As my first trip climbing outside of Europe, and especially to high altitude, I had been very worried about the kit needed. Any research I did would only confuse me more, with some sources saying I would need double boots and a borderline down suit whilst others said I could run up in B2s and t-shirt. I ended up taking a beefed up version of my Scottish winter kit which proved more than enough and, for what we did, a cold summer alpine kit would have been sufficient.
My partner for the trip was Alex (why are so many of my climbing partners called Alex) who was my boss when I was working in London the year prior. We had never climbed with each other and had barely interacted outside of work. We had gone to the Alps for a week, with a good forecast and high psych, but Alex had injured his ankle a few weeks previously. After approaching Contamine-Grisole (for the third time!), it caused him too much discomfort. So we decided to prioritise his healing and just hiked for the week.
Nevado Urus: Swings and Roundabouts
After a quick acclimatisation hike to Laguna Churup we headed up to the Ishinca Refuge and the next day went up Nevado Urus. Despite a dozen or so people having taken the same bus in as us, and then the same acclimatisation hike, I was the only who suffered majorly from the altitude. Which is surprising because I would have thought more people would have got AMS going from sea level to 5500m in 5 days.
 |
| The evening we arrived at the refuge. Toccloraju in the background. |
The alarm was set for half one and we were walking by two. From all the fear mongering online we were both wrapped up tight, so after a quick stop 10 minutes later to take most of our layers off, we were making quick progress . At around 4700m I started to feel pretty miserable, every swing of the headtorch induced massive bouts of nausea and I was forced to stop every 10m or so. We finally make it to 5100m, where the glacier starts, around sunrise. More layers and, thankfully, also the headtorch came off. The 350m to the summit feel pretty easy and included some fun mixed climbing. We summited at 7:30 and began the descent. At 5000m I began to feel really lacking in energy again and slowed down drastically. Not helping either was a headache bad enough I would have taken a frontal lobotomy given the chance. An attempted shortcut led to very Scottish esq bushwhacking.
 |
| Early morning start. Ranrapalca in the background. |
Back at the hut I used the oxygenmeter, my O2 saturation was sitting at 78% with a resting heart rate of 110bpm. We took a rest day to see if I recover but waking up the next day and I couldn’t stop throwing up. Alex soloed Ishinca and we headed down. My O2 saturation continued to drop to 68% before stabilising at 70-75% until we descended.
 |
| Feeling the altitude on the summit ridge. |
Nevado Copa: I am not Ranulph Fines
Having failed miserably on 5500m peaks, we did the next logical thing and attempted a 6200m peak. A couple of rest days and we organised the taxi and a donkey for the lesser done Nevado Copa. Unfortunately the night before we got a call saying that the arriero had got drunk and wouldn’t be available. Unable to secure an arriero at the local village, we repacked our bags to about 25kg each. Our taxi driver put in a great effort on terrible roads to get us to 3300m, nearly beaching his car numerous times, and we walked from there to the base camp at 4700m in around 6.5 hours.
 |
| Heavy backpacks on the way up … and the way down. Copa peaking out over the trees |
A barely alpine alarm of 5am and a relaxed breakfast had us leaving at 7am. Some friendly New Zealanders camping next to us told us the route had moved a bit due to glacial recession and that there were some bolts we could use on the way up and down. Feeling the day before in our legs, the approach to the chossy (not quite death) gully took a few hours. Not feeling super confident about all the loose rock, we climbed it in 5 pitches making sure the belayer was well tucked away. We got to the glacier proper at 5000m, and from there it was a short walk to the rocky buttress that sheltered the high camp at 5100m which we reached by 1:45pm. We spent a while melting water, cooking, and preparing everything for the next day.
 |
Alex following the steep ground to camp 1
|
 |
| Camp 1. |
The alarm was set for a much more alpine midnight, and we had packed everything and were on the glacier by quarter to two. The glacier was honestly terrifying, incredibly complex with crevasses commonly 30-40m wide and running at right angles to each other. We weaved our way between the crevasses and seracs (of which there were fortunately not many threatening the route) until the snow bridges started to get softer and there was a real risk one of us would fall in. In conjunction with the fact that I was feeling a tightness in my chest with the occasional pain in my arm, and therefore getting increasingly scared I was a having a heart attack, we turned around and collected our things, descended the gully with a few abseils, getting back to base camp around 12.
 |
Sunrise high up on the mountain, looking towards Hualcan.
We had been talking about going down the same day so I started to aggressively recover by drinking loads of water and eating the rest of my food. But Alex had barely ate or drank the previous couple of days and had bonked hard on the final descent and wanted to stay the night at BC. That was until we ran into some toilet troubles, so we packed everything up again, I took the heavy things so my bag was probably heavier than on the ascent, and we began the walk down to 3000m. We called our taxi driver on the way down and he was thankfully waiting for us when we got there at 6. |
Nevado Pisco: How to make god laugh
On one of our three rest days the standard psych took hold and we made a plan to climb Pisco (5750m), and then transfer our BC to the other side of the valley and climb Chopicalqui (6400m). What’s the saying about making god laugh.
We walked up to the Pisco refuge and although the approach was much shorter and they weren’t really needed, we luckily had donkeys this time. Already a bad omen, our perfect forecast transformed into an afternoon storm. Slightly concerned we checked the forecast again, the next day was meant to be ok, followed by 3 days of intense storm. Still we could climb Pisco in perfect weather.
We left at 1am in a cloud and rain. Part of the approach consisted of down climbing a steep wall using an in-situ chain. We reached it amongst some guides and their clients, I put my alps experience to practise and bulldozed my way to the front. Feeling very silly and apologetic when the guide then corrected us no less than 3 times later on in the moraine. We reached the glacier snout with two other guided groups and developed a good rapport with them, very useful as the route finding on the glacier proved very tricky due to the declining visibility and the falling snow covering the tracks. Acting like a pelaton, we each took turns leading whilst the other groups rested and followed behind. Despite this, we made good time with Micheal (one of the guides, pronounced meesh-el) predicting we would summit around 6:30. This was at 5:30 in a small col at roughly 5400m. We had reached the col via the technical crux, a short and steep wall cut by two crevasses. Unfortunately leaving the col took over an hour as it was so heavily crevassed and the visibility had reduced to under 10m. Micheal and myself took turns probing across different options, retreating when we would get cut off or the snow bridge proved too weak. When we got to 5500m the visibility had reduced to the point where I was waving my axe in front of me to ensure I wouldn’t walk into anything. Several times I stepped forward, expecting solid ground, only for it to not make contact with anything. We decided to stay put for a while, but after half an hour nothing had changed and I failed on the third mountain of the trip. It was at this point I thought that our trip was cursed. Of the dozen or so groups that left in the morning, only Micheal and us reached 5500m. 3 teams turned around at the 5400m col and the rest bailed at the glacier snout.
 |
And then there were two...
|
 |
| Alex upset about having to turn around yet again |
Alex started to struggle a lot on the moraine on the way back. A mixture between having had a bout of food poisoning three days back, as well as the effort in leading most of the groups down off the glacier. Between that, the weather, and my concern with acclimatisation (I felt fine at 5500m but chopi has a high camp at 5600m), we bailed on yet another plan and ran away to Huaraz.
 |
Alex huffing and puffing his way up the chain to get back to the hut.
|
Nevado Vallunaraju: 5 to life for manslaughter
During the drive back to Huaraz we spotted a 10 hour weather window forming over Vallunaraju (5600m) and decided to go for it. So, with one and half rest days, we found ourselves yet again walking up to a moraine camp with loaded bags and no donkeys. This was fortunately another short, 3.5hr, approach. By 2pm we were setting up the tent and cooking, and in bed for 6pm.
The alarm went off at 4 after a sleepless night and, true to the forecast, the rain stopped. A quick breakfast and, unique to this mountain, hid our stuff as there had been reports of thievery. Starting the climb at 5:20am and the good omens continued; completing the 60min approach in 20 minutes. Access to the glacier was really cool, a thin rock ridge between two lakes gave way to the snout. I wasn’t particularly convinced by the route at first. It started with a fairly long and steep slope that was threatened by seracs but the morning light soon revealed an autobahn of footprints and the die was cast.
 |
Looking back towards Huaraz just after leaving the moraine camp.
|
 |
The morning light reveals the tracks.
|
Storming up the slopes I thought we were going strong but Alex started screaming I was trying to murder him at the top of the slope. So a quick break before heading upwards and onwards. The route became pretty cool after the initial slope, a well marked path weaving between big crevasses. The temperature hadn’t risen too drastically at this point as we were in the shade of a sub peak, but at our last stop before the summit ridge I took of all my layers whereas Alex decided he was good with all of them on. As soon as we gained the summit ridge (a veritable midi arete + 2000m) the full intensity of the sun hit us and it became really warm. I powered us onwards to the summit, perhaps a bit too hard and feeling bad when Alex collapsed on the summit from the heat. Feeling the heat as well I enacted a dumb ways to die scene, almost slipping off the summit trying to take of my hard shells. Either way, we had summited in 3hrs 20, not bad for a guide book time of 5-6hrs. We spent an hour faffing, taking lots of pictures, and tagging the secondary summit before heading down. Packing up the tent and going down to the road to be picked up.
 |
Approaching the twin peaks.
C. Alex Serban |
 |
| Feeling the heat. |
Ichic Ulta: Pretending to be Steve House
With only 3 days left, one taken up by a rest day, another needed for transport, we had time for a day hit. A consultation with the guides office made it clear that Ichic Ulta (5350m) was the only interesting choice. We got the taxi at 2am and the drive took a wee bit longer than expected but by 5 we were heading up the glaciated slabs.
 |
| Making sure we go the right way |
Although lower than the other peaks attempted, it was more technical and I really enjoyed the sensation of feeling really strong and moving quickly over harder terrain. From the glacier it was consistently 70degrees or steeper, a few rocky steps of soft Scottish III thrown in for good measure, and a final short slope of 80-90 degrees where someone had luckily tunnelled through cornice for us.
 |
Steep from the word go.
|
 |
| Alex working his magic on the steep stuff to get us to the summit ridge. |
Once on the ridge some easy scrambling led to the summit at which point Alex showed me his hand. Where I had been sweating through my gloves, the fingertips on his gloves had broken off and the tips were starting to go black with frost-nip. Deciding we wanted to get back to England with all limbs attached, we quickly scampered back down the route, getting us back to the car about 8 hours after leaving.
 |
A very pointy summit! We came across the ridge that can be seen on the right
|
Comments
Post a Comment