The Battle for the Needles: Bonington and Whillans on the Central Tower of Paine

Cleopatra’s Needles

Rising like sheer granite spears from the turquoise glacial moraines of Chilean Patagonia, the three Towers of Paine (Torres del Paine) remained unclimbed into the early 1960s. Known to early maritime explorers as ‘Cleopatra’s Needles’, their vertical monoliths of golden granite plummeted 800 metres in sheer, unbroken walls battered by the full fury of the Roaring Forties.

In December 1962, a powerful British expedition led by Chris Bonington, Don Whillans, Ian Clough, and John Streetly arrived in the Valle del Silencio. To their astonishment, an elite Italian climbing team from Trento led by Armando Aste arrived almost simultaneously to contest the same objective: the unclimbed Central Tower (Torre Central, 2,460 m). What unfolded was one of the most celebrated and gentlemanly races in the history of international mountaineering.

Whillans on the Lead

As savage squalls brought horizontal rain and freezing ice glaze to the sheer East Face, both teams fixed ropes up parallel crack systems. Don Whillans, a tough, stocky plumber from Lancashire regarded as the finest natural rock climber of his generation, took command of the technical difficulties. Clad in woolen sweaters and nailed boots, Whillans unlocked steep flakes and finger cracks, hanging from nylon ropes in howling sixty-knot winds.

Recognizing the immense danger of two teams climbing the same vertical line, the Italian team gracefully shifted their focus toward the adjacent South Tower (which they successfully conquered weeks later). This sporting gesture freed Bonington and Whillans to mount a decisive, continuous push on the Central Tower.

The Summit Horn

On January 16, 1963, after weeks of enduring the infamous ‘Whillans Box’—a tiny, precarious wooden-framed shelter suspended from a rock ledge halfway up the wall—Bonington and Whillans launched their summit bid.

The upper pitches threw up terrifying obstacles. Whillans led through a steep, iced chimney and traversed across blank granite slabs where a single slip would mean a swinging pendulum into thousands of feet of empty air. At 4:15 p.m., the two Britons surmounted the final granite blocks and stood atop the pointed summit horn. Battered by gale-force winds, they shook hands and surveyed the staggering wilderness of the Southern Patagonian Icefield and the Pacific fjords. Their triumph was heralded worldwide as a watershed moment, proving that the steepest granite big walls of Patagonia could be scaled through British rock craft and unbreakable grit.