Last night, I got back from seven days of climbing in the mountains of the Codillera Blanca just outside of Huaraz, Peru. I´ve now left Huaraz and am currently sitting in Lima, waiting for a connecting bus to the Southern part of the country. In the mean time, I´ll try to give a brief recap of the last week.
When I got back from Huayhuash, I knew that I wanted to tackle a climb. All along, I had been thinking of the trek through Huayhuash not only as an amazing experience in itself, but also as a source of acclimitisation for a bigger, taller climb once I returned to the city. I took a couple days of rest after what was a quite strenuous 10 days or so and during that time, I began to look into my options for a summit or two.
I began talking with a few tour agencies, but most were willing to tell you just about anything to get you to put down a deposit. I didn´t have a good sense of which mountains were appropriate for my ability and experience, since many of the mountains in the area are far more technical than the mountains I´ve climbed in the past. This means steeper slopes and more dangerous ascents with more skills required, as opposed to simply just walking up a mountain side (more or less, the difference between hiking and climbing). In the past, most of the mountains I had summited had been more like hikes; this time, I wanted to try a real climb.
I had made friends with a couple of very experienced climbers and asked their opinion on the subject. They told me that with my fitness and experience, I ought to be able to tackle one of the more technical peaks in the area, as long as I was accompanied by someone with plenty of experience and knowledge. And so, after an hour or so of knowing these folks in a coffee shop, I was invited to join them on their 7 day summit attempt of 20,817´Chopicalqui.
Unfortunately, the day before we were supposed to leave, Janice, one of the aforementioned climbers, got a bad case of food poisoning and the trip had to be canceled. This left me at a bit of a loss. I decided to do a smaller, two-day climb with some friends who weren´t as experienced. With the three of us, we were able to go through an agency with a guide and it was still quite cheap.
Sunrise from the summit of Vallunaraju - 18,963´
We left for Vallunaraju (18,963´) on Monday morning from Huaraz. My friends - Andre and Robby - had never climbed on a glacier before, so it was to be an exciting day for them. We drove out to the trailhead about an hour outside of the city with our guide, Roger. Roger didn´t speak much English and Robby and Andre didn´t speak much Spanish, so I ended up serving as the translator for the trip - a job which had me spending a lot of time with Roger.
Robby and I loaded up with gear for basecamp
We hiked up a steep trail from the road where we were left up to the base camp for the climb. There, we set up our tent and had an early dinner before the sun set. I spent most of the afternoon talking with Roger, who seemed a bit lonely as the other two chattered away in English. We got along quite well and I asked him about working with him directly, instead of going through an agency. He said he´d actually prefer this, so it was a win-win for both of us - I´d pay less and he´d earn more. He had said we should see how I felt after Vallunaraju and we could see what to tackle next.
The moon over base camp
Our alarms were set for 2:00am, when we would wake, don our warm summit clothes, thick boots and crampons, and begin the long trek to the summit. On glaciated peaks ike these, the summit bids are almost always made at night when the snow is harder. This makes the travel safer and less draining. It also generally provides for a summit right around sunrise, which can be quite spectacular.
The weather was perfect as we headed out. Not too cold, no wind, and perfectly clear skies. The moon was almost full, so we barely needed our headlamps. We walked about 15 minutes from base camp before reaching the edge of the glacier and putting on our crampons. It took us nearly an hour to get our gear on and roped up before we could leave. Robby´s boots were old and worn and his crampons had a very tough time staying on. It ended up being quite lucky that I had a length of very strong twine in my bag which we ended up needing to secure the crampon to his boot. Without it, we probably wouldn´t have made it very far. Rented gear...
A quick rest on the slopes, Robby´s twine-crampon visible on the right
From the glacier edge, Roger told us it was about 4 hours to the summit. We made great time, however, passing all of the other groups who had passed us as Robby had struggle with his gear, and arrived at the summit ridge just as the sun was peaking up over the mountains around us. There was one paredcita (a tiny cliff) just under the summit ridge, which served as the crux of the climb. From there, it was a simple walk up a razor sharp ridge to the wide, flat summit at 18,963 feet.
The sharp ridge leading up to the summit, with the paredcita visible in the background
From the summit, we had amazingly clear views of the rest of the Cordillera Blanca to the North and South and the Codillera Negra to the west. We sat up there for a while, just admiring the view and the perfect day. As I stood up on the summit, almost 19,000 feet up, I realized that the climb had been quite easy for me. The others mentioned how hard they were breathing and how thin the air had felt, but I honestly hadn´t felt the altitude at all.
Robby, Andre, and I atop Vallanuarju with Huascaran and the rest of the Cordillera Blanca in the background
Once we had descended back to base camp, I spent a while more talking with Roger. He thought that I was ready to tackle the higher and more technical Chopicalqui (20,817´). I explained to him that I had no real experience with vertical ice and snow climbing, but he assured me that with my fitness and my acclimitisation, I would be able to handle it. I liked Roger a lot and he was a bit older (at 51) than mountain guides I had climbed with in the past, so I trusted him not to take overly risky or impusilve decisions. So, I agreed and we decided we would leave the following morning for a five day summit attempt of Chopicalqui.
Roger and I enjoying the view, already gearing up for the next summit
To be continued...
PS - For full photos from these two climbs,
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