Into the flood again. In November 2010 I made the first solo ascent of Aguja Standhardt. From that moment on, Torre Egger became the focus of my soloing aspirations. During the past five years I have spent so much time daydreaming about this goal, about what skills I needed to develop, about what strategy to adopt, about what equipment to take, and about whether or not I had the gumption to make it happen. In 2011 I started teaching myself how to rope-solo efficiently, all the while with Torre Egger in mind. Over the past few years I actually hiked into the Torre Valley to make an attempt a couple times, but either the weather wasn't right, the conditions weren't right, or I didn't have the nerve at that moment. A few times, even as recently as two months ago, I wrote off the dream completely, resigned that I wasn't up for it. Yesterday everything finally came together: The weather was beautiful, the conditions pretty good, I'm a much better climber than I was five years ago, and I felt no apprehension. I left the Noruegos bivouac at about 12:45, and arrived on the summit of Torre Egger about sixteen and a half hours later, having also made the first solo ascent of Punta Herron in the process. The ascent went faster and more smoothly than I had ever hoped for. The descent, on the other hand, was a bit of an epic, but that's another story. In my experience my solo ascents generally are under appreciated relative to ascents with partners - I think this is partially because soloing doesn't produce rad photos, and mostly because people don't fully appreciate the difference compared to climbing with a partner. The few people who engage in this game of big, technically-difficult, alpine-style soloing are the ones who truly understand. Regardless, I'm sure that yesterday's climb is among the very best climbing accomplishments I have made in my life thus far. Very tired, very stoked.
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