The Purest Line: Marc-André Leclerc's Historic Solo Winter Ascent of Torre Egger

In the modern landscape of professional climbing—dominated by corporate sponsorships, real-time social media dispatches, and drone photography—Canadian climber Marc-André Leclerc seemed to belong to an entirely different epoch. Hailing from British Columbia, Leclerc climbed with a quiet, childlike devotion to movement on stone and ice. He frequently left his phone at base camp, gave away his gear to younger climbers, and vanished into giant mountain ranges alone, chasing an elusive, sacred state of total absorption on the rock.

In September 2016, during the final freezing weeks of the austral winter, twenty-three-year-old Leclerc arrived in Patagonia with a target that many experienced mountaineers believed was impossible: a solitary winter ascent of Torre Egger (2,685m). While neighboring Cerro Torre was famous for its sheer headwall and compressor ladders, Torre Egger was regarded by insiders as far more dangerous—a steeper, narrower needle of compact granite encrusted with massive rime-ice daggers that dropped into thousand-meter voids on all sides.

Stepping onto the Frozen Pillar

On September 16, 2016, taking advantage of a brief opening in the relentless winter storms, Leclerc hiked out onto the glacier alone. His load was stripped down to the absolute bare essentials: a single dynamic rope, two ice axes, crampons, a small rack of protective hardware, and a warm down jacket. He carried no tent, no sleeping bag, and no communication radio.

Approaching the East Pillar of Torre Egger, he began climbing the Italian route and variations of the Titanic line. The cold was punishing; touching bare granite through climbing gloves sent shocks of pain into his fingertips. Yet Leclerc climbed with astonishing fluidity, free soloing large sections of vertical rock and mixed terrain where a slip meant instant death. When technical cruxes barred his path, he rigged a simple back-loop self-belay, leading the pitch, rappelling down to clean his protection, and jumaring back up before continuing.

A Standing Bivouac in the Abyss

Night overtook Leclerc midway up the sheer granite pillar. Hacking a tiny, sloping stance into an icy ledge barely wider than his boots, he tied himself securely to a pair of rock anchors. Pulling his down jacket tight around his chest, Leclerc spent the long, sub-zero winter night standing upright on the ledge, watching the southern stars blaze cold and clear above the glinting expanse of the Patagonian Icefield.

At dawn on September 17, shivering but completely clear-headed, Leclerc resumed climbing. The upper headwall presented a terrifying obstacle: the rock gave way to a towering, overhanging mushroom of aerated rime ice, fragile as spun sugar. Swinging his technical axes into the delicate ice with surgical delicacy, Leclerc navigated the overhanging mushrooms and pulled onto the snowy summit of Torre Egger at midday.

Disappearing into the Mist

Standing alone on the summit, Leclerc took a short selfie video on a tiny pocket camera, smiled quietly at the camera, and began his descent. Rapelling through increasing cloud and spindrift, he negotiated twenty complex rappels down the frozen face, stepping back onto the glacier before dark.

Marc-André Leclerc had completed what veteran alpine writers called one of the purest and most visionary solo ascents in the history of mountaineering. When he was tragically killed eighteen months later in an avalanche on Alaska’s Mendenhall Towers, the climb of Torre Egger stood as an enduring monument to his humble genius and the boundless beauty of the alpine soul.