Our friend Rolo Garibotti just sent word about his latest labor of love for the region he loves so much. Previously, we updated you on his work with the Patagonia Sustainable Trails Project. Today, we're happy to share news on the launch of Pataclimb.com, an online climbing resource assembled by Rolo and his friend Doerte Pietron. 

It is raining heavily in El Chalten, the small town at the base of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre in southern Argentina. Last week we had great weather, a window so good that we managed to climb both “big boys”, Torre and Fitz, in a mere seven days roundtrip from town. Such luck comes with a price and by the looks of the disastrous looking forecast seems like we will be paying for it in the next few weeks.

I first visited this area in 1987, when at age 15 I managed to somehow miraculously survive an ascent of Guillaumet. It wasn’t until the mid 1990s that I fell in love with this place and since then I have been coming regularly. Between 1998 and 2000 I worked hard at putting together a guidebook to this area but for a number of reasons never finished it, although the desire to do it stayed. Later, with the increased digitalization of information I realized that the best form of guidebook might be online, allowing for constant updating and correcting. I talked about this online guide idea for a couple of years until German climber Doerte Pietron convinced me to stop talking and to actually do it. With her help designing it and after more than a year of work, it has finally come to life.


Pataclimb.com does not attempt to be an “über-topo” guide – quite the opposite. In it you will find what I believe is a fairly accurate record of what has been done, with enough info to get yourself in trouble, but without too many details so you can still go have a proper adventure. In many cases we have focused on providing fun historical details, things that should not be forgotten, adventures worth remembering, rather than providing “how to” information.


This web guidebook is far from finished. In our free time, particularly on rainy days like today, we worked hard to complete it for the Patagonian summer season that is just starting, but we will continue updating it and improving it over the next months and years. We hope it will be a useful resource for all of those that might decide to set their sights in this phenomenal adventure climbing area of South America.

–Rolando Garibotti, November 22, 2010



Our hats are off to Rolo and Doerte for all their hard work. See what they've done at Pataclimb.com. For some firsthand reports on the climbing down in Patagonia this season, check out the blogs of Patagonia ambassdors Colin Haley, Tommy Caldwell and Mikey Schaefer.

Most of our employees have interesting stories to tell, but few have spent 15 months in an East German jail after abandoning a plan to somersault the Berlin Wall from a trampoline before trying to escape the country on foot.
Holger Bismann, managing director of Patagonia Europe, was generous enough to share some of his experiences of what it was like to live under totalitarian rule in East Germany, keep alive a relationship with his future wife while in jail, then cross the border into freedom after the Wall came down.
1) What is your most vivid memory of living in East Germany before the Wall came down? The thing that reminds you of that time the most?
My most vivid memories were of saying "good bye" to the good things about the life I had there for 27 years, right before my friend Klaus and I escaped. We couldn't actually say good bye to anyone because it was too dangerous to tell anybody about our plans. We couldn't even say anything to our closest friends or parents, simply to protect them and ourselves from danger.
 . . . hit the jump to continue reading "One Man's Road to Patagonia"
[A photo from earlier, and easier, times - before the personal ordeal that would eventually lead to freedom from East Germany. Photo: Holger Bisman collection]

Anyway, for five years, as students at the University in Leipzig, we had been squatting in an old house. After we graduated in 1988 and right before we escaped, we had a secret farewell. We organized a huge party in the backyard of the house with all our friends. A rock band played and it was great to see everybody before the summer break - and not knowing when or if we would see our friends again. It was a very strange feeling, as you can imagine. And I haven't seen many of the people who came to the party since.2) You were an athlete even then, correct? What sports did you practice? Did you compete?
Correct. I'd done many sports from the time I was 6 years old. I grew up in a mountain region where we did lots of winter sports. I practiced luge for many years and was part of an elite program, but got kicked out when I was 13 years old because my uncle jumped the border and went to the West. I was penalized for my family not being "politically clean and reliable" anymore. That's how it was in East Germany. My dream of going to the Olympics was suddenly over.
Then I started to practice sports on my own and became an endurance athlete. I ran marathons and ultra races, did triathlons for many years and cross-country ski races. At the same time, I loved the mountains and did lots of trips through Eastern Europe, either biking, hiking or climbing. Later I studied sports science, became a coach and teacher and finally moved to France. I have always stayed connected with sport and my competitiveness is still alive. I am now hooked on cycling and when I see someone far ahead of me in a climb, there is no way I can slow down and I push myself until I am at his back wheel.
3) You met your wife, Christelle, while you were in East Germany, but she wasn't from there, right? How did you meet?
We met when I was at the University in Leipzig. I always had to make some money to finance my trips during summer break, so I worked as a lifeguard and sport animator in a kid's camp. That was always great fun. I met Christelle (she is French) there in 1986 when she came as chaperone for a wild group of French kids from poor families and 'sponsored' by the French unions. It was quite unusual for kids from Western Europe to come to the East and there were always people checking us out to make sure we didn't get too close.
Anyway, first Christelle and I became friends. We were falling in love and I promised her I'd learn French. She didn't believe me and thought I was just another guy promising something - but I did it. The day she left I jumped on my bike and went straight to the nearest book store and bought my first French book. Four weeks later I wrote my first letter in French to her - it was two pages and took a whole day to write. She was impressed and after a year my French became pretty solid.
4) I'm sure you've told the story of your escape from East Germany many times, but what was the trampoline plan? And how did you actually try to escape?
As a sport student in East Germany, we were asked every year to participate in a big sports show for the government to show the world how great and powerful communism was. There were hundreds of athletes doing a synchronized show in a stadium. It included lots of acrobatics, one of which was to jump over a three-meter-high ring from a mini trampoline doing a somersault in the air and landing on our feet. We did this thousands of times and my best friend Klaus and I got the idea that this could be a way to get over the wall. After the show we kept practicing this in the gym for many nights every week. We had great gym facilities at our university.
Ultimately, we didn't do it after Klaus's girlfriend asked him if she could come with us. We had planned our escape and practiced our jump for three years, but physically, she couldn't have done it, and hadn't practiced at all. So we instead decided to cross the East German border through the Czech Republic, and from there to Hungary and then into Yugoslavia.
We got caught by the Hungarian guards on a moonless night at 2:00 am while trying to cross the Hungarian/Yugoslavian border. That was it. The dream was over as we stood in front of a young 18-year-old kid pointing an AK-47 at us. He was as scared as we were since the communists were always telling them that anyone who tried to cross the border was a criminal and extremely dangerous. We didn't want to get killed so we didn't even try to run away. We always knew that we could end up in jail. But we knew that if we ended up in jail, we had a 95 percent chance that after our sentence, the communists would let us go and wouldn't want us back in their country. So this would mean that we bought our liberty with a couple of months sitting in prison.
5) I'm sure you'd thought about escaping many times. Was there one thing that finally pushed you to turn the idea into reality? Do you remember the night before your escape (or day if you tried to escape at night) and how you felt?
We were thinking about escaping for years. Many people in the eastern countries were constantly thinking about it and many are still doing it all over the world today, leaving behind dictatorial countries and other situations to get a bit more freedom and democracy. The idea develops in your head over the years and you eventually make the tough decision to leave your family and friends and the place where you grew up. You do this with not much hope of when or if you will see these people again or when or if you will return to the place where you grew up.
It's difficult to imagine, but this is how it was. To get liberty, we had to make a decision about where we wanted to live in the world. It had a huge impact on our lives. And the worst thing was that we were unable to share those thoughts with anyone. Not even with our friends and family since we could endanger them and they might also end up in jail if the communists were to discover our plans. All those years, I only shared my plans with Klaus. It was a huge process dealing with this over the years. It was kind of a relief to finally get on the road and to get it over with, but it was also very weird that there were many things, places and people that we wouldn't see for years - maybe forever.
The moment we got caught, the hope we had lived for was just gone. My first thought was about my parents and my sister - they didn't have a clue what we were up to. Then I wondered when I would see Christelle again and what would happen to our future. My brain was just spinning and that's what it continued to do for a couple of weeks while we realized how our lives were going to be for the next couple of months or years - being disconnected from the outside world and even further away from freedom in East Germany.
6) You spent 15 months in jail as a result. How did you get through it? Did you learn anything from the experience?
I have to say I took it well. I learned a lot there about living in a small space with many people - no privacy - not even on the toilet. I had to share everything. I got to know people (criminals) who never had a great life - no education, no security, not much family and love. I learned how those people got to where they were, how society and government puts people in jail for political or criminal reasons and they don't do much to reintegrate them and help them to live a normal life. If a young kid ends up in jail, they don't have much chance to go back to a regular life after leaving. They need strong support from family or friends and that's what most of them don't have. Or they need a strong mind to make it through. They can't count much on the government for any of this - who gives a job to someone who comes out of jail? Not many companies do. In the end, the guys coming out have no job, no family, no friends and to survive, they usually start stealing again. Then they return to jail where finally they feel at home and respected by the people sharing the same life.
In jail you learn to adjust your life and stop complaining about what you don't have. You have to show respect to people who are in difficult situations or have done terrible things - or who even annoy or disrespect you. In addition to all that, you have to keep your brain and body working and stay positive. If you don't you will die.
What did I learn from it? - Bad things can happen in life but there are always worse. If you hold onto hope, you will get through it. Just imagine all the people in jail in China, North Korea or Iran, probably for nothing and for years under hard conditions. Being in an East German jail was probably like being in a substandard hospital compared to what is happening in those countries. You learn to be more[…]

Team Rios Libres is back with an update from the Neff Glacier, at the headwaters of the Río Baker. The team's first two reports can be found here (1, 2). With the Neff at their backs, the team followed the river to the sea, doing their best to document the diversity, beauty, and wildness of the region. Before completing their journey, the team will be checking in on a region of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field last believed to be last visited and documented by explorer Eric Shipton during 1960-61 expedition.

Reports from the Rios Libres team are that their travels are proceeding smoothly, but the impacts of the quakes continue to be felt and much support is still needed (information about how to help is here).

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The Voice of Ice (a report from Craig Childs)

At night I lay in my tent listening to the thunder of collapsing seracs, multi-ton columns of ice breaking free and falling a thousand feet. Smack, crack, rumble, groan. In these deeply-cut canyons, echoes build and fade. The ice-bound head of the Rio Baker is not a stable or quiet place.

[Top, Timmy O'Neill walks the line on the Neff Glacier. Above, left - Craig Childs watches as a huge chunk of ice falls 20 stories down the
Neff Glacier. Photos: James Q Martin]

In the morning we walk along an exposed wall of the Neff Glacier. A thirteen-story slab breaks away, tilts in slow motion, bursts into powder and bergs. How do you not feel fragile in this landscape?

On the ice, crampons crunch across a surface darkened by wind blown dust. The sound of meltwater emerges from deep below us, mumblings in the belly of the glacier. I peer down a hole where shadows within shadows lead into a blue Jules Verne landscape, journeying into the source of the Baker. Oxygen-rich ice near the surface is white. Below it, baby blue falls into a saturated indigo so deep and rich it seems perilous. Becoming aware of the depths, I feel dizzy.

Every hole and crack emits a sound. Some places are whispers, and some rumble like a ship engine below deck. Unseen rivers roar and hiss as one of the largest ice caps in the world melts under our feet.

Jonathan Leidich, a local glacier expert whose knowledge comes from 15 years on the ice, takes us to a measurement station that he maintains in conjunction with CECS, Centro de Estudios Cientificos de Valdivia here in Chile. A PVC pipe sticks up from a hole. Leidich runs a tape measure, says that a month ago the surface of the glacier was six feet over our heads. That much has melted in 30 days across this entire expanse.

Hearing this, I take in the scope around us, daggers and ridges of ice, holes shaped like giant's navels. Ice stretches as far as I can see, rising up through the teeth of mountains where the Patagonia Ice Cap spills through from the other side. I can feel it all melting. This is how the river starts.

[Above, right - Craig Childs gets an up-close view of the Neff Glacier. Above, left - Taking a handful of perfect glacier water - some of the cleanest in the world. Photos: James Q Martin]

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Check out the video below for a better view of how much ice has been lost from the Neff Glacier in the past year. Facebook readers can find this video here.

["Yvon Chouinard Q&A on Matilija Dam - American Express Member's Project" via YouTube. Video: Robert Richardson and Scott Hicks]


Today we're following up on Yvon Chouinard's recent commercial for the American Express Members Project. The grad student Yvon mentions in the above video was Mark Capelli who, through his group Friends of the Ventura River, helped lay the foundation for all the work being done today to remove the Matilija Dam and restore the Ventura River ecosystem.


For a report on the current state of the Matilija Dam's removal we contacted Paul Jenkin, founder of the Matilija Coalition and Environmental Director for the Ventura County Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation.


Patagonia is a founding member and primary sponsor of the Matilija Coalition, an alliance of community groups, businesses, and individuals committed to the environmental restoration of the Ventura River watershed. Starting with the removal of Matilija Dam, the coalition is working for the recovery of the Southern Steelhead trout and the natural sediment supply to the beaches of Ventura.




Patagonia was a major sponsor of the October 12, 2000 Demolition Demonstration Project in which Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt removed a ceremonial block of concrete from the 200-foot high Matilija Dam. This event marked a major step toward the eventual removal of Matilija Dam.


[Logo art designed and donated by Jeff Hebner]
In 2004, a federal Feasibility Study was completed which outlines a plan for dam removal based upon ‘temporary sediment stabilization.’ This approach is intended to protect downstream interests, including the community water supply, while allowing for controlled releases of sediment and restoration of the ecosystem. This plan was developed through a multi-year, multi-agency planning process with consensus of all stakeholders. The Feasibility Plan underwent extensive review, and ultimately gained Congressional approval through the passage of the Water Resources and Development Act of 2007 (WRDA07).Since then, the project has been delayed by lack of funding and difficulties associated with the management of approximately two million cubic yards of fine sediment (approximately one third of the total sediment) that has accumulated behind the dam since its construction in 1948. Originally slated for removal using a dredge and slurry pipeline, a recent proposal calls for permanent storage of the fine sediment upstream of the dam. Disagreements on how this fine sediment should be handled threaten to stall the project. The Matilija Coalition is working with project sponsors to try to steer this complex project back on track.
Because a dam of this size has not yet been removed, this is a project of international significance. All of the large dam removals currently being planned have experienced similar difficulties, largely based upon managing huge quantities of sediment and the downstream effects on property and water supply infrastructure.
--Paul Jenkin


 
[Recent photo of the Matilija Dam courtesy of Paul Jenkin] Paul has been documenting the dam's removal on his blog since October 2007. For a detailed look into the challenging process of restoring a free-flowing river check out the posts tagged Matilija Dam at Ventura River Ecosystem.


If you want to hear stories about what the Ventura River was like before the Matilija Dam was built, check out "Tales of the Ventura" and the video Paul produced with some longtime Ventura residents.