Autana

El Autana is a sandstone tepuy or butte about 400 miles south of Caracas in the Amazon Territory of Venezuela. We climbed the left hand ridge in the photograph in three days in 1974. A cathedral sized cave pierces the mountain from side to side, so that light shines through about 400 ft from the top. Like all good jungle mountains, this too has its indian legend. At dusk, when the sun shines through the cave that pierces the mountain from one side to side, the Piaroa indians call the cave the 'Eye of the Gods'. Stephen Platt, David Nott, Wilmer Perez la Riva and Carlos Reyes climbed the North Ridge in its entirety and then descended to the caves were we spent three nights, exploring the galleries and traversing around the mountain along the horizontal fault line at the height of the cave. On the third day we completed the ridge to the summit. Night caught us abseiling down the last overhanging 300ft wall and we stumbled back to base camp by the meagre light of our only pocket torch.