Silvia Vidal Went 33 Days Solo on Her Newest Big Wall
The new 1,200-metre A3+ 5.10 is in Patagonia and in order to climb the cracks that were full of vegetation, she used crampons and an ice axe.
Top big wall climber Silvia Vidal spent 33 days alone from Feb. 7 to March 10 climbing a new route up the west face of Cerro Chileno Grande in Patagonia, Chile. She called the 1,200-metre A3+ 5.10: Sincronia Magica. It took her 16 days to transport her gear through a forest and up a glacier to the base of the wall.
Vidal was fully isolated from the rest of the world for over amonth with no form of communication. Vidal has climbed new big wall routes, solo, around the world. She returned from her climb before the coronavirus lock down in South America.
She fixed the first 180 metres before her 33-day push. In her story on planetmountain.com, she said, “The wall is huge and vertical. There is circa 330m of vertical terrain, with much vegetation that prevented me from enjoying the climbing there, especially since I didn’t even know how to breach it. I graded it MT (Bush “Matojo” Traction) because in order to climb the vertical cracks that were full of vegetation I used crampons and an ice axe. Protection was very poor and runout.” Read the story here.
“Returning from an expedition where you have been alone and totally isolated requires time to acclimatize to ‘civilization,’ to manage to adapt to the changes. But this time on my return what has changed is the entire planet. The world has changed, and so have we.”