New big wall climb on Cerro El Monstruo in Valle Cochamo by Antar Machado, Cristobal Senoret

Chilean mountaineers Antar Machado and Cristobal Señoret have made a significant addition to Cerro El Monstruo in Valle Cochamo with their first ascent of La Chilenita on the mountain's east face.

Climbing alpine style, the pair set off on 8 February and initially followed La Gran Raja, the first route on the wall and at present still unrepeated. After 250m the pair broke off right to follow the obvious line of weakness, and stopped at circa 1/3 height to spend the night. They shared just one sleeping bag between the two of them but thankfully the ledge offered water, and the next moring they continued upwards past difficulties up to 5.11+ A0. They placed just 6 progression bolts in total and successfully reached the summit at 2pm the next day.

Writing to planetmountain after the ascent, Señoret explained "I'd seen the line many times in the past: it's alpine and fast, and turned out to be a big adventure, with more than 700m of vertical terrain, plus the big grade III and IV ledges as you near the shoulder. And it was amazing to discover some water on those two big ledges, a great little adventure."

After the summit the pair hiked down the easy NE shoulder descent.

Info: www.senoretbrothers.com