Mountain of Storms (Full Film) | A Legendary Road Trip | Patagonia

the mountain is an 11,000 foot pile of glacier and granite it's got sheer walls cliffs of ice wild wind and bitter cold it's called Fitzroy and their objective the summit [Music] 8,000 miles from the Sun and surf of California far away at the southern end of Argentina lies a wild land called Patagonia from California by car by boat on foot four men came to climb a mountain that had been climbed only twice before for men Yvonne Cunard internationally known climber [Music] Doug Tompkins climber skiers surfer dick door worth champion skier novice climber [Music] and a young English climber Chris Jones [Music] the mountain is an 11,000 foot pile of glacier and granite it's got sheer walls cliffs of ice wild wind and bitter cold it's called Fitzroy and their objective the summit [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] six months out of the year is launched in art is a blacksmith he makes mountain-climbing gear much of it by hand some of the best there is the other half of the year equines he's got an international reputation and it's growing the shops about to close because Yvonne and his friends Doug Tompkins and dick door worth have an appointment with a mountain called Fitzroy far as South in Argentina it'll take months in a second-hand van just getting there along the way there will be surfing and skiing well let's go [Music] always routine [Music] I remember [Music] now I'll be back someday the pan-american highway is strung like a necklace over the hemisphere Evon dick and Doug follow it through Mexico and they'll stay on it for thousands of miles till it Peters out in the jungle and then any way they can they'll get down to Chile where they'll pick up a young Englishman named Chris Jones he's down there on an expedition of his own and that's good because as it is there isn't room in the van to scratch your head and then on southward always [Music] once out of North America the cities and towns are as bright and loud as jungle birds Guatemala City where pineapples are a penny each San Salvador Managua Nicaragua San Jose in Costa Rica dig door Worth's only begun to climb this year he's listened to Doug Tompkins and Yvonne talk about the Argentine expedition that recently climbed Fitzroy and he's impatient to get on with it but South America demands patience down here the clocks don't run they walk south of Panama City the highway loses itself in jungle so for two weeks they kill time waiting for a boat to take the van across the Caribbean to Colombia where the road starts again a haircut can save trouble at South American borders and there are a lot of them to cross before they get to Fitzroy in the marketplace Doug Tompkins has his fortune told by a brightly coloured little bird who chooses a message just for him su familia pen cin is dead your family is thinking of you [Music] it's really pretty hard to say sometimes why you'd get in a truck and drive 18,000 miles to climb some mom you never really thought about the motives you never really sat down and analyzed just why you were gonna do that it probably did scare you [Music] from colon and Panama are the boat crosses to Cartagena in Colombia the highway picks up again and unwinds through Colombia and Ecuador and then down into Peru Doug and Yvonne keep an eye on the Pacific serv looking for a chance to unstrap the board's they've brought and F jicama in northern Peru they find it waves a mile long and smooth as glass Yvonne's a fine surfer dogs pretty good at it as he is that almost everything he tries dick door worth snow surfer but he wipes out with a good grace [Music] you were standing cut through notion 15 mouse seagulls call you begin realized just and small [Music] don't bother [Music] [Applause] Peruvian surfers they talk to sent them down to the little fishing village of Cerro Azul [Applause] across the bays seabirds watched as Doug and Yvonne decided to see what would happen if you went with the wave under that long pier maybe you'd come out the other side still standing up [Music] they'll sell their surfboards in Lima the money is getting low as the road gets long South America can be hard on a van that was showing her age when she left California ten or fifteen flat tires later and even after a complete engine overhaul she still needs some encouragement from Yvonne it's funny traveling down the length of the world the seasons turn around on you you start out in the summer and pretty soon you've gone in the back door into spray [Music] you North Americans the Peruvian said our gluttons for fun so they offered dick Duggan Ivana spine cracking 70 mile an hour ride on something that used to be a jeep out over the sand dunes boys passed on that but they did join them on the dunes to do a little skiing the Peruvians tried to show them how but dick door worth is an expert skier a champion and he started teaching them instead of just scooting down the dune try some of these link turns snow skiers have been doing them for years [Music] they tried them out but what they really liked best was just speeding straight down as fast as they could and dick could understand that because it was down here that he once set a world speed record on skis it was in Portillo Chile a team out to break the world speed record has prepared this slope of ice themselves on the team dick door worth after months of training he's ready for a ride of a few flashing seconds down the slope to the transition point where his speed will be measured the main thing to do is to keep your body very low and keep very far forward you know or like an egg and you must maintain balance it at all costs when you start at Portillo it's a commitment that there's no retreat from the mountain is 80% steepness so in 50 yards you're going to be going 80 or 90 miles an hour [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] that's it 106 miles an hour to set the record I haven't run for speed for quite a while now but because of it it has enhanced my pleasure skein I have much more fun skiing now then I ever had then then try this dick mount Yama and chilly a live volcano hits smooth lavas slopes neatly snowpack maybe the longest ski run in the world it's like five ski slopes one on top of another from the little Lodge at its base it's an 8-hour walk to the top yes a walk no lifts not even a rope tow this is skiing as it was in the beginning when you climbed as high as you could skied as far as you'd climbed and then went home Evon the climber the surfer the Mountaineer is a duffer on skis about as capable as dick door worth on a surfboard Dick's watched him fluff and fall but says Yvonne's a natural skier Yvonne's willing to scheme out Yamma but at his own pace near the top the sulfur fumes are thick the rocks are warm and the volcano is breathing quietly in its sleep Doug the wind was blowing hard from the north would blow the sulfur fumes away from us so he could get right to the very edge I mean right to the absolute edge and stick our skeet bowl right off into the end of the smoke of this steamy volcano I've never been that close before it's the slope that skiers go down endlessly in their dreams [Music] our green [Music] [Applause] [Music] and here comes Yvonne [Music] all the way down the mountain is just one fall after another and finally I just gave up trying to ski it and I just make it Traverse and then a kick a turn and make another tourist and I kept doing it over 5,000 feet [Music] it feels good to be up on a mountain the cold air in your lungs the snow under your feet there's another reason for the skiing though their summer softened bodies are toughening up for the snows of Fitzroy [Music] it's September spring in the chilean lake countries south of mount yama the skis have been sold and the last leg of the journey takes them past white mount Asano the further they go the less road there is to go on [Applause] here the Andes step up and out of Chile and down again into the Patagonian desert in Argentina the only way over the mountains is by hopscotching from Lake to Lake on little fairies there's been a change of plans though it looks like there will only be three against Fitzroy the young Englishman Chris Jones didn't show up at the meeting place and after a few days wait they decided to go on without him [Music] when I realized I wasn't going to make it and that I was going to miss my friends in Chile I said to myself if they think they're going to climb Fitzroy without me they've got another thought coming there's only one Road from the north across the Patagonian desert that takes you to Fitzroy so I decided to hitch a lift to a point I knew they'd have to pass and I was prepared to sit there all week if necessary waiting for them [Music] they were rather surprised to see me but it wasn't until I got in the van that I realized how lucky I'd been to catch them what if I had fallen asleep or it had been night or something and they'd simply driven straight past me then where would I have been not on my way to Fitzroy that's for sure it was in 1834 that a young English naturalist looked out on Patagonia with something like horror at its wild gorillas t he and the captain of His Majesty's ship Beagle found the South American ostrich the wild llaman horses left by the Spaniards and little else but wasteland [Music] the naturalist name was Charles Darwin the captain's name was Robert Fitzroy [Music] from 60 miles off you first see it blue with distance but harsh defiant as a clenched fist this is what you've come for and from here it doesn't look difficult to climb it looks impossible but first there's some 60 miles of Patagonia to cover the Rio de las vueltas the river of turns to cross and then the road gives up for good carrying all our gear in the van was easy but the van had to be left here pack horses are the only way to get to the mountain and then our own two legs so we thought very carefully about what we would really need the Argentine army lends a soldier along with the horses to get you to the camp at the base of the mountain as far as anyone can remember it was Doug who first said let's do it let's climb Fitzroy he's in its shadow now a happy man the weather in Patagonia is a strange and harsh as the land the horses and men enjoy bright Sun all morning but by afternoon it's raining and by evening the rains turned to snow [Music] this campsite was established by the French in 1952 and used again by the Argentine expedition some years later they hurry to set up some shelter wrestling bags and gear in the wet cold a little taste of what's to come but by the next day Patagonia has changed its mind the weather is fine again Doug and Yvonne will Scout the first part of the route comparing their charts with the reality while dick and Chris finish setting up camp [Music] despite the warm Sun they can feel a chill wind off the glacier up there Doug and Yvonne are striking the first blow against Fitzroy Fitzroy is 11 thousand two hundred eighty nine feet high not the highest mountain we could find but as every climber knows the challenge of the Patagonia mountains isn't necessarily height it's the technical climbing difficulties and the weather the charts and maps don't show the storms that brew just fifty miles away on the Pacific or the winds made down on the continental ice cap that comes screaming across Fitzroy's glacier Doug and Yvonne Scout their planned route and it looks possible if the wind and weather will let them take it by late afternoon they've surveyed as far as the place for a first camp on the mountain [Music] from base camp to camp one with equipment and supplies each of them carries an 80 pound load no one knows how much time that's ROI will demand of them so day after day they haul and carry like pack animals making kick steps up the steep snow fields sunburnt bone aching exhausted the mountains are peaceful when the morning comes in the way place where you can reach out and touch the sky and the wind is strong and the air [Music] is a place where you can reach out and touch the sky [Music] on Fitzroy tents are useless the wind would snatch them away like rags the only security is in a cave dug into the ice inside it's wet cramped dark and cold but it's quiet out of the wind and at night it's a lot cozier than anything you could find outside in fact camp 1 is positively luxurious a rock outcropping with a view where you can sit and dry your eyes so clothes in the Sun a visitor and andean condor soaring on its ten-foot wingspan you wonder if you're being filed for future reference in 1952 a frenchman Leonel Turay led the expedition that climbed fitzroy for the first time he was one of the most famous climbers of his day and he called Fitzroy his greatest achievement but the time is now and beyond these snow fields there will be the first real climbing the mountains in a good mood dazzling Sun calm air all day if this weather holds they could be on the summit within days the first vertical pitch Yvonne is in the lead the rope around his waist is belaid by the man below him who will hold him in case of a slip this is eed climbing where there are no hand or footholds and you ascend on ade slings foot straps that are a kind of movable ladder climbing is the kind of mathematics of danger each problem is an equation of rock and muscle and a wrong answer could mean a fall Avani searches without strain for solutions while the man delaying him waits watching every move the lead climbers life depends on the Pitons he hammers in the cracks the rope that will catch him if he falls is threaded through carabiners hung around the Pitons [Music] Alpine type climbing is a whole mountain full of different problems rock walls are one snow is another no Pitons here you drive the shaft of your ice axe into the snow and use it for balance while you may kick steps for traction you wear spikes on your boots called crampons if the snow is rotten it can give way under your weight after Yvonne is fixed to rope dick door worth the junior climber uses a mechanical ascender called a jumar to climb the rock face a gear allows the jumar to move up the rope but not down [Music] [Music] [Music] late afternoon and another camp has to be made camp too they tunneled down into a snow filled crevasse a natural hollow in the wall of the crevasse makes a fine cave when the loose snow is dug out of it only the snow in the crevasse keeps settling and opening a crack in their tunnel floor that has to be continually packed with more snow Fitzroy's mood is changing storm clouds are moving in fast the winds are mounting the temperature is dropping and by the next day you're buried in snow there will be no climbing today or tomorrow or the next day or the next day in here four men sit in the murky half light and look at each other and the floor keeps opening up outside the mountains wrapped in storm the winds at gale force and the temperatures way below freezing dick each day became the same day after day you can read so long and you can talk about things so long and you can think by yourself so long you learn your own rhythm of doing things [Music] [Applause] [Music] after days of being bottled up in the cave and a let up in the weather is an excuse to get out and at least look around to prove to yourself no movement is possible against 100 mile an hour winds Doug and Chris try to make it to a call where they can see if the storm is letting up [Music] no good not far from camp they're beaten by wind lined with snow frozen to the bone and within a few minutes they're back inside [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you lose track of the days one said it was 15 days they were nestled in the mountain and others at 18 another 20 is always Twilight inside and the only time that counts is Meal Time [Music] they drink soup that gets thinner and thinner and they tell tales the oldest escape of men trapped together Yvonne tells about California and being warm the ocean about girls and you listen between sleeping and waking it seems sometimes that you're dreaming of being trapped in a cave of ice in Patagonia and that all the time you're home [Music] to think about [Music] [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] when the food's finally gone they retreat from camp to [Applause] [Applause] if it had been any storm but a Patagonian storm Evon might have suggested going on with decline whether we climbers want to admit it or not 90% of the times that we retreat from storms we could have gone on and just climbed right on through most storms and the mountains are merely uncomfortable they they won't kill you but on Fitzroy these storms are a different story and you knew you had to get out of it after weeks of being caged denies even going down Zing's like progress in the face of the storm they rappel down the walls they climbed up foot by foot all the way back down to base camp [Applause] back in Basecamp the foul weather keeps up chill rain snow high winds for nearly a month there's nothing to do but scavenge and try to keep warm and kill time [Music] ivana eats out their supplies by learning to bake bread in the oven thoughtfully left behind by the french expedition so many years before [Music] and then suddenly one evening the clouds have shattered the sky is red and as every climber knows red sky at evening means fine weather in the morning [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] danger [Music] down here at the end of the world when good weather comes it comes from the south riding on winds from the Antarctic upon Fitzroy Day comes wrapped in clear inhuman cold cold that split stone the glacier moves an inch the wind screams nothing lives all the way back up to where camp who used to be doing it all again against an old enemy the wild wind [Music] [Music] [Applause] it took us over an hour to find camp two it's buried under at least 20 feet of new snow we had neglected to mark the entrance to our ice cave from here we can see tomorrow's climb we can plot an imaginary line of two thousand feet of frozen granite if the weather holds we'll see if that line can really take us to the summit 2:30 a.m. yvonne leads the first [ __ ] mountains have raised silent and ominous this early in the morning you have a lot of fear because fear of the dark for one thing and fear of sticking your neck out anyway early in the morning just snow brave man early in the morning the pre-dawn coal is intense but fingerless gloves are necessary bare fingertips can find a hold wear gloves would slip you try to rub some life into frozen fingers while you plan the next move [Music] 6 a.m. Evon the careful problem solver has exchanged lead with Doug the risk taker the charger [Music] their scouting led them to believe that by this time the climbing should be getting easier it's not above each crest they find new walls but the granite is good rough surfaced and cracked and they move fast for a rope of for Doug and Ivana the climbing team Chris Jones and dick door worth of the hauling team between the four of them even when the hand holes turn to finger holes and the foot holes become almost non-existent one way or another they keep going up [Music] 10:00 a.m. far back dick door worth struggles with the mountain on his own most of the climb I was the last man I was always hustling to get up to them so they'd have more ropes to use usually by the time I would get to the top of a rope the rest of the guys would have gone on and left another rope for me so very often I was just alone I'd get to the top of a pin I have to coil the rope I just jumar it up and get on the next rope and go up that a lot of times I would get behind everyone else and I would find myself alone on the side of fitzroy sometimes it started to get to me but i never dwelled on it i just got on my Dumars and Gemara up the rope got on the next rope and you Marta up that [Music] - p.m. the way is blocked by a series of towers the only way up the first tower is a difficult crack Doug is willing to let Eve on her first go at it [Music] Evon the graceful the climber who never seemed to show strain even at the most difficult points in the end fingers numb boots frozen hard as iron all his expertise depends on the strength of his arms and his legs and his will 3:00 p.m. there's an unknown number of pitches left to do and not much daylight left to do them in on this side of the mountain oncoming weather can't be seen before it hits and if it hits it'll hit hard Doug struggles up snow plastered rock while Yvonne delays him this close to the summit the wind cuts through the cracks and chimneys knife-edged and bitter gold a chimney is a crack wide enough to get into this one's fairly easy climbing for a while then toward the top it narrows sharply and it's Doug's turn to feel the squeeze [Music] [Applause] [Music] when a cracks wide enough for your hand but offers no lip to take hold of you Jam force your hand in make a fist and pull yourself up [Music] five pm at reversing pitch takes Yvonne around the corner of the last tower beyond him he can see the snow field that leads to the summit that snow field has to be reached before the light fails to be caught up here at night in the storm that could tell Matt any hour would be death 6 p.m. there are still an unknown number of pitches left to do as Doug takes over the lead again [Music] that's it off to the west they can see another storm gathering that means they've got more hours of climbing yet to do tonight to get down to camp - they ought to turn back right now and get as far as they can from this exposed place but they won't turn back till they've stood on the summit just for a moment just to taste their victory [Music] now [Music] no place to go always reaching hands [Music] I'll be back someday cuz my stone that's the way it's time to get up the freedom freedom it's another life that we share no one cares how we spend our days [Music] watching the road just a we ready don't I [Music]

Channel: Patagonia

Views: 514,435

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Id: YxM2cOvq6s8

Length: 52min 26sec (3146 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 02 2020