On December 31, 2002, Tina Di Batista (Slovenia) and I climbed a new route, Los Esclavos del Barometro (V 5.10 A2, 500m), to the North Summit of the North Tower (2260m) of Paine. I first tried the route, which climbs a beautiful crack system to the right of Armas y Rosas, with my friend Nejc Bevk two days earlier, but a sudden snow storm forced a retreat. That day we climbed 250 meters. It was cold, but the rock was dry and the climbing mostly free. We did not leave any fixed ropes. Two days later, all the cracks were full of snow and ice; we were forced to aid most of the hard pitches. We were frustrated because of the conditions, but time was running out, and we had to take what was offered. At 6 p.m. we reached the summit and rappelled the route. Roundtrip from the Japanese Camp took us nineteen hours.
It would be possible to free climb the whole route at around 5.11. On the lower pitches we found pieces of old fixed rope and pitons. On the final 150 meters, before our line jointed the Monzino Route, there was no sign of prior attempts.
— Tomaz Jakofcic, Ljubljana, Slovenia