Nine days: that’s how long it took Stefano Ragazzo to reach the summit of Trango’s Nameless Tower, 6250 m, on his own. The young Italian guide has made the first solo ascent of Eternal Flame, a mythical route courted by the best. Despite some mishaps: Stefano lost some equipment, including one of his two ice axes, damaged his portaledge and even experienced the worst for a bigwall climber: running out of water. Stefano tells the story in his own words, contacted by telephone from Courmayeur, where his voice is still full of the joy of his magnificent solo trip to Trango.
Do not think that climbing a mountain solo is easy, or even similar to a roped ascent. Charles Dubouloz’s impressive solo ascent of the Grandes Jorasses is a reminder of this, as he spent five nights overcoming the Rolling Stones in winter 2022.
Stefano Ragazzo, too, is a mountain guide. He has just climbed Pakistan’s Nameless Tower in nine days, via the mythical Eternal Flame. A nine-day ascent, in which he climbed each pitch, self-assured, before descending to pick up his equipment and climb back up to the jumar. He is not the first, but probably only the second to achieve the feat of climbing the Nameless Tower solo, after Japan’s Takeyasu Minamiura, author of a breathtaking solo by opening (!) a route on the East face, in 1990, before nearly killing himself paragliding down (and being rescued by compatriots).
Nine days solo? That’s nine very long days, especially as Stefano had a few mishaps that could have gone badly wrong! All the same, the first solo run of Eternal Flame is a feat, both mentally and physically. Contacted by telephone in Courmayeur, Stefano Ragazzo has been working in the Alps as a guide since his return on the 7th of August. “I spent the whole month of July in Trango – you’ve got to make a living”, he says between two Dent du Géant climbs.
Nameless Tower of Trango. ©Coll. Ragazzo / Big Rock Media House
A 700-metre bigwall, the route was opened by Wolfgang Güllich, Kurt Albert, Chris Stiegler and Mylan Sykora in 1989, who rated it 7b+/A2. Since then, the route has been courted by the best climbers mountaineers, with the aim of free-climbing the whole thing. In 2005, the Spanish brothers Pou came close to achieving the first free ascent, but it was another sibling group, brothers Alex and Thomas Huber, who freed the entire route in 2009, with a 7c+ pitch, making Eternal Flame probably the highest free climb in the world.
In 2022, supported by his brother and father, Spain’s Edu Marin signed the second free ascent, a not uncommon family climb, and then, a few days later, Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher.
As for Stefano Ragazzo, he didn’t want to climb the entire route free: he practiced, in his own words, “French free”, a Yosemite expression to characterize (and denigrate) the style often used on the Nose, for example: climb as much as possible free and “pull” on the camalots when it’s too hard. For Eternal Flame, Ragazzo had to work hard, because unless you’re carrying three or four sets of friends, free climbing is compulsory three quarters of the time. Some sections are also compulsory, either because they are too smooth to be climbed artificially, or too wide.
This is the realm of cracks, where Stefano had to swallow 7a pitches all in a down jacket and at 6000 meters. “In total, I had to carry between 25 and 30 kilos between the hauling bag and the backpack. I had to find a balance between having too much or too little gear,” he explains.
Stefano began his ascent with an ethic as simple as it was big:
climb Eternal Flame in one go, without fixed ropes or round trips
Solo(s)
For such a big solo, Ragazzo didn’t become an expert overnight. He meticulously prepared his ascent. He says he became aware of his potential when he signed the first winter solo of a hard route in the Dolomites, Moulin Rouge (7b) at Roda di Vael, self-insured, by the day, in 2023.
Then, in May of this year, with the Tour de Trango in his sights, Ragazzo flew to Yosemite, which he already knew, with the idea of perfecting his solo technique: he climbed the Nose in 48 hours.
How do you motivate yourself for such a challenge? “I think I know myself very well, and that’s what’s important for a project like this. You have to have confidence in yourself, of course. But you have to be ready. I think I realized several years ago that I wasn’t going to be a 9a climber, but that my mind, my spirit, could make the difference.”
Stefano has a solid background: “I climbed a lot in the Dolomites, where the climbing is often exposed and poorly equipped, and that’s where my body and mind were formed, used to mentally demanding climbing”, he recounts. Since then, working as a guide in the Mont-Blanc massif, Stefano has scoured the big, difficult granite routes, with six or seven Grand Capucin routes to his credit.
©Coll. Ragazzo / Big Rock Media House
Start
In July, Stefano Ragazzo arrived at base camp on Baltoro, and began his ascent with an ethic as simple as it was big: climb Eternal Flame in one go, without fixed ropes as is often the custom (and the case for climbers who have done the route free). With the basic idea of making the summit, or admitting defeat.
For three days Stefano is not alone: a group of Basque climbers are working alongside him. The storm arrives, the Basques turn their backs and start rappelling. Stefano counts the pitches he has left, and the days. The verdict is simple: having left with six days’ worth of food, he doesn’t have enough. He decides to ration his food: he keeps an empty bag of lyoph food from the day before, into which he puts half the new lyoph.
©Coll. Ragazzo / Big Rock Media House
©Coll. Ragazzo / Big Rock Media House
Misadventure(s)
At this point, “I thought about going back to base camp and waiting for a real window of good weather: climbing in these conditions, with two down jackets and gloves, trying to get my hands stuck in 7a cracks sometimes obstructed by ice and snow at 5500 meters altitude, was really extreme, but at the same time I thought about what I had endured to get where I was. I had no intention of doing it again, at least not right away.” And therefore not to go back down to the ground.
It’s true, the start of the route was no picnic. The last pitch below Sun Terrace, a 6c slab, gave him a fright… and a nasty fall. “I didn’t know which way to go, left or right, so I went straight, but went out too high, I had to unclimb this tricky slab, and in the end I took a long fall” which was stopped by his belay system. More fear than harm.
I woke up in the middle of the night
locked inside the portaledge like a hot dog
©Coll. Ragazzo
Stefano’s isolation on this wall is only broken by the daily radio message with the photographers at base camp. But the commitment is great: alone on a wall between 5500 and 6200 meters, Stefano took only a 60 m single rope in 9.1mm, and a “tag line” to hoist the bag in 6 mm. A daring gamble for a wall of this scale.
But it wasn’t his rope that first caused him trouble, but his inflatable portaledge, fitted with a tent, but punctured on the third day! “I woke up in the middle of the night locked inside the portaledge like a hot dog. I didn’t want to believe it, but I managed to re-inflate it, luckily the hole was small so I just had to blow into it every two or three hours to get it back up…” for all the remaining nights.
On the fifth evening, it’s dark, Stefano sits down on the edge of a ridge and his self-belaying, an Edelrid Pinch, flies into the void. It’s a big brakdown, because although he has a Petzl Grigri to replace it, it’s in his tent at the advanced base camp. The next day, Stefano moves forward with a cobbled-together system, far from practical in head and free position.
But that’s without counting on the photographer’s imagination and drone: he manages to deliver the Grigri by air to Stefano, and even to repatriate the drone intact! The only exception to Stefano’s isolation, this incredible delivery is sure to give other climbers ideas…
STEFANO HAS A GRIGRI DELIVERED BY DRONE
Precious liquid
Stefano Ragazzo’s troubles were not over: on the seventh day he was stuck high up in the face. He realizes that he has only 300 milliliters of precious liquid left. It’s snowing but, cruel irony, the smooth wall doesn’t hold the snow. Either he found water, or he risked dehydration, the death trap for any mountaineer at altitude. “I began to doubt that I could survive without water,” he admits, estimating his chances at 50/50.
But he didn’t give up, climbed a 35-meter 7a, then an easy pitch before discovering a twenty-by-thirty-centimeter “rectangle of snow” of 20 by 30 centimeters on a small slab. Stefano draws two liters from it, for the last two days. “I had little or nothing left, very little water, very little food, but it was my last chance to reach the summit.“
He got close to the summit mixed zone, but was not free yet: in a mixed pitch below the summit, he lost one of his two ice axes. The next pitch, in M5, was completed with a single ice axe.
©Coll. Ragazzo / Big Rock Media House
©Coll. Ragazzo / Big Rock Media House
Stefano reached the summit on the ninth day. “I tried to count how many days I’d been on the wall, 7, 8, 9…. I couldn’t get any references, I’d lost count, in fact I’d already stopped counting on the third day”. The drone flies over him, and he explodes with emotion.
“When I was ten meters from the summit, I started crying, realizing that I’d done it. It was a very emotional moment. I only stayed 20 minutes at the top because dark clouds were coming.” Stefano, who was “fired” by his sponsor, The North Face, before he set off, succeeded.
“I’m not an influencer; I spend my life training, every day, I don’t have time to post non-stop on social networks. For my former sponsor, whether I go to Kalymnos with my girlfriend or do the Tour de Trango solo, it’s all the same. Marketing people don’t necessarily understand the mountains,” he analyzes.
I’m not an influencer, I spend my life training.
stefano, fired from his sponsor right before he set off of Eternal flame
“When I was twenty, Messner or Bonatti made me dream,” says Stefano. Since then, “people like David Lama and Hansjörg Auer have made significant, different achievements. They left too soon, but they left their mark, and mine too”, he says.
Stefano began abseiling at 12.30 pm, and reached the foot of the wall at 8.30 pm, not without having jammed his ropes. They’re shredded. He’s in one piece. In 2016, in Patagonia, Stefano Ragazzo had asked a friend to draw a wall he should climb. On the drawing, there was El Capitan, and the Nameless Tower of Trango.