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I just returned from six weeks of exploring and climbing in the Bahia Santa Lucia area of Lago O'Higgins. This remote corner of Chile has been rarely visited by mountaineers: the last known explorations were more than four years ago by the intrepid Italian pair, Gino Buscaini and Silvia Metzeltin. Many of the peaks in the area are unclimbed or have had at most one ascent.
Logo O'Higgins is one of the great lakes of southern Chile, its turquoise waters stretching more than 50 miles from the desert pampa of Argentina (where it is called Lago San Martin) into the high mountains and glaciers bordering the Campo de Hielo Sur (the Southern Patagonian Icecap). It branches and separates into four arms (brazos) that each twist between soaring mountain ranges and tumbling glaciers. At the end of Brazo Oeste, three great glacial valleys sweep down from the Icecap to converge on Bahia Santa Lucia separating four spectacular mountain massifs.
My mind is still filled with the beauty and scope of that landscape, of the fascination of frontier life, and the humbling power of the Patagonian weather, and I want to share it with a few willing souls. I'm planning a trip of exploration and trekking further into this area for the Patagonian summer (our winter) of 2005, see the Bahia Santa Lucia page for details.
During an attempt that Jim Donini and I made on the unclimbed Cerro Kruger we could see the summit of Cerro Fitzroy, the dominant mountain of Patagonia, some 40 miles to the south.
There's no doubt Fitzroy is one of the most sought after summits in the world, offering a challenge far greater than even Mount Everest, and, in my opinion, an equally greater reward. I'm offering two guided expeditions to this spectacular mountain in the coming seasons, See the Fitzroy page for details.
Happy exploring.
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| John Bragg continues to be one of the leading American climbers of the last 30 years with such notable accomplishments as the first ascent of Torre Egger in 1976 and the first American and Alpine-style ascent of Cerro Torre in 1977, both in Patagonia. In the 1970's John was one of the leaders of the freeclimbing revolution sweeping America. He recorded first free ascents in the 1970's of such rock climbs as: "Kansas City," "Gravity's Rainbow", "Yellow Wall" and "Enduroman" in the Shawangunks; "Mellow Yellow" and "Cinch Crack" in Eldorado Canyon; "Enema Crack" and "Orangutan Arch" in Yosemite. Many of these cutting edge climbs were among the first 5.12 routes in the U.S. John has also been one of the leading ice climbers in the country with first ascents of such ice routes as "Repentance," "The Fang," and "The Power of Positive Thinking." Today, re-kindling collaborations with Jim Donini and others, John continues exploration and climbing in Alaska, South America and the other great mountain ranges of the world. |
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