In Patagonia new climbs on Aguja Mermoz & Paine North Tower by Tasio Martin, Ibon Mendia

Erresistentziara Kondenatuak (420m, 7a) in the east face of Torre Norte del Paine. We opened this line during a good weather day, the 27th of December 2024. We found very good rock quality and a really straight line. The route goes free and is all clean, there are just a couple of slings in 3 belays. We opened this line during one long push in the mountains. During the first 3 days the weather was horrible and we managed to climb Peineta and Torre Norte via easyer routes. Then we opened Erresistentziara Kondenatuak, while the next day we climbed Torre Central via the Bonington route

Dardara (500m, 7b+?) is located on the east face of Aguja Mermoz. We opened this new route a few days ago, the 19th of January. We barely had a one-day weather window. The attempt lasted 18 hours from tent to tent, which we'd pitched on the glacier. The start is in common with an old attempt, and then it's everything new until the very top. We encountered good rock quality, really nice pitches and a couple of difficult ones. One of them (P8, 7a+) it's quite scary and provides delicate face climbing and some protection on flakes. The next one is harder but safer. We almost redpointed it while seconding, not on lead, and believe it might well be in the region of 7b+. The aid pitch (P7) should be easy to free climb if it's dry, but we found it completely frozen; we had to use our ice axe to clean and place cams. The route is entirely clean apart from two pitons that we left in-situ.

Tasio Martin