3 SP´ers, Pedro Hauck, Steven Sheets and I, climbed Cerro Negro in one day from Pirca de Polacos in mid-January 2008. We expected a snow climb but ended up climbing around 1000 meters of ice ranging from shitty wet dirty black ice full of rocks to decent blue ice higher up. Rock fall was a significant hazard, with everyone having at least one rock pass within a meter. It is better to stay as far right as the climbing allows. Still a really really fun climb. The technical crux is usually the bergschrund, about 5 meters at 75-80 degrees, but just doing the 2000 meters is really a bigger challenge. Where the couloir narrows most, the ice gets mildly steep, probably around 60 degrees. The descent sucks. It is a long meandering ridgeline slog.
colint - Jan 30, 2008 7:17 am - Hasn't voted
conditions3 SP´ers, Pedro Hauck, Steven Sheets and I, climbed Cerro Negro in one day from Pirca de Polacos in mid-January 2008. We expected a snow climb but ended up climbing around 1000 meters of ice ranging from shitty wet dirty black ice full of rocks to decent blue ice higher up. Rock fall was a significant hazard, with everyone having at least one rock pass within a meter. It is better to stay as far right as the climbing allows. Still a really really fun climb. The technical crux is usually the bergschrund, about 5 meters at 75-80 degrees, but just doing the 2000 meters is really a bigger challenge. Where the couloir narrows most, the ice gets mildly steep, probably around 60 degrees. The descent sucks. It is a long meandering ridgeline slog.