Location: South 24.20816, West 64.51579 (GPS on the summit)
Climbed: February 16, 2022.
Information:
How to get there:
The city of Salta is a good starting point. This city has good connections by
air to Buenos Aires. From Salta, start driving east on the big Hwy. 9. Next, drive more
north-east and locaate the local (dirt) road number 6 that serves the small town El Fuerte.
Continue past El Fuerte and drive across 2 cattle guards (they are quite some distance apart).
Locate S24.15688, W64.39737, elevation about 1150 meter, where a road turns left.
The place is sort of a base camp for
lumber activity that take place higher up.
The forest road that starts here, climbs almost 1000 meter before ending. You need
a pretty robust 4WD with high
clearance to drive this road. The conditions may change with
weather, in particular, one should be cautious if the forecast is rain.
The road passes through a very narrow canyon,
then climbs to the area where there is activity
logging quite tall and slender trees. After some rough uphills, the road quality improves.
Unfortunately, 2 trees had fallen across the road (2022), a chain saw would be needed to clear it.
Thus, we parked at location S24.15785, W64.46991, elevation about 1860 meter.
Route::
First, continue up the road. Higher up, turn left where the road forks.
The road ends near locatin S24.14713, W64.47868, elevation about 2120 meter.
Continue uphill while keeping left when possible, while also making best possible
use of small segments of trails that exist in several locations. Still, a significant
amount of bushwack cannot be avoided.
Continue uphill until you reach the main crest. Here, you will locate trails that may
be followed (left) along the crest. Later, this trail descends a bit (climbers left)
of the main ridge, thus avoiding some minor humps.
Further along, you will hit a fence that must be crossed (twice), attempt to stay on the bigger
trails, mostly left of the crest. Finally, you will see the highest area ahead. There is now
a near vertical cliff on your right. What appears to be the summit turns out to be marginally
lower than the highest point, located beyond a small separating col.
Comments:
Here is a quick overview of the peaks climbed on this trip in Argentina.
We camped on the road where it was blöcked. The drive up to this point was quite
challenging. Franco, our driver did a good job and we assisted him with suggestions.
The final obstacle, a big tree that had
fallen across the road, made us stop and
establish camp.
The next morning, we started at 0645. A pretty long hike with several challenges,
bushwack and many places where various trails needed careful considerations.
After many hours, we finally got the summit into view.
It turned out to be a false
summit, but very close and certainly what we would call a competing summit point.
After a brief break there, we continued downhill to the connecting col, then a short
ascent to the summit.
Arrival at 1130, the ascent had taken 4:45.
There were no signs of previous ascents.
We built a small cairn to mark this ultra
prominent mountain in a proper way. The hand level was used
to check all summits within sight, nothing higher.
After about 30 minutes, we returned more or less along the same route. Back at
the car after a 10 hour hike. Franco was pleased to see us and we prepared for
our onward travel.