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Marc-Andre Leclerc Attempts Torre Egger Solo in Winter

On Sept. 12, Canadian crusher Marc-Andre Leclerc attempted to solo Torre Egger in winter conditions. According to Rolando Gariboti’s Patagonia Vertical, “Climbing via the lengthy east face, following the ‘winter link-up’ into Titanic line, he reached a point 200 metres below the summit. On the first day bad conditions slowed him down significantly. He found snow covered rock and little ice, so he only made it to the top of the hanging glacier and slept there.

“On day two he moved well and he made it to the base of the ice chimney at the end of the headwall by nightfall. As he did not want to navigate the last section and mushroom onsight in the dark, he spent a second night, hoping to tag the summit the next morning. At 5 a.m. it began to snow quite hard so he was forced to descend. He rappelled in heavy spin drift, sometimes in the complete white out, but made it down safely. A very impressive effort to put it mildly.”

In 2016, Leclerc has soloed some of the Canadian Rockies most bold alpine and ice routes. He climbed new big wall lines on Baffin Island and sent the Muir Wall via the Shaft Variation at 5.13c on El Cap. In B.C., he made the first ascent of the Chinese Puzzle Wall with Brette Harrington.

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