Culmination

Hey all,

Well, we´re down to 2 days left til we fly back to the U.S. One more long overnight bus ride tonight (thank GOD it´s the last one!), then a night in Lima, and then we´re headed for home and the east coast to visit my family.

Before that, though, the finale in Peru has been incredible. Finally, we returned to the mountains where I feel most alive, excited, and in my element. We´ve spent our last week and a half in the Callejon de Huaylas - a valley at the foot of the Cordillera Blanca - and, of course, in the mountains themselves. After the paro - or strike or work stoppage - that Erin mentioned, we headed off for the four-day Santa Cruz Trek which is a gorgeous hike through two dramatic mountains valleys and the high pass that links them at a height of over 15,600 feet. The Cordillera Blanca is particularly picturesque with aesthetically-shaped peaks, striking faces, and lots of active glaciers. Erin will describe the trek in more detail, but I am most excited to write about another even more exciting adventure since then.

While Erin headed off for her culminating project in a local village about which she is very excited, I ventured off for an adventure of my own which was the perfect culmination to an incredible year. With a Peruvian friend named Lucho, I climbed Mount Pisco whose summit lies at 18,887 feet. It was probably the most challenging and definitely the highest mountain climb of my life so far. Pisco is a beautiful, glacier-clad mountain that sits in the heart of the Cordillera Blanca with a ring of other even mightier and more stunning peaks surrounding it in all directions. The climb itself was generally straightforward but entailed glacier travel and a pitch of more technical climbing on a snow and ice slope to the summit at just under 19,000 feet. It was the perfect level of challenge and reward.

Approaching Pisco

The idea to climb the peak came from a British traveler we´d met in Patagonia who had passed through here a few weeks earlier, climbed the peak, and told me about it on facebook. Then when we stayed at Los Pinos Lodge in the small local town of Caraz, I mentioned I was interested in it to Lucho, the lodge owner and also a trekking guide (but not mountain guide). He was interested as well, and we started making plans to gather the gear we needed - mountaineering boots, crampons, ice axes, harnesses, rope, etc. Our initial plan was to climb it ourselves without guide, but we were not certain if we had the requisite skills and experience to do that safely and securely.

The night before the climb, I woke at 2 AM and couldn´t sleep as my mind raced about the climb and if we could do it. Then Lucho knocked on my door at 6AM and also hadn´t slept because he had a case of stomach illness, and things weren´t looking good. But we set off anyway, and he took some meds and started to feel better. In an effort to save his depleted energy, at the trailhead Lucho asked to hire a mule and mule driver (arriero) to carry his gear to the base camp and then a porter to carry his gear from base camp to the higher moraine camp from where we´d attempt the climb. In the process, we inquired about guides and found an experienced older mountain guide who agreed to guide us from the high camp to the summit. It was perfect. In just a few hours, the whole picture shifted for the better, and now I felt we were poised to reach the top.

Our donkey and arriero

With the arriero and mule following behind, we hiked the few hours to the base camp. With each step, Pisco gradually came into greater focus and appeared to be an excellent objective. At base camp, the porter shouldered Lucho´s pack, and I shouldered mine. We picked our way across the glacial moraine that stood between us and the mountain - up one side of the moraine, down into it, across a jumbled maze of rocks and boulders, then back up the other side. By early afternoon, we were at the high camp. The high camp sits at 4,900 meters which is just over 16,000 feet. It´s the highest I have ever camped, and I could tell. I had a pounding headache and felt a general sense of malaise from the altitude. But we took care of the necessary tasks in camp - setting up the tent and our sleeping setup, cooking some food, pumping water, and prepping our gear for the next day - all the while trying to minimize exposure to the scorching sun. I was chugging water profusely, took an aspirin for my headache, and laid down for a rest in the late afternoon in hopes of feeling better. At 6 PM I was back up and felt a lot better - no headache. We cooked some pasta for dinner and went to bed by 7:30, knowing we had an early alarm at 2:30 AM, a big day ahead of us, and that neither of us were well-rested from the night before. Before settling in for the night, I spent some time gazing across the valley under the light of a near-full moon and a cloudy sky, reflecting on the situation and feeling confident that things would go well the next day.

At High Camp

A Dramatic Evening

We woke at 2:30 AM and our guide Victor arrived by headlamp across the moraine to meet us at our tent as we got ready to go. At 3 AM we started the climb with a half hour more of walking on the moraine. At 3:30 AM, we reached the foot of the glacier and donned our glacier gear - crampons and ice axes - and roped up. It was the night before a full moon so for a while - until the moon set behind a nearby peak - we did not even need headlamps with the bright moonlight illuminating the white snow and ice under foot. The climb generally consisted of a glacier walk over varying degrees of slopes. There were a countless number of rises along the walk that would max out at around 45 or 50 degrees for a stretch and then level off and then steepen again and then more level. On and on, one step at a time, gradually higher.

The Ascent

At about the halfway mark - two hours into the ascent - the altitude really started to take its toll on me. I could tell I was in new territory as far as altitude goes. I had a constant headache and a feeling of mental haziness and ill health. I just kept thinking I wanted to get up to the top as soon as I could and down again. Although I felt ill, never was the summit in doubt, and I always felt we´d make it. Gradually, we got closer to our goal, and the sun rose, creating amazing lighting situations in the alpine world around us. The climbing itself also got more interesting towards the end. The final three rises were steeper than the others, and the final slope in particular provided a special challenge. The last slope is a 50 foot pitch of gradually increasing angle to the summit. It probably maxes out at 65 or 70 degrees which is pretty steep, albeit not fully vertical. The slope was a mix of snow and ice, and as I reached the middle of the slope, it was necessary to change the use of the ice ax to an ice climbing function. It was necessary to swing the ice ax overhead, set it in the slope, move my feet up by front pointing my crampons into the ice, and then repeat the process. I have been ice climbing before so I knew what to do, and it wasn´t too challenging of a slope. But at an altitude just under 19,000 feet it added a degree of challenge and interest to the climb that was absolutely perfect.

On Top

The best thing is that once we reached the top of that pitch, we were on the summit and surrounded by an amazing vista of white-capped peaks. Across a valley in one direction were the dual summits of Huascaran - the highest peak in Peru; in another was Alpamayo - a picture-perfect peak once proclaimed as the most beautiful mountain in the world. And in every other direction was one after another of stunning, glacier-clad 20,000 foot peaks - Chacraraju, Chopicalqui, Huandoy, Artesonraju, Caraz, Santa Cruz, and others. It was awesome! To tell you the truth, though, I still felt pretty terrible and was eager to start heading down.

The Descent

Lucho and I rappelled off the summit to avoid down-climbing the steep last pitch; our guide belayed us and then downclimbed it. Then we were off, and the walk down was much more enjoyable than the climb up. For one, going downhill was much easier. And two, the sun was up so we could take in the outstanding scenery all around us and the dawn of a clear, beautiful day in the mountains. Also, as we descended, I gradually felt better and could enjoy myself more with each step. In the daylight, we got a much better view of all the incredible snow and ice formations through which we were walking. We could also view and peer into the huge crevasses and snow bridges that crossed our paths. Eventually, we were all the way down to the foot of the glacier, and the climb was done. We had made it in good time and good style. The climb up from tent to summit took 4.5 hours and the descent 2.5 hours - 7 hours in total.

Approaching a Snow Bridge

The Crevasse This Snow Bridge Crosses

Because my time in Peru was short, we had to head all the way down in the same day - walk back to camp, pack up, and hike a further 4 hours down to the road. It was an incredibly long day, and my body is taxed, but I haven´t been this excited about an accomplishment in a long time. It was literally the perfect culmination to an incredible year.

A Look Back Up the Route

Now I can´t wait to get home and see my family and then catch up with friends and get started again on a new life in Colorado. Life is good. We´ll keep posting for a while so stay tuned as we put some finishing touches and thoughts on our year of travel and the new horizons ahead.

Cheers,
Drew