Colin Haley pauses for a self-portrait at the top of the ice chimney on Exocet (5.9 WI5, 500m), Cerro Standhart, Argentine Patagonia. On November 27, Haley soloed the climb in 12 hours. [Photo] Colin Haley
Colin Haley made the first solo ascent of Cerro Standhart in the Fitz Roy Massif of Argentine Patagonia. On November 27, Haley rope- and free-soloed the 500m tower via Exocet (5.9 WI5).
By 4 a.m. on November 27, Haley arrived at the Standhardt-Bifida Col and the base of Exocet. He self-belayed the slabby first pitch and soloed across the large ramp system that bisects Standhardt’s east face. The ramps led him to the crux of the climb: a vertical and largely blank granite wall split by an ice-choked chimney for four pitches (WI4, WI5, WI5, WI4). Hailey carefully free-soloed Pitches 1, 2 and 4, hauling his gear up behind him.
“I climbed quite slowly, making sure that every tool placement was absolutely bomber,” Haley wrote in his blog.
After exiting the chimney, he continued through another slabby mixed pitch and up to the AI3 summit mushroom. He topped out 12 hours after beginning the climb and used the last of his weather window to descend back to his tent at the Niponino bivy below Cerro Standhart.
Haley’s was the first known solo ascent of Cerro Standhardt. In 1994, Tommy Bonapace was forced off his solo attempt of Exocet at the top of the ice chimney in a bad storm.
Route line showing Exocet (5.9 WI5, 500m), Cerro Standhart, Argentine Patagonia. [Photo] Colin Haley