Patagonia

1986 Chile

In 1986, Todd and Tad Welch traveled to the Paine region of Patagonia in Chile. They went into the Rio Frances Valley and established a basecamp, where they spent five weeks. Between long spells of bad weather, they climbed new pitches in an attempt to summit the Sword. Todd wrote a story about this trip, Paine and Suffering in Patagonia, which appeared in the December 1986 issue of Appalachia journal and later, in No Limits But the Sky, the best mountaineering stories from Appalachia Journal.

1990-1991 & 1992 Argentina

In December 1990-January 1991, Todd went to the Fitzroy area of Argentine Patagonia with Maurice Reed, Jeff Gruenberg and Shannon Stegg to attempt Cerro Torre. The group camped for more than a month below the spire. In between weeks of mal tiempo, they made several attempts, but did not reach the top.

Todd returned to Cerro Torre in January-February 1992 with Michael Dimitri. Horrible weather was again encountered. Toward the end of the six-week trip, a week of excellent weather arrived, but the tower was completely plastered in thick rime ice. Initially, car-sized chunks of ice were falling off. The pieces reduced in size to refrigerators and some parties went up (and quickly turned tail). A week into the good weather, the pair went up. Numerous close calls with microwave-sized pieces of falling ice ended the attempt. The weather window then closed and the peak wasn’t seen again.