Hi all,
We’re back in civilization after 45 days of living like beasts.
We just noticed that our blog has not been very active… sorry, we’ve been having problems with the satellite phone…. somebody (identity unrevealed accordingly to xpedition rules) seems to have been using the satellite phone for phone sex and we quickly ran out of credits…. that being said, we had an incredible time on Baffin Island. Amazing walls, bouldering and just a beautiful place to hang out. We will post uncensored stories and pictures in the next few weeks… so stay tuned!

We just received some news coming from Alastair Lee who is currently in Baffin Island for the “Asgard Project Expedition”:

“Everything is okay. We have no more credit on our sat phone. We spent 11 days on the South Tower of Asgard. Trying to free the Bavarian route. It almost went entirely free. It was amazing! Excellent climbing! Crazy summit. 2 weeks left. We are now going to try a push on the North Tower.

Thanks and hello to all.”

Nico F.

More details about this ascent will be published in the next days!
Thanks a lot to Alastair Lee who sent us these news!

We finally got some fresh news coming from Vero (Olivier’s girlfriend):

9/07: 2 days ago Olivier wrote me they climbed a tower of 800 meters in very good weather conditions. The region is magical and temperatures are perfect. Now they continue carrying their stuff in the direction of Mt Asgard. (if I’m correct a plane will parachute them food at the foot of Mt Asgard early August)

12/07: Until now they haven t seen a cloud yet and temperatures are just perfect (it seems Yosemite). They ve been jamming and bathing a lot. Today they will attempt a push of the Mt Asgard…….

17/07: they spotted a line on Mt Asgard. It would take them a week to prepare. (they ll attack with portaledge)

Thanks vero, keep feeding us with fresh news!

Since we still got ne news from the team, we suppose they are doing fine (or may be the satellite phone is not working…). The only thing we now is that they have a very heavy load to carry on a long way… They probably spend all their time looking to the nice walls they are soon gonna climb…

Until we got some fresh news, here are some pictures of their departure and of what they see in Baffin Island (except for the snow…).
Stay tuned!

3 months after Patagonia, the team is back in action in Baffin Island. Our ultimate objective is to bring  our jamming to a whole new level. We hope the boat ride, the 500kg of gear and food we will have to carry 50km and the 3 polar bears hunting in the region will help our musical inspiration. We heard stories of an unlimited playground. We are super psyched! we have a satellite phone to keep you guys informed on our new musical compositions. Stay tuned!

We just arrived in Ottawa, Canada. We got away without paying extra-weight for our heavy loads! And since we arrived we have been warmly welcome by Freed, Jodie and Jen (some old friends of Sean) We did our last shopping but most important Olivier found a new big wall Instrument… I`ll let you imagine what it is??? We estimate it as one of the main ingredients for our success! Tomorrow we will land on Baffin Island.

As you already know, Nicolas Favresse, Sean Villanueva, Stéphane Hanssens and Olivier Favresse are getting ready for their next big wall climbing expedition. The destination is Baffin Island in northern Canada this time. The team is gonna try reaching Mount Thor and hopefuly Mount Asgard. They already know the extreme conditions they’ll meet since they are pretty similar to what they met in Patagonia. The hard part in this new adventure is the logistic. As they already met some posting troubles with the gear, they’ll have to carry all their stuff themself… One more challenge we know they’ll enjoy!

Stay tuned to xpedition.be, the Baffin Adventure is starting in less than a month now!

Ok, yesterday’s news was an april fools´day joke… Belgian tradition… Nico and Sean are like an old married couple, they can’t be separeted… 

Let’s get back on business now. Nico and Sean are back from Patagonia and should take one or two rest days in Belgium before they start training for their next expedition in Canada. The target will be to free the big walls of the Baffin Island up north. Next to the climbing challenge, they’ll have to face a logistical challenge this time… Baffin Island will bring the adventure to another level! 

The team will be 100% belgian this time. Next to Nico and Sean, you’ll see Nico’s brother, Olivier Favresse and a young but yet very promising climber: Stéphane Hanssens. 

The adventure will start in July. Stay plugged!

After many years of adventure and climbing all over the world, Nicolas Favresse and Sean Villanueva just decided to end their collaboration!

Some tensions during their last expedition in Patagonia seem to be  the cause of this sad separation. This is a very bad news for the worlwide climbing community since Nico and Sean became an exemple of good spirit and behaviour.

This will not cancel their next expedition in Baffin Island but it will most probably be the last one…

Rough times: A friend of ours died. Chino, an Argentinean climber, died from hypothermia after an attempt on Poincenot. Sean had met Chino here in Chalten two years ago, traveled with him for a couple of weeks, and stayed at his house in Buenos Aires. We met up with him again when we arrived in Buenos Aires at the beginning of this trip. 

Chino was climbing Poincenot with his Polish climbing partner on the same day that we were climbing El Mocho. When the bad weather came in they started rappelling down but their ropes got stuck, giving them lots of trouble and leaving them exposed for a very long time to the bad weather conditions. Chino got wet and cold and when they finally reached the glacier he was in a bad state. While walking on the glacier (in terrible weather) he collapsed from hypothermia and could no longer get up. His climbing partner went down to search for help at Paso Superior (30min away) where there are snowcaves. There was nobody there and when he went back up it looked like Chino was dead (couldn¹t feel any breathing or pulse). Convinced that Chino was dead, he made his way back to Chalten and started to inform Chino¹s friends. It wasn¹t until much later that the local doctor found out and informed that there might still be a chance that Chino was still alive! When in a very bad hypothermic state, someone can seem dead but still have a very low pulse and breathing. The local climbers immediately started a rescue operation and the three of us (Sean, Nico, Mason) joined in to help. Unfortunately this was already 12 hours after his climbing partner had left Chino thinking he was dead. With a group of 13 climbers we headed up the glacier and spent all night looking for him in terrible weather conditions. It was snowing and the wind was blowing hard. We were very lucky to find him. It was still very hard and a slow operation to bring him down carefully. When he reached the hospital he still had a pulse but unfortunately his body temperature was too low and he died a little later. 

You can¹t blame or judge anybody on what happened up there. The weather conditions here in Patagonia can be very rough and unless you were up there yourself it is impossible to know what the situation was like. Everybody did what they thought was best in this situation. Still it seems very important to inform people that when somebody is in hypothermia he might seem dead but still be alive and that it is important to keep his body warm and get rescue as fast as possible. 

It is very hard to loose a friend like that. Chino was a great guy, a philosopher, full of wisdom, always radiating happiness and with an amazing positive vibe around him. He would always tell me (Sean): “Que sean felices” which is Spanish for “may they be happy” and that’s what he would want everybody to be right now, cause that¹s the kind of person he was. 

After we got down from the rescue, a good three-day weather window came in. But following our 20h day when we climbed El Mocho and our more than 30 hour day with the rescue we were too exhausted physically and spiritually to do any climbing. It is also the beginning of March and the end of the season is coming in. So we decided to get all our gear down off the mountain and move on. 

It is now time for us to start preparing ourselves physically, mentally and logistically for our next big expedition in July. Now we are off to Bariloche (Northern Patagonia) for some sportclimbing, bouldering and tradclimbing in the sun. We are psyched to start pulling down hard again.