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. 

Breath-taking Part 3: South by Southwest - Through the Salt Flats and Southern Wastelands

It was a quick turnaround from our fairly exhausting two-day, 50km trek through the mountains and jungle near La Paz to our next trip to the South of Bolivia. We managed to make our way back to La Paz before midnight on Tuesday and we had to catch a train leaving the town of Oruro, about two hours south of the city, at 7pm on Wednesday. We were thankful to be able to get a good night sleep in a real bed and we figured we would have most of the day in La Paz to rest, get some good food, and return the camping gear we had rented for the trek.

The jeep would become our second home for the next three days - representing TUXC

As it would be, as we left the hostel to go return our tent et al after a great, restful sleep, the receptionist in our hotel told us that we ought to leave right now if we wanted to catch our train. Unclear of why we would need to leave so early, she explained that the news had said that mining protestors were planning to create a roadblock - a common, but unfortunate form of protest in South America - on the road between La Paz and Oruro. And, being Bolivia, there was no alternate route to the city. She said it may already be too late, but if we hurried we might make it.

So, we made our way to the center of town to return our stuff as quickly as possible, packed our things up at the hostel, and caught the first taxi we could find to the bus station. We got there around noon and found one company that would sell us a ticket for the 2pm bus to Oruro, swearing to us that it was actually going to leave.

In the mean time, we relaxed in the station, got some food, and as the 2pm departure time approached, we made our way back towards the office that had sold us the tickets. The woman called us over telling us that, no, actually, the bus would not be leaving because of the road blocks. At least she refunded our tickets.

The Salt Flats were supposed to be one of the highlights of the country

At this point, we had a decision to make. There were direct buses to Uyuni - where our train was supposed to take us - which left at 6pm. We could still try to take a bus to Oruro, but if the road blocks didn´t clear in the next couple hours it would be a moot point because we wouldn´t make our train anyways. We were worried that if we waited too long, the Uyuni buses would sell out, but we´d already paid for the train and were really looking forward to it, so we were torn. Either way, we had a 3-day tour of the famous Salar de Uyuni - the high Salt Flats and surrounding desert and barren wasteland that surrounded it, for which we needed to be in Uyuni by about 10am Thursday morning. We decided it wasn´t worth risking missing the tour - which we had also already paid for - so we gave up on the train and bought two tickets on the 12 hour night bus to Uyuni.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, wandering around the city a bit to kill some time, and finally made our way back to the bus station around 6:30pm. Unforunately, Sam´s stomach problems from the trek seemed to be persisting, and as we sat in the bus station just minutes before we were supposed to leave, we found ourselves debating whether we should go at all. Unsure of whether he could survive 12 hours in a bumpy bus with no bathroom (and then three days driving around the desert in a 4x4), we were literally waiting until the minutes before the bus left to decide. Finally, he decided to go for it and we boarded the bus and were on our way.

The jeeps where we would spend most of our time during the trip

Perhaps because we were expecting a terrible journey, it ended up not being too awful. The bus was well heated and we were given blankets and we both managed to sleep decently well - maybe because we were both still exhausted from the trek and being sick. We arrived in Uyuni before 6am, still totally pitch black and freezing cold. We waited on the warm bus until we were kicked off as dawn was just starting to break through the dark, cold night. Wearing our warmest, huge down jackets, we stepped off the bus onto solid ground and, bleary-eyed, began to look for somewhere warm where we might be able to just sit and rest.

We followed the line of tourists into the center of the town, which was still totally empty and silent, until we stumbled upon what appeared to be the only establishment that was open in the entire town - a small cafe where we got big hot breakfasts of juice, eggs, toast, tea, and coffee. Well worth the tourist prices that we had to pay just to sit in their warm living room in front of the space heater.

We lingered over the meal for as long as possible and as we left, the sleepy desert town had awoken and warmed and suddenly it seemed much more feasible to face this day. The sky was cloudless and the late morning sun beat down as we walked through the streets of the old mining town. Uyuni had served as an essential train-yard town on the line from the Bolivian mines in the south to the ocean where the exports were shipped off around the world. But when Chile and Bolivia had gone to war over that small length of coastline, the Bolivians had lost their only access to the ocean and became land-locked. With that, the rail line died, operating only once a week instead of several times a day because of the high tarriffs imposed by Chile for using the port that used to be their own. With the railroad went Uyuni. What had been a bustling metropolis became a ghost town in the middle of a giant expanse of harsh desert. It wasn´t until tourism started to take off with tours of the salt flats and surrounding spectacular scenery that the town began to recover slightly. Even still, Uyuni comes off as a town long past its prime; an old wild west outpost which has long been left by its original inhabitants.

Train tracks, still used, leading off towards the horizon

Despite the rather depressing backstory, Uyuni does seem to be on the upswing with the increase in tourism over the last few decades. The main street is line with tour agencies charging anywhere from USD100 to 1000 for 4x4 tours of the breath-taking salt flats and high desert. It was on this street where we finally found our own agency, with whom we had reserved our spot in La Paz. As usual, this agency seemed confused and didn´t seem to expect us, and so pawned us off to another agency - Red Planet Tours - which, we would find out later, is one of the nicest agencies in town and charges more than double what we paid and staffs only English speaking guides - we had purposefully not paid the extra B$300 for the English-speaking guide. I figured I could be a perfectly good translator.

As we got to Red Planet, we were introduced to our guide, Israel - a firendly, out-going 20-something Bolivian - and our jeep-mates for the next three days: Spencer was a 30 year old Brit, a friendly, out-going guy with a strong accent who was traveling with Allie (Alistair), a 19 year old Brit who was in Bolivia traveling around as part of a gap year. The final member of our jeep was Eliza, a Korean woman whose age we never figured out but would have guessed anywhere between 30 and 45. It was an interesting mix, but we seemed to get along fine.

That first day, we drove first to the outskirts of town to what they call the train cemetery - basically a big plot of land where a bunch of trains came to die. The old rusted out bodies have been spray painted and are falling apart, but it´s still pretty cool, especially against the harsh, expansive background. The tracks - still in use a few times a month - are also pretty cool, as they just continue in a perfectly straight line as far as the eye can see.

The train cemetery

We then piled back into the jeep and headed out of Uyuni, on the dirt ¨highway¨ towards the Salar de Uyuni - the 12,000 square kilometer salt flats which were the main tourist attraction in the area. We stopped on the edge of the flats and Israel took us into a building which showed the process of how the salt was taken from the ground to being purified and packaged. Finally, back in the jeep, we drove away from the building and the ground made a quick transition from brown to white and suddenly we were driving atop a sea of salt.

Salt piled into little mounds where it is dried by the sun before being purified

The salt hotel where we stopped for lunch

It´s hard to really give credit to how strange this envirornment is. Within a mile or so, the brown horizon is gone and all you can see in every direction is a perfectly flat expanse of white salt with mountains poking up on the horizon. As we drove along, looking out the window honestly felt like being in an airplane above a layer of clouds, with the mountains poking through them off in the distance.

Flying over the clouds

An ocean of perfectly flat salt

It´s also incredibly hard to judge distance or scale because the pure white makes it almost impossible to judge depth. I had no idea how fast we were driving (not helped because the spedometer was broken) and I also had no sense of whether a mountain on the horizon was a small hill a few hundred meters away or whether it was a giant peak miles and miles in the distance. It´s a strange feeling.

We stopped for lunch and then proceeded to an ¨island¨ which sits in the middle of the salt flats. A pretty strange site, the island pokes up out of the perfectly flat salt and is a decent sized hill covered in rock and cacti. We hiked up to the top and the view was insane. It really did feel like being on and island. It was also nice to get a bit of walking in, after a good amount of sitting in the jeep.

View from the top of the cactus island

Finally, we all piled back in one more time to head to our lodging for the night. We drove through the Salar as the sun was setting - pretty spectacular - and promptly blew out a tire. It started to get very cold once the sun started to approach the horizon, so we were all happy that our driver was a champ and could change a tire very quickly. We were in the hotel in no time.

Our drive changing a tire like a boss

The hotel was itself an interesting place, made entirely from big bricks of salt. The walls, supporting pillars, even the beds, were made of these big salt bricks. Salt is not a great conductor of heat, so it was pretty cold inside, but luckily the beds had very warm, thick blankets on them and we had sleeping bags as well if we got too cold. We spent a long time talking with the people in our group who had lots of interesting stories before crawling into our nice warm beds.

Our room in the salt hotel

The second day was a tour through the deserted wastelands of Southern Bolivia. We were off the salt flats at this point (except for a brief drive through another small salt flat on the way out of the hotel), and it was a lot of driving. Luckily, our group seemed to get along really well and we passed the time in the car well. The car had an ipod hook-up and Allie - who had been sick and quiet the first day - turned out to be a very charasmatic and extroverted kid and was our car´s DJ for most of the trip. He and Spencer also but a bottle of rum and some coca-cola when we stopped at a town at around 11am and were pouring everyone in the car drinks pretty much every time we stopped from there on.

Sam and Spencer relaxing in the shade on one of our many stops on the second day

We drove through stunning vistas of expansive plateaus and high, snow-capped mountains, stopping in a few particularly magnificent vistas to get out, stretch the legs, and take some photos. The main stops were visits to a few different lakes, some of which were strangely inhabited by flamingos which were endemic to the region. Odd...

Flamingos at 4500m above sea level

Mostly, though, it was a lot of driving. The drives were pretty spectacular, but there were a lot of long stretches of being in the cramped back of the jeep (which could have only been worse for Sam, who´s 6'4"). Luckily, our car got along so well that the time passed pretty well, and we got a good chance to get to know all of the people in our car really well. Even Elisa, who was constantly asking to stop to take a photo, seemed to do all right with us crazy youngins.

Crazy rock formations in the high desert

After a long day, we arrived at our lodging for the night. We had heard that this second night was unbelievably cold, and as we got there and the sun was setting, it was easy to believe. We were on a high plateau some 4500m above sea level in the middle of the dry, harsh desert. It was decided by the group that the best way for us to stay warm would be to get something strong to drink from the tiny store outside of the hotel. So, already a bit tipsy from being poured rum and coke all day, we found ourselves sitting with everyone else from our tour at a table covered in wine, licoeur de coca (a Peruvian specialty which our guide showed us how to mix), and beer.

It was a fun night and it was great to sit with everyone (incuding our guide, Israel) and tell stories. We managed to fight off the cold pretty well, and by the time we climbed into our beds, which we had prepped by leaving a hot water bottle in the sheets, I was actually not too cold. We slept pretty well despite the altitude at the cold.



The next morning, we had to wake up early for the last leg of our tour. It was 5am and still pitch dark as we packed up our things and loaded into the jeep. We drove about an hour through the black night, during which time most of us were asleep, before we pulled over for our first stop.

It was still dark and freezing, but we managed to get ourselves out of the jeep with our headlamps on. Israel showed us why we had stopped - a dozen or so natural geisers spurted up boiling mud and sulfur. It was actually pretty amazing, especially in my still dazed and bleary-eyed state. I really felt like we had driven to another planet as we looked at the big craters with bubbling mud and steam rising from the centers. It was pretty wild and I was glad I'd braved the cold and gotten out of the car.

We then continued driving through the desert as light began to force its way up around the mountains to the east. We stopped at a lake on the way to watch the sun poke up above the high peaks for a truly magnificent sunrise. With that, we continued heading south, to the very fartheset southwest corner of Bolivia, just a stone's throw from the Chilean border. We stopped at a lake, el lago verde - the green lake - which was, unforunately, frozen and thus not particularly green. It was still another impressive vista, but some of our jeep mates were still grumbling about being woken up so early.

Sunrise on the last day over the hot springs and lake

About an hour north, we made our final stop of the tour at a set of natural hot springs. We had breakfast in a small shelter next to the springs and then had the option to go take a soak. It was still very cold out, so I was reticent to really submerge myself, fearing the frigid air once I would have to get out. But somehow, the others convinced me and I was glad they did.

The water was hot and steamy and it felt great to just soak my tired body in the natural mineral water. I didn't want to get out, but eventually we were herded out and back into the jeep. The cool air didn't even feel that bad as my skin was still so hot from the water. It made the brutal early morning wake-up worth it and really changed the tone of that last day.

We were all in high spirits as we piled back into the jeep for the long drive back to Uyuni. As it turned out, Elisa had gotten sick of our young antics and loud music, and had asked to switch jeeps. So, we ended up with another 20-something Brit, who we'd spent a lot of the previous night talking with and we knew we all got along.

It was a long drive through the desert, but we stopped a few times for pee-breaks, lunch, and photo ops. Plus, we had a great group of kids now and the drive seemed to go by quickly. The Brits - always the drinkers - had brought some of the leftover alcohol from the night before and were passing around bottles of wine as we drove through the barren countryside. It ended up being a pretty goofy and fun car ride, but we were all happy to get back to Uyuni.

Having a good time singing American pop songs as we drove through the desert

We had a couple of hours in Uyuni before our night bus for La Paz left, so we all decided to meet up in a restaurant recommended by Israel the guide and have some dinner and drinks before we all parted ways. It was a great last little gathering, and we all realized that our paths might cross again, as a lot of us were heading from La Paz onto Cusco. We exchanged email addreses and facebook names and said we'd all meet up in Cusco the next weekend for a night on the town.

(Quick Aside: As it turned out, it would only be Allie and me that would end up meeting in Cusco. Sam was sick in Pisaq, Spencer was on his trip to Machu Picchu when we were there, and poor Debbie, who had joined our car at the last minute, ended up spending about a week in a hospital in La Paz with a nasty parasite.)

We took the same bus company back to La Paz, after our relatively comfortable trip down. This ended up to be a mistake as the bus we took back was not the same type of bus and was in much worse condition. My seat was broken and didn't recline, so it was a fairly sleepless night.

Luckily, we had a couple of days to relax in La Paz before our last big trip.

Coming up next: Our last big adventure, a summit bid on Huayna Potosi, a 6,110m (20.045 ft) mountain 25km outside of La Paz.