The sun rises once again in a perfectly clear sky, illuminating the towers of Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre and the companion peaks of this famous landscape in a brilliant orange hue. That's six perfect mornings in a row, six days the typical storms and wind that traditionally pummel the mountains here at the tip of South America--even now, during the Austral summer--have failed to appear. And it's not just this week, or last. The unreal weather has persisted for most of the season, affording climbers and hikers one of the best seasons in a decade, perhaps two, maybe ever, here in the breathtaking wilderness of Patagonia.

"Many years, the weather is so bad that Cerro Torre won't see a single ascent," said local climber and guide Merlin Lipshitz. "There just aren't enough clear, windless days for climbers to get up. To have just a handful of good-weather days all season is not unusual here, it's all people who know these mountains expect.

"But this year, since December, conditions have consistently been mild and the temperatures unseasonably warm. There have been storms, but infrequent and short storms. The result has been an incredible number of fine days, very little rain, and many summits. Cerro Torre has had at least a half dozen ascents, maybe more. Fitz Roy, just farther enough away from the ice cap that the weather is generally better, has seen more ascents this season than anyone can remember."

American climbers have been at the forefront of the action. Rangers here at Parque Nacional Los Glaciares say Dean Potter successfully made two ascents of Fitz Roy and one of Cerro Torre, all solo, in the span of two weeks. Potter is said to have soloed Super Couloir on Fitz Roy, then The Compressor Route on Cerro Torre, then the American Route on Fitz Roy. All of Potter's ascents were said to have been completed in record times, serving the American climber well when he descended Cerro Torre just ahead of a fierce storm. (MountainZone.com is trying to reach Potter, now back in the States, and will have an update on his climbs as soon as he can be reached to confirm the ascents.)

In the meantime, across the border in Chile, Steve Schneider made good use of the great weather to complete a traverse of all five summits of the three peaks of the Towers of Paine group, located in Chile's Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. Schneider made five consecutive attempts at the traverse, which had never been done before, and the good weather enabled him to successfully solo the route with record times on each tower.

"I needed a three-day window and with the good weather this year, I got it," Schneider said. "There was another good weather spell in '97-'98, like 20 days of good weather, but this year was better."

Schneider, who climbed without bivy bag or stove, had multiple epics, once getting halfway down a committing rappel only to get blasted by a storm and face a troublesome descent, and later being caught in "gnarly" rock fall, table-sized pieces raining down on him during a wind storm so strong he couldn't hear them coming. [Click here for Schneider's description of the historic climb]

Hikers, too, benefited from the unheard-of weather during the best part of the season. Backpackers from Europe, the United States and Buenos Aires, in pairs and small groups, trod the trails to Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, winding through the gnarly beech trees of the Patagonian forests, with the dramatic peaks of Fitz Roy and Poincenot rising above the wooded ridges....

— Peter Potterfield, MountainZone.com Staff