Leadership Expeditions Guide

Diego Vergara is an industrial designer, artist, blacksmith, and mountaineer with more than 25 years of experience leading outdoor expeditions, technical climbing programs, and experiential learning initiatives throughout the Andes and Patagonia. Based in Chile’s Colchagua Valley, he combines his passion for creativity, craftsmanship, and mountain exploration through his work as a professor of arts and design and as founder of Academia de Arte Ancestral.

As part of Leadership Expeditions and Vertical’s outdoor leadership programs, Diego contributes his extensive field experience as a guide, instructor, and expedition leader. His approach emphasizes adaptability, teamwork, self-reliance, and problem-solving in challenging environments, helping participants develop confidence and resilience through direct experience in the outdoors.

Diego began climbing at the age of 14 and is affiliated with the Deutscher Andenverein (DAV), the German Andean Club in Santiago, Chile. Throughout his career, he has specialized in traditional rock climbing, alpine climbing, and ice climbing, working as both guide and instructor across a wide variety of mountain environments.

He has led expeditions and climbing programs throughout Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia, with a particular focus on the Andes, Patagonia, and the Cordillera Huayhuash. His mountaineering experience includes numerous first ascents, second ascents, and the development of new alpine and ice climbing routes in Chile and Peru.

Diego is also one of the founders of the Portillo Ice Fest, South America’s first ice climbing festival and competition, which has been held annually in Portillo, Chile, for more than fourteen years and has become one of the most important ice climbing gatherings in the region.

Among his many climbing achievements, Diego has successfully summited Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas, via three different routes, including the Normal Route, Polish Glacier Route, and Polish Direct Route. In recognition of his contributions to Chilean mountaineering, he received the German Maccio Bertolotto Award in 2004, presented jointly by the Chilean Olympic Committee and the Chilean Mountaineering Federation.