Heavier Than I Expected

In Loving Memory of Elizabeth Jean Cummings

March 1, 1930 – September 23, 2012

As it slid out of the car, I felt the weight transfer to the four of us and felt a rush of panic. 

“Is everyone alright? You guys got it?” asked the man with sunglasses. Snippets of a horrific future flashed through my eyes. I stumbled and let my corner of the box crash to the Earth. I watched the roots and rocks wrangling up at my feet, trying to trip me and knock me off balance. I saw some tiny, tendon in my lower back in x-ray vision. I saw it snap.

“Actually, I think I ought to have a hand.” It was embarrassing, but better than the seemingly inevitable alternatives. Sunglasses nodded and hoisted the handle on the front and the five of us marched solemnly up the small grass hillock to a step which led to a set of rollers held by a metallic apparatus sitting over the grave. Being at the front, my corner was the first on the rollers, and thus my nightmare-parallel-universes disappeared with a sigh of relief. Sunglasses and his corpulent counterpart slid the coffin on to the rollers and the four of us grandchildren stood in a line, not sure what else to do.

I put my hands in the pockets of my black suit-coat and looked at the ground. I looked to my left and to my right and saw that my cousins had their hands crossed in front of them. I crossed my hands in front of me and went back to looking at the ground as the corpulent man cleared his throat and began to speak.



A week earlier, I was making the all-too-familiar drive between Tufts and Concord after a long day of class, practice, and meetings. Luckily, I didn't need to think about the drive itself. I let my mind wander to the events that now had me en route to my parents' home on a Thursday evening in September.

Like seemingly everything, it started with a phone call. But which phone call was the true catalyst? Was it the call I had received that day that my grandmother had stopped responding to human interaction? Had stopped eating and drinking? Was it the call to my Peruvian cell phone in the airport in Lima when my father told me that an MRI had shown my grandmother full of cancerous, irreparable tumors and was being moved into hospice care until “the end”? Or was it even earlier - was it last fall when my grandparents moved out of their house in rural New Hampshire and into assisted living to be closer to my mother and her brother? Or was it even longer ago than that? Was it the three, four, five years ago when my grandmother began to lose her memory to dementia?

Except for the medical definition of death, there seems to be no single event that tells us when a person is gone. Today, at least in the case of my grandmother, people seem to fade away more than pass away. And so, it's been difficult looking back at the last twenty-two years I've shared with my grandmother. It seems that her consciousness began to fade right as mine began to fully develop. Because of this poor timing, I'm not sure that either of us ever really got to know the other in the same way that I’ve grown to know my parents, brother, cousins, aunts, and uncles.

Now, I consider myself fundamentally a pragmatist. When my father's father passed away, after also suffering from dementia for many years, I remember having a similar feeling – the feeling that I had said “goodbye” long before, even if I hadn't known it at the time. I remember a particularly traumatic trip to visit him in his final weeks of life. I felt that the tiny, sunken man with the respirator couldn't possibly be the happy, goofy grandfather that I had known and loved since I was born. But then a nurse brought him to a piano and, though his fingers were too weak to press all of the keys with the same forte he had had as a young man, his hands still glided across the keyboard to produce a hauntingly beautiful melody. The soft, broken tune proved to me that, yes, this was him. Somewhere inside that unfamiliar frame was the person I knew and loved.

When I came back to the States from Peru, one of my first priorities was visiting my grandmother with my family. When I walked in, I wasn't sure if she would even recognize me, but not only could she identify me, she critiqued my scruffy curly hair and gross traveler's beard. A few minutes later she'd be confused and disoriented, but there were always moments when her smile or laugh would come out and the context of where we were and why we were there would disappear for just a second. But less than a month later, as I was driving home to Concord, I knew that this time, if I went to see her, there would be no laughter, no smiling, no heckling about girls or my (still) shaggy hair.

Still, they say that hearing is the last thing to go, so I felt it important to really say “goodbye.” I wrote some words down, which I read to her over the phone and would become the basis for the eulogy I would read the next week. I like to think that some part of her consciousness was still there, active and listening, even if her physical exterior was gone. I’d practiced the speech in my room, but as I sat in the back corner of the gym before cross country practice, hiding behind the pole-vault mats and old stationary bikes, I couldn't help choking up. This kind emotion is something you can't simulate. You can only learn to expect it.



The ripples of that goodbye ran through me as I walked across the gym to practice, as I ran a hard tempo run around fresh pond, as I tried to hold it together through a meeting with my senior thesis group, and as I finally glided through the dark along Route 2 towards Concord that night. As I approached the light at Walden Pond – a reassuring landmark that tells me I'm almost home – I see a flood of brake-lights. Cars peel around to the left and I suddenly understand why.

A big-antlered buck deer is lying in the road. He looks around, terrified and confused, lost. He tries to stand and make an escape, but his legs betray him. He slumps back down and looks around hopelessly for who knows what. He tries to stand and again his legs refuse to cooperate. He resigns to a dejected looking pile on the pavement.



The next call comes at 2am on Sunday. I'm sleeping at my parents' house, as I have been since the first call, mostly as a pretty face and moral support. No one else would call at this hour; even the telemarketers aren't that bold. This can only mean one thing. I hear my parents rustling around the house and when I see the hall light turned on, I know for sure.

It's a long day, but there's a brief calm before the storm. Monday comes and I'm designing molten oxide electrolysis reactors, building robots, and deriving the acoustic wave equation as if nothing has happened. By Wednesday, the calm is ending and, for the first time since my grandparents moved, I'm driving 80 miles-per-hour up 89N towards Canaan. It's hard not to feel excited, as this road led to family Thanksgiving festivities as a boy, to wild nights visiting my brother at Dartmouth as a teen. I put on an old mellow play-list: “I'd like to live beneath the dirt, where I’d be free from push and shove like others swarming up above. Beneath their heels I’ll spend my time.”

The song is one I stole from my brother's collection in high school – which I’d never admit to him. He arrives to the funeral home an hour or so after I do.

“Sup, Small-fry?” his affable greeting. “Good to see you.”

“Under better circumstances...” would become the apparent mantra of the next twenty-four hours.

The funeral home is small and filled with metal folding chairs all facing forward. It looks like the scene of a PTA meeting or undergraduate lecture, save the coffin sitting where one would might expect a table or projection screen.

The calling hours last from 4-6pm. The four of us grandsons sit in a row along a wall mostly as ornamentation while a few dozen, mostly elderly, acquaintances of my grandparents and parents come through. Some stop to shake out hands or introduce themselves. Most smile awkwardly and just walk by. We stand and sit in unison. By the end, we're pretty well coordinated.

A few minutes before 6pm, the minister walks to the alter. There are a few minutes of religion and he says a few words about my grandmother. Finally, it's time for the family member's eulogies. My mother and her brother agreed that they wouldn't be able to stand up in front of a crowded room and talk about their mother without falling apart, so the duties were passed on to the in-laws: my father and aunt. And me.

The adults go first. I honestly expect this to be fairly calm and manageable. I was a veteran at this point. I had read my speech before.

But, there's something contagious about grief. As I listen to my Aunt struggle to make it through her own beautifully crafted words, her tears, her choking up, reverberate off the fake wood paneling and hit me square in the chest. This is only amplified by my mother's own sobs, hitting me even more directly. I realize that as much as I loved my grandmother, the weight I'm feeling isn't entirely sadness for her. It's the sadness I feel seeing those I love in pain – my mothers sob's, my father's tight grip on her hand. And it's bigger than that too, it's unspoken implication of mortality, with everyone in the room taking it on in his own way. Those to whom my grandmother was a peer, may see her death as an implication of their own. Others may think of their own loved ones who may be slipping away. To me, I put myself in my parents' shoes. I think of how close we've come in the last 5 or 8 or 22 years and I think about a world without them. A world where my mother or father is lying in a box in a dimly-lit room filled with folding chairs and an uncomfortable assortment of people I kind of know. This is the most devastating world I can imagine and the weight of it all comes crashing down. By the time I stand up from the row of grandsons – alone this time – I feel the entire emotional weight of the room, of this world, and of everyone's own personal worlds, on my shoulders.

I unfold my words which suddenly feel insufficient and insignificant. Looking up at the crowd, I take a deep breath.



The next morning, I'm in new territory. I stand in the Canaan cemetery in a line with the other grandsons and stare at the headstone, my hands clasped in front of me, as the corpulent man clears his through and begins to speak. The day is beautiful: bright and crisp. Fall in New England. But all I feel is the weight of human emotion in the air. My rough-and-tough cousin stands next to me and I hear him sniffle and wipe a tear from his eye as he reads his beautifully appropriate last remarks. My mother is sobbing. My father is holding her. My usually-stoic grandfather stares at the ground, his red aviator sunglasses covering tearful eyes. I try not to fall apart. I look at the mechanism that holds the coffin over the grave and try to figure out how it's going to lower that box down. I don't see any moving parts. I don't see any coils of wire or detachable pieces. I keep looking. Investigating.

We stand as the man makes a few more remarks and asks the family members to take a rose from the bouquet which rests atop the coffin. My mother and her brother step up and the intensity floods back over all of us, over me. I look back at the mechanical design and keep trying to figure out how that apparatus could possibly lower that big heavy box the final few meters into the ground. But suddenly it's my own turn to stand in front of the coffin, say a prayer, and take a rose. I can't ignore the emotion any longer and let it wash over me like a pouring rain. I stand for a moment with my brother, quietly say the most appropriate prayer I can think of, and take a rose. I then turn around and join the rest of my family as we walk away together from the mound and the hillock and the crane system that I'll never understand.

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If you made it all the way through that, congratulations! and thanks for reading! I mostly wrote this as a way to get some of the things I've been thinking and dealing with for the last couple of weeks in a more organized form. I also recorded a cover of the song mentioned in this essay ("Dirt" by Phish) which I've also decided to share. Listen to it here: Dirt

For any audio-nerds out this: the track was recorded using Ableton Live 7 interfaced with a Presonus Firepod. All tracks were recorded separately using Shure SM57s in stereo and mixed and engineered in Ableton.

El Fin

Tomorrow, (Thursday, August 9th), Sam, Adam, and I will begin our long journey back to the muggy, oxygen-rich streets of New England. Our trip will take us from our current home in Pisaq to the mountain city of Cusco, to the grey, sprawling metropolis of Lima, back into the US of A at Miami, north to Boston, and finally back to Concord. If everything goes smoothly - which it hardly ever does - it should be a roughly 26 hour journey, getting us back in time for an early afternoon run on Friday.

Meanwhile, I´m trying to enjoy my last day and a half here in calm, little Pisaq. I only have a few meals and a few more runs before we leave, so I´m trying to make the best of them. In fact, this last whole week or so has been a lot of relaxing and just trying to enjoy the ambiance and atmosphere. Last Friday, I loaded up my 14 high-schoolers onto airplanes at the Cusco airport and bid farewell to another summer of working for Strive, and since then, I´ve been using this last week to sleep and rest and recover.

Strive was an amazing experience again. For those to whom I haven´t spoken about the program, I´ll give a quick summary.

Strive is an international service trip specifically designed for (high school) student athletes. The program was started with a trip to Iten, Kenya - the international hot-bed of elite, Kenyan distance runners. Because of the environment (both physical and cultural), the trip was first aimed at runners. The kids would run in the morning and afternoon and do some type of volunteer work during the day (building, painting, etc.). Finally, there was usually a tourism element which was tacked on at the end of the trip - a climb up Mt. Kenya, a safari through the African wild-lands, etc.

I heard about the program from a friend of mine on the Tufts cross country team, who had worked as a group leader in Kenya the year before. I thought it was a great idea from the start - I´d always loved traveling, but often found it tough to keep up with training while abroad. When he told me that there was going to be a new trip in Peru that year, I jumped at the opportunity and applied for the job. It just seemed too perfectly suited for me - travel in South America, training at high altitude, volunteer work, working with high school kids. It seemed to highlight all of the weird fringe skills I´d developed after a few years of running and spending my summers back-packing in South America.

So, we were the first Strive Peru group last year and it was a terrific experience for me (and the kids, I hope!) Our program was run similar to the Kenya trip, but slightly more organized and more of a focus on the service aspect. Our kids spend two weeks teaching classes in Peruvian schools (English, art, gym) before spending a few days hiking on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. We also have time to run/swim/work out in the mornings and afternoons on most days, so kids can keep up with their summer training for whatever sport they happen to be preparing for.

I had such a great time last year that I decided to recommit and head back down this summer. Part of the reason was that one of my co-workers, Nic, from last year, was also planning on returning. We had worked well together and had a great time and I really looked up to him as a mentor and inspiration.

I probably said the same thing last year, but Strive seems to be a self-selecting group of good kids. I think it takes a pretty good kid to sign up for a trip where you have to get up early to go running and teach little screaming Peruvian children all day. Nonetheless, we had 14 kids this year (aged 15 to 18) and they were all great. I love working with high schoolers because I feel that I´m just old enough to provide some sort of mentoring and insight for them, but I´m young enough that they can still relate to me almost as a peer. It makes for a fun trip for them and for me.

We had a great and sucessful trip - only a few minor sicknesses, no real problems. I was able to continue my own running at a very high level and hopefully inspire some of the youngsters in their own. Even the Inca Trail, which forced me to take a few days off from full training, was a beautiful trip and a great bonding time with the kids. It was hard not to tear up as I sent them all (along with Nic and our other leader, Lindsey) through security at the Cusco airport. It was a really great trip and I was only sad it went by so quickly.

If you want to see pictures from the trip, check out Strive´s facebook page, where I posted lots of photos and a couple videos: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Strive-Trips-Service-Travel-for-Student-Athletes/116256045062703


Now, comes the bittersweet ending to my time here. It´s always hard to say good-bye to South America, as it´s always hard to say good-bye to any happy, comfortable routine. That´s the bitter part. But, this year, I´m less intimidated by what´s to come. I´m looking forward to the school year, to running with the team again, to going to Nationals. I´m even looking forward to the stress of figuring out what the hell I´m going to do with my life in 10 months when I (hopefully) graduate from college. It´ll be different and it might be harder or less comfortable, but that´s okay. I´ll just try to enjoy the journey.

The Routine

A couple nights ago, Sam, Adam, and I made our way to the fair grounds on the outskirts of town. The festival of the Virgen del Carmen - the biggest holiday of the year in Pisaq - is July 15 to 18, and the festivities started with an animal market/drunken indigenous dance party from the 12th to 14th. We decided to check it out one night and see what all the noise was that we could hear from our home in the center of town.

Pisaq´s biggest week of the year!

The great tree in the center of town. Usually, the whole square is covered in market stalls, but it´s cleared out for the festival. 

  

Cuy - Guinnea pig - salesmen at the animal market

Award winning cuy!

How most of the people buy cuy - they´re taken away in burlap bags

Llama and sheep also for sale at the animal fair

The cows were also judged and given prizes.

The music stage and dance ground becomes packed with drunk locals at night

Sam and Adam wandering around the fairgrounds

It was surprisingly dark at the festival grounds. We had thought about getting dinner there, but decided against it when we realized we couldn´t see what we were eating. We came back after a dinner in town to find most of the county`s population crowded into the center area, in front of a large stage. On stage, a local band - two percussionists, a harp, a harmonica, a keyboardist, a guitarist, a couple singers, and two dancers dressed up in colorful indigenous attire - was playing through an impressively large sound system. We stood for a few minutes, but no one was dancing and the music was getting a bit tedious. After a quick walk-around, we decided it was a fun scene, but we were too tired tonight (a 21 mile long run that morning could have had something to do with it).

As we were about to leave, we ran into Sacarias - the 12 year old son of our hostel owner, who has become a cheeky companion of ours from time to time- along with a tall American fellow who had just checked into the hostel that evening. Sacarias had brought the tall guy - who we´ll call Dave because I can´t remember his name - out to the fair grounds to show him how the real gente de Pisaq  had a good time. He had told Dave to buy a 1.1L beer, which he was now carry around with a small plastic cup, looking lost.

When Sacarias saw us, the first thing he said was "Necesitamos mas vasos!" ("We need more cups!") He quickly ran off and returned with a handful of plastic cups into which Dave graciously poured glass after glass of tasteless, light, Peruvian cerveza. We stood and watched the music for a while, without conversing much - Sacarias had brought us to "the best spot," which happened to be right next to the huge speakers. We chuckled at the images of cholitas - indigenous women - often in their 60s, dancing to the lively music with huge glass beer bottles in their hands. One woman sported a 1.1L beer in her hand and had a baby in a blanket wrap on her back, dancing like there was no tomorrow.

After a few cups, we were able to get into the music a bit more and I started to feel the rhythm and dancing style that seemed to be universal. It was a high-kneed, skipping kind of dance, which involved a lot of hopping and lifting of the legs. After a few songs, I was totally exhausted. I looked at the others and they appeared similarly ready to leave, so I motioned to Sacarias and our unlikely band of trouble-makers headed out of the dark fairgrounds into the darker street and began the long walk back to the hostel.

On the way back, Dave began to ask us the usual questions that tourists ask other tourists in Pisaq:

"Have you guys been up to the ruins yet? Have you seen much more of the Sacred Valley? Have you been to Machu Picchu?"

(No, no, and no)

He seemed perplexed when we explained that we'd been here for several weeks, but hadn't done any of the things that appeared to be on his check-list. Finally, we realized that there was a piece of the puzzle he was missing.

"Yeah, we're just tired today because we did a long run this morning," Sam mentioned, off-handedly, "We're really here mostly to train."

This seemed to resonate a lot more with our new friend and it seemed to finally click why we've been here for so long without actually doing anything. 


"So, what does the typical day look like for you guys?" he asked.

It´s now been over three weeks that we´ve been in Pisaq and we´re settling into quite a lovely routine. There are few times or places where a runner really gets plan his day around nothing but running. Maybe during early return or pre-season camp, but even then, there always seem to be distractions. The last few weeks have really been pretty idyllic in terms of running and training. Our days look something like this.


We wake up after 10+ hours of sleep, generally around 7am, and head out for an easy morning run of about 5 miles. On the way back, I stop at a local store (where the clerk now has my order ready) and pick up two pieces of bread and two bananas for 90 centimos (about USD$0.30). I jog back to the house, and we eat breakfast in the patio. By now the sun has risen over the mountains and the patio is bathed in warm light. We mingle over our breakfast and boil up a kettle of tea, which we sip slowly until the entire kettle is gone. 

The sun peaking over the hills and heating up the courtyard in the morning

We then generally head to the internet cafe in town (locally referred to as "going to the internet"), where we can check email, communicate with my Strive bosses, look up senior thesis research materials, or generally waste time online if that's what's on the docket for the day. From there, it's back to the hostel for a morning of reading in the sunny courtyard until 12pm.

The courtyard, ready for a morning of reading in the sun.

Lunch has generally been at the same place (dubbed "the lunch restaurant"), but we've recently begun eating our lunches at the same place we eat dinner ("the dinner restaurant"), because of greater variety and friendlier staff. For 3.5 soles (about USD$1.30), we get a large, hearty bowl of soup, a main plate, generally of rice, potato, and some kind of meat, and a jar of chica morada - a sweet drink made from purple corn. We generally have some chicken bones and scraps left over, which we bring home for our newly adopted cat, Lucita.

Sam and our adopted cat, Lucita

After lunch, we have a couple hours until our next run. If I have more work to do for Strive, I generally do it then. Otherwise, I like to read and sometimes take a nap if it's a particularly taxing day of training.

Adam reading in the shade of the courtyard

At 3pm, we head out for our main run of the day. The standard run has become a 10 mile out and back run along the dirt road along the river, which ends at the track on the outskirts of town. At the track, we generally do some strides (long, relaxed sprints to work on form and turnover), along with some core work or push ups. Finally, we run the last mile back into town as a cool-down. It ends up taking over two hours, and the total mileage will be anywhere from 10 to 15 miles.

We do some stretching and shower (sometimes...) and then - everyone's favorite time of day - snack time! Back in town, we stop at the bakery and get empanadas (a South American specialty - a doughy pastry filled with chicken, meat, or cheese) or sometimes just some bread and bananas. At first, we would sit in an upscale touristy cafe called Ulrike's, but we were kicked out after they realized that we came every day with our own food and never bought anything and were just using their wifi. Now, we generally just go home and snack and shoot-the-shit for an hour or so.

My personally adopted favorite street dog - Phaedrus 

6:30pm marks the second best time of day - dinner time! We head down to the dinner restaurant where, for 3.5 soles again, we get a similar meal to lunch. On the way home, we stop at the bakery and grab dessert.

Sofi´s, the bakery we frequent for bread, snack time, and dessert

Back at the hostel, we generally sit up in the little table outside Adam's room and play 10,000 (a dice game which Sam claims his grandmother invented) and chat for an hour or so. By 8:15pm or so, everyone is generally starting to get tired and it's time to call it a day. Another half hour or so of reading before bed is usually in order, but I never have trouble falling asleep.

And then rinse and repeat.

A break from the routine: a night on the town in Cusco!

Adam and Tyler squeezed in the back of a tiny Cusco taxi

A Peruvian Nirvana cover band was surprisingly awesome

Sam and Adam enjoying "the best mojito in the universe" at 7 Angelitos in Cusco - a welcome break from the (wonderful) daily grind.

It's a pretty great schedule and it's only with a touch of nostalgia that I now write this. As much as routines are lovely and relaxing, in general, they all must come to an end. And so, here I am, not in Pisaq, but in Lima (of all places). I've left Sam and Adam to fend for themselves for a few days while I flew across the country to meet up with Nic and Lindsey - my fellow "group leaders" for Strive. In just a few short hours, 14 American high schoolers are going to step off the plane at the Lima International Airport, looking like lost little animals, and become our disciples for the next few weeks. It's our responsibility to turn these youngsters into the best, most helpful, happiest English teachers we can (while keeping them safe and healthy in the process).

Peruvian students at La Merced de Calca, the school where we´ll be working

Last year, working with for Strive was one of the best experiences I've had - though, it was a far-cry from the relaxed few weeks I just spent training in Pisaq. As much as I was happy in that loop and sad to see it end (for now), I can't wait to see what I can learn about all these kids and about myself as we spend the next three weeks together. It will be a whirl-wind time, but I know in the end, it'll be worth it.

Breath-taking Part IV: ¡Hasta la cumbre! (To the summit!)

After a relatively sedentary trip through the salt flats, with a few too many hours spent sitting in jeeps and buses, we were ready to tackle the last of our big Bolivian trips - a climb up a big, glaciated mountain. I'd been thinking about this for a while and had placed it at the end of our travels mostly for the reason that it'd give us the most time to get used to the high altitude before attempting the actual summit. Still, we were huffing and puffing just walking around La Paz - a city built in a steep valley, so it almost constantly feels like you're climbing up a steep, cliff like street, or falling down another. I was a bit nervous about our climb, but given that we still felt fairly fit and we'd been at altitudes of 10,000 ft or so for about a month, I felt like we'd probably be okay.

The Andes piercing the cloud cover rolling in from the jungle to the east

 Originally, the plan had been to tackle two mountains, as I've done in years past. The first would be a smaller, easier peak of 18-20,000 ft, which would allow us to get used to that very high altitude and get reaquainted (or introduced in Sam's case) to climbing on snow and ice. The first mountain, I figured we could climb without a guide. At this point, I have a fair amount of experience climbing high peaks in the Andes and felt confident that this mountain was straight forward enough that I could get myself and Sam to the top without any serious problems. For the second mountain, I wanted to try something challenging, something bigger and more technical where a guide would probably be needed.

It turned out that after four weeks of traveling and not running, Sam and I were feeling antsy to settle down and start our summer training. Climbing both mountains would end up taking 5 to 7 days in total and, especially with a guide for the second mountain, would cost a fairly pretty penny. Especially with Sam just seeming to be getting over his stomach bug, we decided not to push it (quite a decision for us, I know...) and just go for the one, smaller mountain which we could climb independently.

The mountain we decided upon is called Huayna Potosi. Located 25km outside of the city center and just over that magical 6000m, 20,000 ft barrier, it attracts a lot of climbers, many of them tourists who have little to no mountaineering experience. This seemed like a good mountain for us to attempt for a few reasons. First, being Sam's first climb, it was a very technically simple climb. From what we'd researched, the climb was mostly just a long hike over snow, with no vertically challenging or dangerous elements. Also, since it was such a popular mountain, there were guided tour groups heading up every night, which meant the trail would be clear and easy to follow. Finally, being close to the city, we'd be able to tackle the summit in only two days, and with a refugio - a high mountain hut with cots and stoves - we wouldn't need to carry any camping gear. It seemed like the perfect mountain for us.

Huayna Potosì from the road out of El Alto 

When we got back from Uyuni, we checked out a nifty little website called MountainWeather.com, which gives the predicted forecasts at various altitudes for mountains all over the world, including Huayna Potosi. We had hoped to have a day or two rest in La Paz, but it looked like the weather was getting much worse (very high winds predicted) as the week progressed, so we decided to take just a one day turnaround and leave on that Monday.

We spent the day gathering supplies for the climb. Luckily, we had prepared most of the gear we needed to rent the week before from our friend Cristian at an agency called Andean Base Camp. He had been unbelievably helpful in our planning of this climb as well as our trip on the Choro Trail and was an all around great guy. He never seemed to stear us wrong, be it with what gear to bring, what campsite to stay at, or even where to eat lunch. He was just one of those great, truly helpful people.

Anyways, Cristian decked us out in everything we needed: crampons, snow pants, mittons, ice axes, helmets, sleeping bags, rope, harnesses, etc. Moreover, he also told us where we could cheaply buy things like down jackets and face masks - saving us money and losing him money in the process. Again, definitely a guy that just wants to help.

Packing up our fully loaded packs at the trail-head

With all our gear, we picked up some food, mostly bread, manjar, some fruit, etc. We spent the rest of the day resting and got a good night sleep, knowing that the following day would be a long one.

We woke up fairly early on Monday morning and headed to Cristian´s to pick up our gear. While we were in the shop, there also happened to be a taxi driver returning from picking someone else up from the mountain who offered to drive us there. The price seemed like a lot, but given that it was a two hour drive over difficult roads and he most likely wouldn´t get a return fare, we figured it was just. We loaded our now bursting and heavy packs into the trunk of the cab and we were off.

About ten minutes down the road, Sam had a lucky moment where he realized that we had never tried on or packed our crampons. Without these, we never would have gotten past base camp, so it was a great stroke of fortune that we remember this early. Finally, now with fitted crampons, we made a second take and headed up, up, up out of the city.

The drive took us out of La Paz and into the major suburb of the city, El Alto (literally, ¨the high place¨). El Alto appropriately sits on the plateau overlooking the valley where La Paz sits nestled under the imposing massif of Illimani, a 21,000 ft dormant volcano. The town is huge and sprawling, but markedly less developed than La Paz. The houses are mostly made of mud and brick, many lacking basic ammenities like windows or electricity. It´s a place that most tourists never visit, so it was interesting to be able to see what it was like, even if we were only passing through in transit.

We were delayed by a huge market day that had seemed to take over the street we were trying to navigate, but finally made our way to the other side of town. All of a sudden, the houses abruptly stop and the road is left surrounded by the scrubby, high alpine grass of the altiplano. The road snaked up towards the snow-capped nevados which were beginning to poke over the horizon. As we continued up through the grasslands, the road deteriorated, going from pavement, to cobble stones, to a simple dirt path. We passed small farmhouses with herds of llama and alpaca and sheep before finally coming to a ridge where our cab driver pointed to a daunting snow-covered pyramid ahead of us.

¨Alla está Huayna,¨ he said. ¨There´s Huayna.¨

The road then dropped into the valley in front of the mountain and we skirted the side of a spectacularly blue lake and up a precipitously, breath-taking ridge. We passed a cemetery, which our driver told us was full of men who had died in mining accidents. A few minutes later we passed a town which looked right out of the wild west. Rusted corrugated steel roofs covered dilapated buildings which sat along empty streets. Giant oxidized mining machines sat seemingly unused for decades. It seemed suddenly clear why there were so many protests in the Andean nations about mining conditions.

The miners´ graveyard with Huayna in the background

After a long, hot, bumpy ride, we finally arrived at the trail head at about 4000m above sea level. We unloaded our gear and negotiated for our cab driver to meet us there the following day at about noon. It was now about 1pm. We had less than 24 hours to climb and descend a vertical mile and a half over rock, ice, and snow. After a quick snack, we were off.

Getting ready to head off from the trail-head

The hike to base camps are often surprisingly difficult. Despite being well-rested, well-fed, and full of energy to start the trip, this is the time when the packs are at their fullest and the weight can be challenging and cumbersome. This particular hike was no exception. With the mid-day sun out, we were sweating within a few minutes of starting and were reduced to pants and t-shirts, leaving the rest of our heavy, snow-climbing gear on our backs. Between that and a few thousand calories worth of food, we were really feeling the weight.

Luckily, the path was clear and the terrain was fairly easy for the first hour or so. We climbed gradually through a boulder field and up to a ridge where we then descended into the valley formed by the enormous glacier slowly sliding off the side of the mountain. We dropped into the carved out valley, crossed a few small glacial streams, and then began the long climb up towards the refugio, where we would be stopping.

Sam with on the hike up to base camp, the glacial valley in the background

We climbed up a short, steep face onto a long ridge which led up to the side of the mountain. Following this, we could see a trail of switch-backs leading up a steep rock wall towards the snow line. We knew that the refugio was very close to the glacier line, so we figured we must be pretty close. We stopped for a quick snack and rest before starting up what we figured was the final few hundred meters of ascent.

The narrow ridge before the switch-backs. The refugio is on top of the ridge in  the top right.

The trail here became very tough. We were climbing steeply up towards the snow-line and were beginning to feel the effects of the high altitude coupled with exhaustion from a few hours of carrying heavy packs over difficult terrain. As we got higher, the path became dotted with patches of snow and the going became much slower. The snow made the rocky path wet and treacherous, as we now had to carefully place our weight on each step so as not to slip and fall down the several hundred meter cliff face. It was tiring, but we could see people on a ridge above us, and figured that must be where we were going.

As we continued up, the snow became more and more prevalent. Suddenly, instead of rocks with patches of snow, we were walking on snow with patches of rocks. The snow was hard and icy and our trekking boots were continuously slipping, failing to get any traction on the hard surface. I considered putting on our crampons and roping up, but we could see the refugio only 100 feet or so above us, and it seemed crazy to change boots and all just for these last few minutes. We managed to leap-frog from rock to rock and use our ice axes as added traction and finally found ourselves at the top of the ice face, finally on flat ground. The refugio was right in front of us and we were happy to sit down, take of our packs, and breathe a welcome sigh of relief.

Finally made it. 5130m above sea level.

Sam taking a breather just below the refugio. The terrain was tough.

It had only taken a few hours, but the toll had been greater than either of us had expected. It was probably about 5pm, which gave us about 8 hours to rest, practice some basic snow travel, eat, get some sleep, wake up, and head off for the summit at 1am. Like all other glacial climbs that I´d undertaken, the typical way that expeditions reached the summit of Huayna Potosi was to leave in the VERY early morning (between midnight and 2am, generally), climb up in the dark, and arrive at the summit around sunrise. The reason for this style of climbing is that the snow on the glacier becomes much harder at night and is much easier and less draining to walk on. During the day, the top layer of the snow can melt from the strong sun, creating a wet, soggy mess, which can be akin to walking through sand. Moreover, if there are sections of loose snow or snow-bridges over  grietas - crevasses - these can become too soft to cross during the hot, mid-day sun. Despite the pain of waking up in the middle of the night, it ends up being easier and safer, so this has become the norm for these types of climbs.

After a brief rest at the refugio, we put on our boots, crampons, and harnesses and headed out to the glacier for a bit of practice before it got dark. One of the great things about this refugio was that it was literally just a few meters from the edge of the glacier. Usually, base camp sites are an hour or so´s walk to the edge of the glacier. This can be frustrating because the big mountaineering boots are generally not great at navigating the rocky boulder fields which are usually right below the glacier line. Luckily, here, we only had to walk out the door of the refugio and put on our crampons.

Looking up the glacier at the setting sun

Sam took to the glacier fine and we only spent a few minutes going over basic walking techniques and some safety guidelines. The snow was hard and the trail seemed very clear, so it seemed like everything was conspiring in our favor. The skies were clear and not too windy and the temperature was still reasonable, despite the setting sun. It seemed like a good night for a climb.

We made our way back to the refugio and made up a quick dinner before going to bed. The high altitude (the refugio sat at 5130m above sea level) killed our appetites a bit, but we forced ourselves to try to eat as much as we could, since we knew that we´d need it for the hours ahead. We got our gear laid out so that all we had to do was get up and get dressed and have some breakfast in the morning. We chatted a bit with the other guides and climbers - there were probably about a dozen other people there with us - and decided on a time to set off. We figured we´d let the guided groups go first so we could follow the light of their head-lamps if we ever couldn´t follow the route. Finally, we cralwed into our sleeping-bags on our cots and tried to get some rest.

A simple dinner and some relaxing before a long night on the mountain

The surrounding mountains being cast into shadow as the sun set over Huayna

The few hours we spent trying to sleep were pretty brutal. We were so high up and there was so little oxygen in the air that I simply couldn´t sleep. I´d camped high before, but never above 5000m. Here at 5130m, I counted my resting heart rate at over 100 BPM (usually in the 40s, even at altitude) as I was trying to fall asleep. I would feel my breathing begin to calm and as I would start to drift off to sleep, I suddenly found myself gasping for air and wide awake again.

I don´t think I got any real sleep, but I was able to rest finally for a couple of hours. Around midnight, we started to hear a lot of movement as the other groups began to stir. I stayed in the warm down comfort of my sleeping bag for a while longer and finally decided to get up and start getting ready a bit before 1am.

I was a bit concerned as I headed outside. As I´d been sleeplessly lying in my cot, I had heard the wind whipping and screaming through the corrugated steel roof of the hut. Afraid that I´d be greeted with similar winds to last year´s climb up Cotopaxi in Ecuador (where we were forced to turn back due to 100mph winds), I stepped out into the cool night with trepidation.

Luckily, I was actually met with fairly calm winds, clear skies, and moderate temperatures. The wind had either died down or its sound had simply been amplified by the loose roof right above us. I talked to a few of the guides, who had been very friendly with us the night before, and got some more info on the route. Apparently, it was a very simple and easy to follow trail because of how much traffic the peak saw, just as I had expected. He told us that, technically, the climb was simple: just a long walk until the final summit ridge, which was a fairly exposed and narrow climb for the final 200m vertical meters or so. No surprises.

Sam getting ready to go

The guides were also nice enough to let us use their stoves to melt some snow so that we could have some hot coffee and some drinking water for the climb. Our friend Cristian back in La Paz had told us that we wouldn´t need a stove, that there were always stoves you could use (usually for a small fee) at the refugio. These guys were nice enough that they let us use their gear for free, though, so we had a nice breakfast of bread, chocolates, and hot coffee. We were the last party to leave, but we met our 2am planned departure. With our harnesses on and a short length of rope between the two of us, we made the quick walk to the edge of the glacier where we put on our crampons and stepped onto the glacier.

The climb itself was supposed to take 4 to 7 hours. We figured that since we were already pretty well acclimatized and since we were fairly fit, we should be close to that 4 hour mark. So, as we left and the headlamps of the other groups seemed impossibly far in front of us, I wasn´t particularly worried. The trail was very clear and easy to follow, as promised, and we made consistent and good time.

The weather was near perfect. There was no wind whatsoever, the skies were beautifully clear, with the stars brightened by a new moon, and the temperatures were remarkably comfortable. Within an hour, I had stripped off my parka and other warm layers and was walking in just my snowpants and a t-shirt and fleece. We joked that we were warmer here than in our hostel in La Paz, which was notoriously dark and cool. Spirits were high as we continued climbing through the pitch black night.

Eventually, the headlamps up ahead became closer and closer and we began to pass the groups which had left ahead of us. The altitude didn´t seem to be bothering us and our appetites were still quelled enough that we only stopped a few times for water, so we made good time. The walk was mostly a gradual uphill climb, with the occasional traverse across a flat section of glacier. In those first few hours, we only encountered one relatively steep section, which required use of the piolet - ice ax - and front points of the crampons. Otherwise, it was smooth sailing.

Within a couple of hours, we had passed all of the other groups and were the first ones heading up the trail. It was still clear from the continuous daily traffic, but I would have been happier if there were still guided groups in front of us. But the trail was so obvious and clear and I wasn´t too concerned. We soldiered onwards.

As we got higher and higher, the altitude began to take its toll. Around 5am, still pitch black, the going got particularly tough. We got into a very slow rhythm of step, step, step, step, pant, pant, pant, pant. We were moving at a snail`s pace, but the groups behind us were still out of sight.

Altitude can have interesting effects on the brain as well as the body. One thing I´ve experienced a few times when climbing at very high altitudes is a sort of borderline hallucination where my brain starts to recognize shapes in the ice flows and windswept surface of the glacier. I specifically remember when climbing Chimborazo – the tallest mountain in Ecuador – seeing huge pillars of ice near the summit and seeing carved faces and statues in them. In retrospect, it seems silly, but at the time I really couldn´t decide if these were carved totem poles or if they were just random ice flows.

The long path was hidden in the darkness of the night.

As we approached the summit ridge, I began to see shapes in the surface of the glacier. Everywhere I looked, the chaotic pattern of ice and snow was forming into faces. I was tired, physically, but felt perfectly aware and alert other than this. It was an odd sensation, though, so we stopped for a few minutes of rest.

Here, we had the only minor problem of the climb thus far. I had taken off my large mittens so I could negotiate the zippers of my pack to get at my water and some chocolates. As I stood with my mittens stashed between my knees, as usual, a gust of wind picked up and suddenly one of my mittens was sliding down the face at an alarming rate. It happened way too fast to try to grab it and, though I could see it maybe a hundred feet down, it was still too dark to see what the snow was like down there. It wasn´t my mitten and I wasn´t psyched about the idea of having to buy a new one, but it wasn´t worth falling into a crevasse or off a cliff´s edge just to get it.

The good news was that I still had my gloves which I was wearing under the big mittens. The air was still surprisingly warm and I felt that if we kept moving, I´d be able to make it up with just one mitten and the gloves on the other hand. Moreover, we could see the mitten sitting right below the trail, so I figured we could ask one of the guides if this snow was safe and grab it on the way down. It wasn´t an ideal situation, but it seemed reasonable. We were on our way again.

The climbing – really just walking, still - continued to be a tough slog. I hadn´t looked at my watch, but it was still pitch black out, so I figured we must still have a long way to go. It was getting a bit colder too, as we got higher, and I had to blow hot air on my right hand every minute or so to keep the feeling in it.

To both of our surprise, the path quickly steepened and suddenly we found ourselves on the top of a razor-thin ridge. As we crested the ridge and exposed ourselves to the eastern face of the mountain, we were buffeted with an enormously powerful wind, which nearly blew us off of the face right there. It was an intense wake-up after slogging up the gradual, gentle uphill through the calm air for the last 4 hours and really got our adrenaline flowing again.

I was a bit concerned as I didn´t see where the trail went from where we were, but I figured this must be the summit ridge that people were talking about. It had been called narrow and exposed, which it certainly was, so this must be it and we must almost be there.

As I shined my headlamp farther up the ridge, I thought I could see the trail up ahead. All that lay between us and the trail was a section of VERY thin, rocky ice. I assumed that this was it and made my way from the sturdy ledge where we had stopped out onto the thin, exposed, windy ridge.

Right away, I was having thoughts that this might not be the right idea. I first had to traverse around the ridge and was then faced with a 15 foot nearly vertical climb up a wall of ice. I couldn´t help but look down and saw that we were now climbing on the exposed Eastern face of the mountain, with nothing but the one point of my piolet and the four points on the front of my crampons keeping me from falling 1000m down into the blackness below. I got myself to just focus on the task at hand: thwacking my piolet into the snow and ice, making sure it was stable and secure, and then moving my feet up, one by one, inching my way up the face.

Finally, I reached the top of the paredcita – little cliff. Much to my dismay, we were not at the path I had seen before going up the ridge, but were sitting atop an extremely narrow and unstable ridge or rock and snow. I could see the path up ahead, probably only 10 or 15 meters away, but between my spot and there was only more of the same unstable ridge.

As I looked down, I could see where we had gone wrong. A set of steep steps had been carved into the ice which were now obvious when seen from above. We had passed by these in the dark and ended up on the wrong side of the ridge. As I sat straddling the unstable 6 inch ridge, with Sam dangling below me, still hanging from his crampon points on the ice, I realized we had to make a decision. Either we had to try to get across this ridge and back to the path, or we had to descend back down the exposed ice cliff and retrace our steps until we were back on the real trail.

I looked at both options, and as much as I didn´t want to descend back down that exposed face, the ridge in front of us just looked too unstable and dangerous. I knew I had to make a decision quickly, since our current predicament did not feel particularly secure. I decided we should retreat.

Descending back down the cliff was a bit hair-raising, knowing that there was nothing under us but 1000m of ice. I let Sam go first, doing my best to secure myself and belay him down with the short length of rope we had. After a few hair-raising meters, we finally traversed back to the other side of the ridge, where we were sheltered once again from the wind and could catch our breaths and relax, on solid ground once again.

By this time, a few of the other groups had caught up to us, so it was obvious where we were headed. The summit looked so close and light was beginning to peak over the mountains to the east. We were so pumped full of adrenaline from our mis-adventure on the ridge that the altitude didn’t seem to matter anymore. I didn´t feel tired or exhausted, I just wanted to keep going.

We climbed up the steep steps that we had seen from above and finally found ourselves on the right side of the ridge. We were still pummeled by the wind, but at least now we were on the right path. The trail was still unbelievably narrow with a steep, enormous drop off on either side, but the summit was in sight. We carefully made our way up, using our ice axes for added balance and security. I was only looking at the meter or so in front of me, and so I was surprised when we finally reached the summit and there was nowhere else to go up.

Tyler relaxing on the summit after an adrenaline-filled last hour

We sat down on the small summit, high-fived some of the other climbers and guides and watched the beautiful sunrise over the stunning Cordillera Real. Huge, jagged, snow-capped nevados were illuminated all around us. We could see the sprawling metropolis of El Alto far below us and even bits of La Paz in the valley below. Far to the south, we could make out Sajama, Bolivia´s highest mountain, hundreds of kilometers to the South. Closer to us, the towering massif of Illimani which stands guard over La Paz, was lit up in the morning sun.

Sunrise on the summit. Clouds over the jungle to the east.

We tried to take a few photos, but had trouble. The cold on the summit had killed both of our lithium batteries. We could get a few minutes of use by blowing hot air on them, but unfortunately, we didn´t get too many pictures from the very high ridge and summit. Similarly, our camel-back straws had frozen solid, so we were unable to drink any water. We decided we´d better get back down to where it was warmer. We only had about 5 hours until we were supposed to meet our friend, the taxista, back at the trailhead.

Sam sitting on the summit ridge. The super-narrow ridge can be seen behind him.

Sam on the summit

The descent was much simpler and quite lovely. The ridge was tricky again (and almost scarier in the light of day), but we managed to get down to the main trail without any trouble. From there it was just a long, gradual walk down the glacier back to the refugio.

It´s always nice descending after a night-time summit because of all of the enormous crevasses and ice formations which suddenly become visible. Huge bowls, fields of crevasses, and giant icicles surrounded us in a huge snowy expanse.

Ice formations on the way down

As we made our way down the trail, we saw the spot where my mitten had fallen and decided to go down the trail a bit, where we could see a group of French climbers with a guide, and ask if it would be safe to go get it. The guide said that it was fine, that the glacier was solid and not crevassed in that section, so we made our way back up the trail to where we could build an anchor and I could repel into the gully to fetch it.

Sam, a bit exhausted, sat down in the center of the trail while I tied him into an anchor and gave myself about 20m of rope to descend with. He belayed me down the steep face of the snow-bowl and I made my way to where my mitten had sat alone for the last few hours. We had no problems, but it had taken a while to set up the anchor and belay, so we were a bit behind all the other groups now.

The long walk down the glacier. The road and refugio still hidden from view.

Walking down the glacier. Illimani towers over La Paz in the background

We made decent time for the rest of the descent, though. The scenery and views were spectacular in the early morning sun and the air had become a pleasantly warm temperature. After a few hours of down climbing, we finally reached the last face and walked down to the edge of the glacier, where we sat down on the rocks next to the refugio and took off our crampons and breathed a long sigh of relief.

We took a quick rest inside. It had taken us longer than we´d planned to get down because of the mitten rescue mission, though, so we didn´t take too long. After a bit of food and re-loading all of the gear into our packs, we were on our way down to the road.

The initial descent was actually very tough. I had opted to wear my big boots and crampons for this first part, since it had been so snowy and icy on the way up, but the going was still tough. The snow and ice were mixed in among rocks, so the crampons kept sliding and catching rock. It was frustrating and tough and I was exhausted from being awake for 30 hours and spending a great deal of them climbing.

We managed to make it down that steepest part of the trail and so the last hour or so was much easier. The trail was just a dirt path through the glacial valley and we made it down and out without incident. The wind which we´d felt on the summit ridge seemed to have increased and come down the mountain though, because we were nearly blown over several times in this last section of the hike. I was glad we were almost done and not just starting out. It looked like conditions were going to deteriorate a lot over the coming hours and days. We´d gotten pretty lucky.

As the road came into view, we saw our buddy waiting for us. It was just after 12pm, so we were just on time by Peruvian standards. He helped us load our big packs into the cab and we grabbed some food out of them and crawled into back seats for the two hour journey back to La Paz. I was glad we´d both seen the scenery on the way out, because I think we were both asleep as soon as the engine started.