Slovenians Climb New 5.12 A3 Up Saint Exupéry in Patagonia

Slovenian alpinists Luka Lindic and Luka Krajnc climbed a new 700-metre 5.12/7a+ A3 up Aguja Saint Exupéry in Patagonia from Feb. 20 to 22. They called their new route Mir, which is Peace in English.

They started up Petit Prince then moved away into a splitter crack system through overhangs and the crux. They climbed 15 new pitches away from Petit Prince and bivied on pitch nine and 16. For gear, they brought a double set of cams to #4, one each to #6, two sets of TCUs, stoppers, RPs, five peckers, three angles, seven lost arrows, three knifeblades and two hooks. They only placed one bolt.

Due to the steepness of the face, it would’ve been too difficult to rappel their route, so from the summit they descended the Italiana. As Rolando Garibotti pointed on in his Instagram post, Mir was first attempted in 1998 by Marcelo Galghera and Horacio Gratton.

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„Mir“ (eng = peace) is the new route we climbed some days ago with Luka Krajnc. I think we can be proud of it’s line and that we sticked to trying it again even though we could go home without a single climb done if it would not work out. Its been 6 years (shit time flies!) since our last big climb together (we did the first free ascent of Rolling Stones on the north face of Grandes Jorasses). It was great to team up again and see that we still function great if not even better as a team. I am sure there are not so many parties out there, where partners started climbing together and keep it alive for so long. It’s been 16 years since we started the „alpine school“ in Celje, Slovenia. Something else we can be very proud of. Our friendship! Thank you @rolo_garibotti and @thomas_huberbuam for all the gear we didn’t have to climb this great route!!! #arcteryx #lyofood #climbing #patagonia #elchalten #firstascent #razmerevgorah #alpinism #mountians #friends

A post shared by Luka Lindič (@lindicluka) on Feb 28, 2020 at 6:54am PST