Accident in Patagonia

Mountains are big and humans are small. We walk among the giants, and speak of conquest, of overcoming, of heroic deeds. But in the end, we are merely tolerated, and the slightest geological hiccup is our undoing. All climbers know this. It sounds as if Carlyle was where she wanted to be, doing what she wanted to do, as we all have been. R.I.P.

Recently there has been a whole bunch of good weather here (too much, in fact - and the mountains are falling apart, with huge amounts of spontaneous rockfall), although for me it has been mostly unproductive in terms of climbing. There was a tragic and fatal accident on Aguja St. Exupery, in which Canadian climber, Carlyle Norman, was killed. During the only recent stormy weather, I went with Rolando Garibotti, Jorge Ackerman and Pep Masip in an attempted rescue mission. Climbing in high winds, at night, while raining and snowing, we weren't able to reach Carlyle's position high on the tower. We'll never know whether or not Carlyle was still alive while we were trying to reach her.

The physical exertion from our rescue mission, combined with the psychological strain of knowing a fellow climber had just died, took the wind out of our sails, and we passed a couple days of perfect weather in town.