river with horses had been difficult enough, but crossing on foot with loads was going to be a problem. They passed us as we walked the Valle Traversal that connects Valle Lapataia with Valle Stoppani on their way back to the estancia, and Jose promised they would come and help us across the next day. We arrived on the shores of the river, which was wide and fast, twice as big as the Vedova river. Linking arms we made an attempt and were nearly swept away. We decided to wait for the horses and set up camp. Immediately we were attacked by swarms of mosquitoes, which must have arrived here with the introduction of horses and cattle, as there are none in the uninhabited country. In the morning the river was if anything a little higher, and it was hard to see how we could cross even with horses. In any case our friend Jose didn’t appear on the other shore. It was frustrating, as I recognised the little mound above the end of Yendegaia Bay on the BeagleChannel, the end of our journey, no more than two hours walk and wade away. Being impatient and not keen on spending another day in a tent hiding from mosquitoes, I decided to swim across and summon horses or perhaps a small boat from the estancia. Paddy furnished me with a dry bag for a few clothes, and selecting a crossing point further down stream, I set off across the icy torrent. I started flagging near the end and was beginning to feel I would swept away when I touched bottom on the other side.

Waving to the others I tramped the final miles, wading a second glacial river flowing from the glaciers around Monte Roncagli, and across the marshy plain of Yendegaia flats into the estancia. I was greeted by Ivette Martinez, who is managing the estancia, and her new partner Kiko, who were wondering whether we had survived. Jose’s failure to arrive was explained as the estancia was just then undergoing an official visit from the mayor of Puerto Williams.

With the river so high even crossing with horses was impossible but Kiko had a tiny inflatable raft, a dry suit and a pair of flippers. We rode back on horses and roused the others from the tents where they were hiding from the clouds of mosquitoes. With his gear Kiko swam across and ferried the others and our packs across. We had arrived at the Beagle and our march was over. Three days later the ferry called and we made the fabulous cruise west through the Beagle and round the western end of Tierra del Fuego back to Punta Arenas.

It had been a great trip even though we had signally failed to get near my father’s mountain. Once again I was powerfully struck by another of his achievements. At least we had a measure of what was needed to do further exploration in this wild and beautiful part of the world much of which still remains unexplored. Passing through Santiago on my way home, on an off chance I called the number I had for one my father’s great climbing partners Cedomir Marangunic. Cedomir and his friend Eduardo Garcia, who died recently in an accident on an Antarctic glacier, were with my father not only on Shipton/Darwin but also on the great traverse of the Southern Patagonia ice cap. Calling from a street phone box I was amazed to get through and went to meet him It was wonderful to hear from the horses mouth some of the background to these expeditions which I had failed to glean from my father when he was alive, how he inspired others, and how he allowed others to inspire him to achieve great things. Cedomir said about the naming of Shipton/Darwin merely that they were just happy call the great nameless mountain they had conquered Darwin, since it was the highest peak in the range. As to my concern that this left a problem of what to call the original Darwin he just smiled. His son in law Mario suggested that perhaps it should be Mrs Darwin. An interesting precedent I suppose, but I have put in my proposition to call their mountain Shipton, and whether anything comes of it I may find out one day. Cedomir also said that he frequently tried to persuade my father to climb in the Cordillera Darwin in the Southern winter. Although the days are short, the weather is usually stable and clear, without so much of the horrendous winds and mists of the summer, whilst the snow and ice conditions would be much better. This is food for thought for future attempts to explore and climb in this wonderful country.




John Shipton
July 2002