Historic Exploitation: A Mountaineer Has Reached Fitz Roy Hill Without Security Elements

In recent months, mountaineering has gained unusual notoriety because of the success of the documentary Free Solo. Winner of this year's Oscar in its category, tells the story of the American Alexander Honnold climb the 900 meters of the "El Capitán" rock formation in the Yosemite Valley, USA, only by hands and feet.

A few days ago, another American made a feat that places him alongside Honnold in the Olympus of this extreme sport. And he realized it in Argentina. His name is Jim Reynolds and March 21st. managed to climb and descend a wall of 1500 meters Mount Fitz Roy (whose summit is 3,359 meters) called Afanbadieff. He did it without using any security element.

Reynolds, 25, hails from the state of California and has worked for four years in the search and rescue team at Yosemite National Park, home to the "captain" dominated by Honnold. Having participated in more than 70 rescues, Reynolds is more than aware of the consequences that a misstep can have..

The climber spent three months in El Chalten to get ready. As a practice, he climbed over other sections of the hill known as the Needles. Rafael Juárez (2,450 meters) and Saint-Exupéry (2,558 meters)although in this case he descended by different paths of his ascent. He also participated in the rescue of a Japanese man who crashed in February.

Reynolds intended to tour the second week of March, but decided to postpone her after a pinch of intuition will lead him to conclude that the moment was not the right one.

On the perfect day, Reynolds began his ascent. Although specialized media indicate that the level of technical difficulty of the Afanbadieff road is lower than "El Capitán", for example, They point out that their nature – snow and water – and their length place it at a considerable height.

In addition, he decided to go up and down with no more elements than mountaineering shoes, magnesium to counter the sweat of hands, a liter and a half of water and cereal bars.

Even though he was also carrying a rope and another element in case of contingency – as it could be an adverse climate – Reynolds he realized that he had forgotten the harness at the base.

For those who are internalized in the mountain world or who have seen Free Solo, the only notion – or even vision – of a similar path will probably provoke a feeling of vertigo not so light.

During his rise, Reynolds used magnesium for mark the very fine edges on the granite wall that should be worth the return with the hope of seeing them later.

Six hours and 38 minutes later, he reached the summit, but what for the most part would have been the accomplishment of a feat, Reynolds took it as a momentary halt. An hour and a half had already been prepared to go down because it did not have much sun.

The descent was even more difficult. With the granite of the wet wall, some of the magnesium brands had disappeared. And at dusk, he had to rely solely on the light generated by the lamp before his helmet.

From that moment on, he had to be even more methodical: he badumed that he would not see more than three edges at a time and continued, not knowing he was following the right path. In an interview with National GeographicReynolds said the last section was tempted to rappel. But finally, he decided that I had gone too far not to try at least to complete the tour.

When the stopwatch indicated that It was already 15 hours ago since the beginning, I had succeeded.

Thus, Reynolds has marked the history not only on Mount Fitz Roy, but also in the world of mountaineering in general. The only comparable antecedent had another American as protagonist, Dean Potter, who in 2002 also climbed unprotected a hill route called Supercbadeta.

But while Potter was rappelling, Reynolds made his descent with his hands, feet and a capacity of such magnitude that transcended by far a niche who, just a few months ago, was alien to many more people than today.

After the feat, Reynolds expressed on his Instagram account: "This is not done alone. My sincere thanks to everyone who has been on my journey recently and over the years.. A lot of love for the communities of El Chalten, Yosemite, Bishop and Trinity. "

And he concluded: "My art (as for many mountaineers) involves combination of our humanity with the splendor of nature in its purest form. It's like dancing through a painting. I do not think that climbing needs to be selfish. In my case, it's my way of filling my glbad with happiness until it overflows and reaches the rest of the world. It's absorbing the most possible optimism from the mountains and sharing it with people on the way home. So no matter what motivates you, I went out and did it! "