The 1987 South African Cordillera Huayhuash Expedition

Introduction

This trip was initiated by Paul Fatti and Gordon Erens who had planned to climb in the Peruvian Andes on their way to attend an international conference in Buenos Aires. Somehow I think the word got around and eventually the group got a whole lot bigger, ten of us, most of them from the Transvaal.

We made plans to spend some four weeks climbing in the Cordillera Huayhuash.

Our flight across the Atlantic took us to Rio de Janeiro with a day’s stop there before flying on to Lima. In Rio we were taken under the wings of Greg and Ineke Moseley who were then living in an apartment in Ipanema. Greg who had worked as a geologist in South America for some years would also be climbing with us on the expedition.

We spent our day in Rio again soaking up this wonderful city’s ambiance, some sampling the Sugar Loaf’s slab climbing, others heading off to Ipanema’s beach to swim and of course take in the easy on the eye local girls’ tangas and dental floss.

Apart from Paul Fatti, Gordon Erens, Greg Moseley and myself, the members of the expedition were Ulrike Kiefer, Hermann Vogl, Russ Dodding, Denis Quaife, Steve Kelsey and Paul Greenfield.

We caught our flight to Lima that evening arriving at George Chavez airport at 02:30 local time to find a welcoming letter from Cesar Morales and all the necessary arrangements made to get our baggage through customs (with his letter of introduction) and transport us to the Savoy Hotel where he had arranged our accommodation.

Thursday 9 July

As arranged in his letter, Cesar arrived at the hotel after breakfast. We had a discussion about our plans and, after phoning various bus companies to compare prices for our journey to Chiquan, settled on Empresa Huaraz whose price of US$400 for the trip was the most favourable. While Paul, Cesar and I took a taxi to the bus depot to pay for the bus, the others went off to the nearby Monterey Supermarket to buy food. At the Empresa Huaraz depot we were impressed to find a letter of agreement had already been typed and were happy to see our bus, a decent looking 44-seater, was being checked over and prepared for the trip. After leaving Cesar and making our payment we walked back to the hotel, pausing to enjoy some freshly squeezed paw paw juice at a small restaurant opposite the hotel on the way.

Cesar had arranged for us to meet his son Gunther at the hotel at 13:00 and he turned out to be a really engaging youngster. He told us that he was a 4^th year student at the University of Lima, intending to go into a diplomatic career after graduating. Gunther’s English was excellent and it was obvious that he enjoyed meeting English speaking foreigners and conversing with them to improve his English. It turned out that Gunther was also a surfer and we had a long chat enquiring about Chacama and other exciting sounding surf breaks that it was obvious he knew very well. We walked down to the Monterey supermarket where the others were finalising the food purchases, assisted by a really helpful manager showing them what was available. He gave us a 25% discount on the food purchases and also arranged for the food to be transported back to the hotel on a couple of trolleys. To sort out the problem that it had not been possible to source some food items from the supermarket (rice, eggs, tinned meat, dried fruit and nuts), Gunther went off with Ulrike and Gordon to try to find them in Miraflores, but even after driving around for quite a time they had no success.

Cesar Morales and his son Gunther

When we were all back together again we had lunch at a restaurant close to the hotel I had been to before. Gunther persuaded everyone to have Cebiche, a classic Peruvian seafood dish comprising raw fish and calamari cut up, mixed with onion and chilli and marinated in lime juice – everyone soon discovering how hot it was and trying desperately to quench the fire on their palates with great gulps of Cristal, the local beer. After lunch, while the others tried to source the missing food items, Paul, Greg and I wandered over to the Plaza San Martin and beyond towards the museum to try to find the Kinzl map of the Huayhuash, but without success, though we were able to buy Jim Bartle’s new book about the Parque Nacional de Huascaran and some of his Huayhuash postcards as well as a pair of woollen gloves for Paul from a street stall. Greg and I also went into Sylvania looking for prints, but didn’t see anything new. We did see some changes in Lima comparing what we were seeing on this visit with what we had seen on previous visits – generally the city looked more down at heel, fewer tourist shops and less in them and the streets full of obviously poorer people with pavement stalls selling a miscellany of items from food and clothes to lottery tickets. Back at the hotel we found the others had had no success trying to find fuel for our stoves, so Paul and I went out and scouted around some more to find a ferretaria, eventually finding one that sold benzina blanca, which we bought after checking out how well it burnt in Paul’s stove back at the hotel.

After a shower we met Cesar at the hotel and had supper with him there. We had asked Gunther to join us too, but he didn’t arrive and we guessed he had had to make up for the time he had spent with us shopping during the afternoon. We then made our final preparations for getting away early in the morning before falling into bed.

Friday 10 July

Our early morning arrangements went perfectly to plan, Cesar arrived shortly after breakfast and our bus quite soon afterwards. We packed up (leaving some of the purchases we had made at the hotel) and managed to get away before 08:00. The final price for our accommodation and breakfasts at the hotel was 960 inti each for the two nights (the inti replacing the sol).

Getting under way, we were just about out of Lima when Gordon suddenly realised that he had left his passport with the stuff we had stored at the hotel, so we had to park the bus for about an hour while Gordon and Gunther rushed back to the hotel to retrieve the passport! Getting going again at about 10:00 we left Lima driving on through the coastal dunes in the usual foggy conditions to stop at an excellent market (seemingly selling mostly locally grown produce) in Barranco to buy some of the outstanding fruit and vegetables we needed. After being chivvied on by the driver, who was now getting a little anxious about the time, we continued along the coast to Pativilca where the road going up into the Cordillera Negra turned off. But we had only gone on for about 15 minutes beyond Pativilca when there was a loud bang and the engine started squirting fuel into the inside of the cab. Investigation showed that it was the filter for the diesel that had ruptured, so while the bus driver and his assistant set about fixing it, we ate some of the fantastic maracuya passion fruit we had bought at the Patavilca market. The place on the road where we had been forced to stop was surrounded by fields of sugar cane and Gunther became quite agitated as time ticked by, because, as he later explained, a bus had been recently stopped nearby at a barricade on the road set up by terrorists who had robbed the passengers of all their valuables. But we were eventually on our way again before stopping at a road house some distance further up the valley to have some lunch and then commencing the long climb up into the mountains to Conococha. This is a most impressive drive with the road clinging to the steep valley walls and fantastic views unfolding of impressive cliffs and weird rock spires as you near the top of the pass at over 4 000 m and the dry barren slopes of the lower valley changing to the greener country above with its terraced settlements and stands of gum trees. As we crested the top of the pass at about 17:30 the magnificent view of the Nevado Pongos unfolded in the clear evening light. We turned off at Conococha onto the gravel road crossing flat marshland towards Chiquian (I only realised later that you can actually see the summit of Nevado Yerupaja from Conococha). As we crested the high point above the zig-zags descending to Chiquian, the view of the whole of the Cordillera Huayhuash unfolded, beautiful in the late evening light – everyone quite impressed.

Descending to Chiquian the first views of the Huayhuash peaks unfolding

A quick descent from there down a difficult section of the road brought us into Chiquian just as it was getting dark. Gunter organised that the bus went to the Hostel San Miguel where we offloaded the gear into a storeroom and then he had a discussion with Orfila Calliope, the wife of the agent who was organising our burros for the walk in, basically reaching agreement on the terms of the contract for this service. With this done we bid Gunther goodbye and the bus driver too, who was by now quite anxious to get back on the road for the long haul back to Lima. As a small gesture of our appreciation for all the help Gunther had given us, we gave him US$ 40 to go towards buying a new surfboard or perhaps the law books he would still need for his studies. We felt that the bus too had been good value. It cost US$ 300 to hire the bus for the journey from Huaraz to Lima and we had agreed to pay US$ 400 for the trip from Lima to Chiquian which was longer than travelling to Huaraz and the road on the last part of the journey to Chiquian was also rougher and more difficult.

The San Miguel (where Sandra and I had stayed in 1974) was basic but quite charming, its original clay tiled roofs, narrow wooden balconies and the central courtyard planted with roses all contributing to its character. The rooms had rough hand hewn plank floors with joints you could easily see through and the beds were made up with heavy coarsely woven woollen blankets. Betty the proprietor proved to be a wonderful sweet friendly person who soon organised everything we needed in our rooms and also supper at Senora Amanda a few blocks up the road. Supper was enlivened by a group of four musicians entertaining us, three of them playing guitars and the fourth Inca pipes and a flute - popular Peruvian music we recognised from the tapes we had taken home after our 1982 expedition. Russ kept the flag flying by dancing with Amanda’s daughter. Walking home in the crisp cold night lit by a nearly full moon, we passed a few of the locals sitting in their doorways or quietly moving about the streets. Dressed in their ponchos and moving so quietly they seemed quite eerie compared with what we were used to back home.

At the hotel before we left for supper and later at Amanda’s we had the opportunity to chat to four Belgian climbers who had just returned from Laguna Jahuacocha. They told us that they had managed to climb Nevado Yerupaja’s west face by a direct route just to the left of the summit on hard ice and had then had to traverse the south ridge to the col between the main and the south peak from which they could descend. They said that traversing the ridge had not been too difficult, but was very dangerous as they had had to negotiate the large cornices overhanging the west face as well as windslab snow conditions on the steep east face. One of them had slight frostbite from the bivouac they had been forced to make in an ice cave at an altitude of about 6 300 m. They said that one of the two English climbers who did the route with them had been even more badly frostbitten.

In fact we were able to chat to these English climbers the next day to hear more about their climb. They also described how they had seen another single Belgian climber slip and fall about 500 m into a crevasse on the mountain. He had apparently soloed the southwest ridge of Nevado Yerupaja Sur and had fallen after summiting and descending the most difficult part of the route going down. The Englishmen said that after they saw the accident they had climbed up about 300 m to try to find the fallen climber, but without any success, eventually having to give up at about 02:00 and descending to their subcamp on the glacier. They said that earlier they had experienced a spell of bad weather that lasted for five days before the weather cleared.

Saturday 11 July

We got up early (at 06:30) to another brilliant day and took a short walk around the square near the hotel before going up onto the shoulder to the east overlooking the valley below, which gave us a breathtaking view of the Huayhuash peaks backlit in the sun. Breakfast at Amanda’s and then we met Orfila at the hotel to finalise the burro contract (US$3 per burro, US$5 for the arrieros and US$7 for the camp guard – two days to walk in to basecamp and one coming out). The same rates would apply for coming out, but there would be a reduction in the number of burros. We accepted Orfila’s estimate that we would require 25 burros walking in. The cost of the San Miguel was 50 inti per day per person.

Paul and I walked up to the Plaza de Armas and phoned Cesar from there to tell him that all our arrangements seemed to be working out well. Then while the others started the final division of the food into the high altitude packs and the basecamp food and putting all these into boxes and sacks for loading the burros, I went up town to shop for papas and onions and on a second trip to buy about 18 kg of cheese. There seems to be one main kind of cheese made in Chiquian – a slightly crumbly white cheese with a firm rind. The cheese had quite a mild flavour and was made up in 1.5 to 2 kg rounds. We did also manage to get another kind of cheese that almost looked like a cake. After lunch of pan with palta (avocado) and salami followed by papaya and maracuja, we finished packing and after also doing some washing, wandered off to a large cross erected on a knoll on the east side of the town. This was a wonderful vantage point giving us superb views of the Huayhuash peaks, which we enjoyed for some time, also taking some long focus photos and using our binoculars scouting the route we thought the Belgians must have followed on Nevado Yerupaja Grande.

Chiquian,s beautiful setting with the Huayhuash peaks always in view

Nevado Yerupaja Grande (6 634 m) seen from Chiquian

We went back to Amanda’s for supper (about 50 inti for each of us) with Nick, one of the English climbers, then walked up town to try to find a small bar where Russ and Gordon had earlier seen a local, rather bombed with coca or beer, playing a traditional harp. However no luck as the bar was closed.

We did not see much market activity in the town during the day, but expected there should be a big market on Sunday (a lot of the people bring produce in from outlying villages on a Sunday). We did hear some loud bangs during the day and correctly surmised that these must be fireworks, later also seeing some rockets. When we enquired we were told these were to do with some festival taking place in one of the nearby villages. Another chilly, but beautifully clear night. Sunday would be our second day acclimatising in Chiquain while we waited for our burros to be brought back from Llamac.

This is country where you have to beware the prickly cactus plants growing all around. In the morning I just touched one when I climbed over a stone wall trying to take a photograph and then had to extract three 50 mm spines out of my ankle that had penetrated about 3 mm deep!

Sunday 12 July

We were up latish for another good breakfast at Amanda’s. A warmer morning with some wind and high clouds over the Caullaraju peaks, maybe indicating a change from the perfect weather we had experienced to date. Our hopes that this would be a market day were dashed when we found there was nothing going on. At about 09:00 Alberto and Orfila Calliope arrived to check the packed equipment and food. They asked us to repack some of the drums that were too heavy (there being two drums loaded onto each burro). After sorting this out and writing up my diary, I walked higher up in town and after watching the others shopping for ponchos and jerseys, continued through the fields behind the town in a south easterly direction to see if I could take some decent photos of Chiquain looking towards the valley and pass to La Union. I then descended and made a traverse to join the road above the hydroelectric power plant and walked to where it turned around a corner, providing more good views looking down onto Chiquain with the magnificent backdrop of the Huayhuash peaks beyond. Taking a path going directly down from the corner, I noticed a big truck coming up a lower road from the river below and realised this must probably be the road going directly from Chiquian to La Union.

When I got back to the hotel we had lunch sitting in the sun in the courtyard and then in the early part of the afternoon I packed my personal gear into a large plastic sack and two smaller ones ready to load onto the burros. After writing a letter and a couple of postcards to send home I did another walk with Paul, this time starting on the road again, before continuing up a steep zigzag path above the power plant. This eventually brought us out onto a ridge at about 3 880 m where we were rewarded with simply magnificent views looking down over the town and up the valley in the opposite direction. As it was already nearly 18:00 we decided to bash straight down the ridge, but were nearly thwarted at the start when Paul tried to go through a hedge and tangled with some prickly pears, having to spend the next ten minutes extracting spines which had gone straight through his boot and into his foot! However, below this we got onto a path and made good time in the gathering gloom to be home in time for supper, stopping briefly at one place to admire an impressive old dry packed stone wall and to take a few final photos of Yerupaja in the last light.

We had another excellent and very generous meal at Amanda’s – a huge mixed salad starter followed by lamb served with rice, chips and onions and a baked apple for pud. After supper we went to Alberto Calliope’s house where he showed us some really good slides of his own climbing done in the Blanca as well as in the Huayhuash on various trekking trips. He told us about the climbing he had done on Sarapo and the direct route up the west face of Yerupaja and this gave us a good idea of the size of the peaks and the conditions we could expect to encounter on the climbs. We were really impressed with the climbing he had obviously done. Alberto’s arrieros were also at the house and we weren’t sure if the show was for our benefit or perhaps for their benefit to size up our party! We got back to the San Miguel in time for an early bed in preparation for making a prompt start on Monday.

Monday 13 July

We did our last packing and after relays eating breakfast at Amanda’s went outside to find Alberto making up the loads for the burros. It was another perfect day whose early warmth promised us a hot time later on. There was a slight delay starting loading because some of the burros had got out of the paddock where they had been put overnight, but they were eventually all herded into the street in front of the hotel so that the loading could be started.

Loading the burros outside the San Miguel for the walk-in to basecamp

As the loading commenced, Betty’s mother recognised this was a heaven sent opportunity, rushing around with a broom and pan to sweep up the manure and spread it around the roses in the courtyard garden. While all this was happening, Greg and I went out to track down some Coca leaves – on Paul’s insistence that we should try using them for an infusion instead of tea at our high altitude camps!

Eventually all the preparations were completed and we set off on our walk-in at about 10:30, leaving the town near the graveyard on the northwest side, down a good trail lined with stone walls and descending quite steeply to the Rio Pativilca.

Starting the first day's walk-in to Llamac

We lost the last views of the peaks as we came down to the level of the river before crossing it over a bridge and climbing up past a cluster of houses on the north side of the river where they were selling beer. Up to here we had been passing through quite intensively cultivated fields and plenty of houses. There was also a lot of burro traffic on the trail. After taking some photos on the way down to the river I waited for the last of our group to show them where we had to cross the river and discovered Russ was feeling rather lousy with nausea and an upset tummy. Hermann, Gordon and I took over Russ’ pack and coaxed him up the hill by which time he seemed to be getting marginally better. From there the path followed a line fairly high up through arid and very rough terrain on the river’s true lefthand bank, the only cultivation being right down next to the river and there only quite sparse. After about another hours walk we descended to the river and found the others waiting with Alberto. We outspanned, had lunch, made tea and cooled off in the river, a perfect spot under large trees full of airplants, some of them in flower.

Lunch stop and cooling off next to the river below Chiquian

After lunch Alberto set off, first promising to get a horse for Russ (but this finally didn’t materialise until we had nearly reached Llamac). At this stage the trail made a few short climbs and dips but stayed alongside the river until we reached the first major tributary, the Rio Quero coming in on the true lefthand bank. We crossed a good bridge and after continuing along the same bank for about another 500 m came to a fork where the main river branched off flowing in a south westerly direction (becoming the Rio Pativilca) and was joined by another major tributary coming in from the east (the Rio Achin). Going on up the Rio Achin tributary the trail immediately started climbing from its lowest point at about 2 750 m continuing along the river’s true righthand bank. Some distance further on we came to a fork in the trail the righthand branch dropping down to the river and crossing it to zig zag up the other side to eventually reach the village of Pacllon next to the upper reaches of the Rio Achin (which has its source at the Lagunas Jahuacocha and Solteracocha). A little further on, close to where we could see up into the Rio Achin’s upper valley, we were surprised when we went around a corner, to see that we would now be going up another tributary, this one called the Rio Llamac (which higher up flows past the village with that same name).

After continuing along the Rio Llamac’s true righthand bank for a bit our trail again descended to the river and we stopped for a rest under some lovely trees in a grassy field next to the river. From here we again continued to climb fairly steadily to where the trail crossed the river and then stayed on the river’s true lefthand bank for the remainder of the distance to Llamac. Here the trail became rockier and continued to climb, later passing through terraced fields, until quite suddenly at 18:00 we arrived at the picturesque small village of Llamac. On the last part of the trail Russ had rather reluctantly mounted the horse that Alberto had organised and rode the rest of the way into Llamac looking somewhat embarassed. Reaching the village we crossed the bridge and found that the arrieros had already set up all our tents on the football field.

Llamac camp on the village football field

Next to us we found a highly organise DAV tour group was setting up umpteen VE24 tents and a large fancy cottage mess tent which was already in use. This was the same group of Germans who had booked into the Hotel San Miguel on our last day there. They had obviously managed to get away rather earlier than we had on their walk in. We quickly sorted ourselves out and made a meal of papas and tinned fish rather on the spur of the moment. We were all quite tired and glad to be able to jump into bed shortly after supper – a bit of a squash with Greg, Paul and myself crammed into Greg’s tunnel tent! A surprisingly warm night - Llamac is at 3 250 m and we thought it would be a whole lot colder. Some disturbance during the night with the village dogs managing to get into our rubbish.

Tuesday 14 July

It dawned another unbelievable sparkling day getting everyone up quite early – this would be the most interesting day of our walk in to basecamp. At about 08:30 after we had cooking polenta porridge for breakfast, the arrieros arrived with the burros and started getting all the kit packed and loaded. The Germans similarly prepared to get going – from Llamac they would be following the same route as us, but would branch off at the lagunas to start the hike that makes the complete circuit around the Huayhuash peaks.

Just as the sun reached the village at about 09:30, while the others set off up the trail to go over the Pampa Llamac pass on the way to Laguna Jahuacocha, I decided to spend more time in the village enjoying the narrow cobbled streets, the traditional houses (that seemed to have somehow survived the ravages of the 1970 earthquake), the colourfully dressed people walking in the streets and the church bell sounding from its tower. Groups of women and girls were drawing water from the sparkling fountain in the main square and I saw two old women sitting in their doorways spinning wool, carefully checking and pulling the spun yarn, one of them using a wooden spindle beautifully carved in the form of a bird. Intriguing glimpses into the houses’ inner courtyards, some of them with horses and pigs in them. The inquisitive glances of snotty nosed children following me in the streets. This was altogether a charming experience.

Children in Llamac

After being guided to the start of the Pampa Llamac trail by some helpful villagers, I started to climb steadily up an evenly graded path, at first between the dry packed stone walls separating terraced fields, but these soon becoming sparser and then only the more broken down walls of disused terraces and ancient threshing floors to be seen. I caught up with the others after a height gain of about 300 m and we climbed on together past a cottage next to a trickle of water in a gully before coming out on the less steep slopes above. From here we could traverse across a stony shelf taking us on up a steep shoulder to reach the pass – Pampa Llamac at 4 300 m. Even knowing what sort of view we could expect, what we actually saw was quite overwhelming – the incredible vista of icy peaks from Rondoy to Sarapo with Tsacra Grande and its satellite peaks further to the south, all sparkling in the sun, the scale of the mountains now that we were closer to them even more impressive.

Getting closer to the mountains - the view from Pampa Llamac

We had all come up the long climb from Llamac without too much strain, but we were still grateful to be able to just sit and savour the view while we ate some lunch. Although Alberto was with us (it seemed mainly to be sure we followed the right way) the burros were still quite far behind.

Rest stop at Pampa Llamac

A chilly wind soon encouraged us to be on our way again and Steve and I pressed on along a path which now yo-yoed up and down as it traversed the ridges sweeping down into the Achin valley. We stopped at a clearing in a quena forest next to a small stream, the surface of which was still flecked with ice, and went about making a brew for everyone. It was warm where we were in the clearing, but we were still pestered by mosquitoes out to catch the unwary. Now the trail started to descend to the valley floor and on reaching it joined the trail coming up the valley from Pacllon. Stopping at the junction of the trails we admired a magnificent waterfall – the river upstream now changing its character from the confines of the narrow canyon we had seen downstream to a more gentle watercourse meandering through golden yellow grassy meadows.

The Rio Achin valley starting to change its character a little way below Laguna Jahuacocha

Quecha lady showing off her puppies - her family's guard dogs of the future

As we progressed going up the valley a spectacular ridge of grey limestone slabs with quite good looking rock came into view on our left. Then passing some thatched cottages and stone walled corrals we deviated towards the edge of the meadow to avoid some marshy ground, passing some grazing horses and cows on the way. This brought us to the base of a moraine wall and another thatched dwelling with a large white signpost and rain guage in a fenced enclosure nearby, obviously a measuring station.

Here Ulrike, Steve and I were a little way ahead of the others and Alberto had to call us back to cross the river at a log bridge lower down where a stream from the Quebrada Huacrissh, with a fine high cascade higher up, joined the Rio Achin. When we were all gathered here four hippyish looking American hikers pitched up who said they had just completed the Huayhuash circuit and had been fishing in Jahuacocha just before meeting us.

Thatched dwelling at Jahuacocha with Jirishanca Norte' (6 015 m) and Jirishanca (6 126 m) behind

Going on we finally came to Laguna Jahuacocha, a large placid expanse of water bounded by golden reed beds and steep rocky walls on its north side with lots of birds on the water and a few fishermen casting their lines out from the reed beds – all even more beautiful than I expected. By now the burros had caught up with us (they waded the river close to the bridge we had crossed) so we pushed on ahead to decide where we should to set up basecamp, eventually deciding on a site on a dry terrace between two streams with scattered bushes and flat areas for our tents. As the burros had gone slightly too far, Alberto had to run after them to turn them around so that all the gear could be dumped at the chosen site (16:45).

After sorting out the gear and food we put up the tents, Gordon Ehrens lending a hand as he would be sharing my tent with me. Not much time to sort the gear, but a pleasant feeling knowing we had arrived. Our camp was in a truly spectacular setting below Jirishanka and Rondoy and with sparkling streams and the tranquil lake nearby. A small Spanish expedition was camped close by and a larger trekking group higher upstream. We later discovered that the site we had chosen was very good – the sun reached our camp at 08:00 and only left it at 17:00 in the late afternoon. After a grand supper of soup followed by papas and sausages we went to bed early – a rather restless night of dreams for me which I ascribed to the altitude (4 050 m).

Wednesday 15 July

This was a day of getting organised. After a magnificent breakfast of porridge and eggs scrambled with mushrooms and salami, we set about the tasks that had to be done. Greg dug the loo in a nearby stone walled corral on the slope above camp, Hermann excavated a rubbish pit and Steve, Paul and I heaved some huge rocks around to build a decent kitchen shelter, big enough to accommodate us all, next to an existing big boulder.

Exhausted, but feeling good that we had the shelter’s wall and seats completed, I then sorted out all my stuff at the tent and had a fantastic (but cold) wash at the sandy bottomed pool where the main stream enters the lake. I also washed some clothing and my running shoes which by now were already distinctly “high”. Our camp got really warm in the sun and it was a pleasant thought that we would be able to come back to this comfort after the rigours of our high camps.

The idyllic setting of basecamp next to Laguna Jahuacocha

We had some concern because two of the burros with their loads and one of the arrieros hadn’t arrived the previous evening. After setting out on a search to find them a couple of our arrieros (who were already at basecamp), went out and eventually came back with one burro and all the missing equipment, which was fortunate because this included Hermann’s pack.

Setting up basecamp with Jirishhanca Norte (6 015 m) and Jirishanca (6 126 m) behind

Basecamp – Back Row : Ulrike Kiefer, Paul Greenfield, Steve Kelsey, Paul Fatti, Denis Quaife and Benedicto

Front Row : Andre’ Schoon, Russ Dodding and Hermann Vogl (Greg Moseley and Gordon Erens not in the photo)

Basecamp's kitchen shelter

After lunch in our new shelter and saying goodbye to Alberto and the arrieros who were all going back to Llamac with the burros, I put together my fishing tackle and spent a happy couple of hours fishing in the river near basecamp. Denis had fished in the lake earlier in the morning and had brought back three nice trout, but my efforts went unrewarded. However I didn’t feel too bad because neither Denis nor Benedicto, (who was our camp guard and who would be staying with us), had any luck in their afternoon fishing efforts either. While I was fishing, the others rigged up some tarps attached to the kitchen shelter’s walls and supported on some poles internally to provide a very effective roof over the shelter – now a complete and very cosy focus for us all in basecamp.

Driven back to camp by a cold breeze, I discovered on reaching camp that I must have cut my foot when crossing the river. I patched it up after washing the cut and putting some antiseptic ointment on it, changed into my salopette and down jacket for supper – a real feast with soup, Denis’ trout, bread that Ulrike had baked in our packaway oven earlier in the day, cauliflower with a cheese sauce with lasagne and finished with orange jelly mixed with maracuya. Relaxing in our shelter, Paul asked some of us to chat about technical climbing topics – Hermann on snow and ice climbing generally, Paul on ice pitons, myself on snow stakes, Greg on dead men and on first aid. An informal discussion like this must have been invaluable for youngsters like Steve and Paul Greenfield who hadn’t yet had any real snow and ice experience. After what had been a really warm day, it looked as though the high cirrus clouds that had come in and a colder night might possibly be presaging a change in the incredible run of fine weather we had been experiencing. I had met the Spaniards when I went out fishing and they had told me how their hopes to climb Yerupaja Grande had been dashed when their high glacier camp had been destroyed by exceptionally strong winds about five days previously. Without their tents, which they had used for their subcamp, they had had no choice but to pull out.

At intervals throughout day and night the serenity of our basecamp, the gentle rush of the nearby streams and the birdsong, was disturbed by the crack and ensuing roar as another serac toppled from the icefall above Solteracocha and tumbled over the rocks above its upstream apron into the water. I had already decided I must try to get a closer look.

The nights felt snug using my shearwater, but I seemed to be spending most nights dreaming long complicated dreams!

Thursday 16 July

After we had given some thought to our general plans the previous night, at first thinking we should carry out a recce of the approach to Yerupaja, we finally changed our minds. We felt it would be more profitable if we first did an acclimatisation climb on Nevado Mexico, a rock peak of 5 063 m jutting out to the west from Rondoy, as it would also give us good views up into the Yerupaja basin. We got away from basecamp in dribs and drabs at about 10:00 and crossed the stony network of streambeds below the Solteracocha moraine wall from which we could see that several parties were still camped at the high camp site next to the gully on the south side of Solteracocha. Slightly further on we stopped to take some photos of a picturesque thatched cottage below the terraced grazing fields in the gully leading up towards our peak on the north side of Solteracocha – although there were several stone corrals nearby and the dwelling looked newly thatched, there was no sign of life to see. We did catch a glimpse of Benedicto leading our luckless sheep back to camp destined for our “pachamanca” feast to come!

Nevado Mexico (5 063 m)in the foreground with Rondoy Sur (5 881 m)behind and Yerupaja Chico (6 121 m) and Grande (6 634 m)to the right

We pushed on along a path in the gully which soon started to climb quite steeply up the obvious ravine leading up to a col at the head of the Quebrada Rondoy, a long valley on the north side of the ridge we were aiming for, which has a major tributary of the Rio Llamac flowing down it.

The Quebrada Rondoy from the ridge on Nevado Mexico – Cerro Paria Norte (5 172 m) on the right

We made good time at first on grass and the last bit on a path taking us across the scree to reach the col at 4 650 m just in time to hear Paul yodel to us from far away on the other side of the scree. Although he had started out later than us, the more direct route he had chosen had brought him out closer to the peak. We were disappointed that we had not been able to find any water in our ravine, in fact in my own case this later turned out to be more than disappointment. It later transpired that the col we reached was an alternative route that could be followed to Llamac from Jahuacocha – climbing over this col would certainly be quite a lot steeper and more strenuous than the route we had followed over Pampa Llamac.

After a rest we traversed the first section of scree and then climbed up onto the ridge, but found it was still too broken to make for easy progress, so dropped down onto the scree on the other side of the ridge (ie the north side) and then continued traversing to the breche where we had seen Paul come out. From there we each made our way up a series of unpleasantly loose scree covered ledges and easy gullies still on the north side of the ridge. This was nowhere difficult, but was made really unpleasant by the incredibly friable rock on which we were climbing. Paul had pushed on ahead and following him I started feeling the altitude more and more and fell still further behind, with Steve and Greg even further back. I reached a stage where I was starting to feel light headed and rather nauseous from the altitude, but almost certainly also from not drinking enough water. At a point about 100 m below the summit with the remaining climbing similar to what we had been doing up to there, I decided to call it a day and stopped to wait for Steve and Greg. I wasn’t enjoying the climbing and reckoned it probably wasn’t worth pushing on in my slightly fragile physical state just to tick off the summit. Even after drinking some water and eating an orange I still felt pretty miserable, so decided I would wait for the others to return before going on down with them – feeling so poorly rather a disappointment for me because I had felt much fitter walking in to basecamp than some of the others. But despite this, we had been handsomely rewarded with the wonderful views of Rondoy’s South and North summits with a horrendous-looking corniced ridge connecting them, Ninashanka with its massive limestone slabs ground smooth by the ice and still further north Paria Norte’s rock spire – a far more impressive peak than I had imagined. Still further to the northwest the white summits of the Blanca peaks also glistening in this perfect weather, by far the most prominent Uruashraju’s magnificent steep cone and beyond and to the right the great bulk of Nevado Huantsan – happy memories from 1982. We were also lucky to see a pair of Condors slowly glide past us over the Quebrada Rondoy about half a kilometre away.

Going down, we made an easy if rather loose descent down the ridge following the route we had ascended and then continued down the huge scree beyond to reach the bed of the ravine below. Stopping there, because I wanted to take a telephoto shot of Greg and Hermann descending the scree, I saw they had taken a line too far over towards the east which would land them above some cliffs. After much shouting they retraced their steps and came down the scree to join me the way we had descended. We had a drop to drink and completed the easy walk back to basecamp, reaching it just as it lost the last sun at 17:00.

Here we found Benedicto had spent the day very productively preparing our pachamanca.

Pachamanca in the making

He had first made a fire in a large hole he had dug in the ground to create an oven lined with rocks. When the fire had sufficiently heated the rocks, he had packed half the sheep, cut up into joints, together with stacks of potatoes and sweet potatoes, in layers alternating them with more heated rocks and eventually covering a final layer of heated rocks with leaves and grass. This was all then left to cook for some 45 minutes before carefully extracting the food and everyone setting about the feast in earnest – Elizabethan scenes of the guys gnawing monstrous bones to extract the last morsels of meat from them.

Our meal ended with a cooked pudding served with stewed fruit and a caramel sauce. All rather good! Our whole sheep cost us 700 inti, about US$20! Paul, Greg and I stayed up after the others had crawled off to bed, chatting and communing with a bottle of whisky to pass some more of the night before hitting the hay ourselves. I took a mogadon and slept a whole lot better though still feeling badly congested. We were clearly still not very fit or well acclimatised, everyone feeling pretty tired after the climb, so we decided we’d spend Friday getting ready to go out on our first subcamp on Saturday. Paul, Russ, Ulrike and I would carry as high as possible and make a dump of the stuff we’d need for Yerupaja before returning back to basecamp.

Friday 17 July

This was the rest/packing day we spent at Basecamp preparing for our Yerupaja subcamp. I got up a bit earlier and Denis and I walked down to the rocks on the lake shore to fish – Denis had some luck catching one trout on a fly, but my efforts at spinning met with no success. Up to the time that the sun reached the lake, there was a lot of activity with quite a few fish rising, but very little after that - Paul brought us a flask of hot coffee which did in some measure make up for our miserable performance! Early morning on the lake was absolute magic – the lake was a sheet of glass painted with the reflections of the mountains around us. There were lots of birds – some almost like seagulls on the water, also coots and various types of ducks and geese. Quite a large flock of what look like black Ibis flew down and landed at the stream’s entrance to the lake close to our camp. These were quite big birds with curved beaks that they used to root among the plants next to the lake shore.

Relaxation in basecamp

Back in basecamp, during the course of the day we sorted out our climbing equipment and personal gear and food and packed ready for leaving for our subcamp early on Saturday. We also demonstrated the twin carabiner locking device and Z haul system for crevasse rescue after lunch. I sno-sealed my boots and fitted my supergators to them – I realised I was at a bit of a disadvantage bringing only my big boots and running shoes, the running shoes were really too light to use up to glacier level. The others had all brought light boots for the approach walk-in (tyresoles would work well) and were able to use them for walk-in from Chiquian as well. My flip flops were OK for walking around in basecamp, but without socks didn’t work so well in the cool of early morning and evening.

In the late afternoon Denis, Steve and I went back to where the stream entered the lake to try fishing again, this time with earthworms and pieces of sheep’s liver, but gave up in the cool of evening with a chilly breeze blowing off the lake. Greg cooked a magnificent stew of the remaining half of the sheep for our evening meal, but I again didn’t feel so good after supper, an upset tummy necessitating a visit to the loo just before going to bed, a bit of a cold trek! Again I didn’t sleep well – still coughing badly during the night and feeling very congested – lots of snorting and snotting!

Greg, Hermann, Steve, Denis and Paul Greenfield packed gear and food for a subcamp of about four days going up the Quebrada Huacrish.

Gordon, who was still feeling the altitude rather badly, said he would walk up some way with the others, but would return to basecamp to sleep. Paul, Russ, Ulrike and I would do our carry up to a subcamp on the glacier below Yerupaja.

Saturday 18 July

A little bit of cloud early in the morning indicated a spell of less settled weather might be on the way. We shouldered our packs after breakfast and got away from basecamp at about 09:00, a little before the others. We walked up to the higher camps below the Solteracocha moraine, where we caught up with a party of five young guys and a girl from New Zealand, also setting off for the Yerupaja glacier. They were clearly well acclimatised and very fit having climbed in the Cordillera Blanca since May, also obviously a very capable bunch from the climbing they told us they had done – the south faces of Ocshapalca and Tsurup and three routes on Alpamayo. From talking to them it seemed they had set their sights on trying Jirishanka, which one of them described as “the most aesthetic mountain in the range.” We laughed because they had gone to the trouble of organising burros for the carry up to their subcamp, but had found they could only reach the top of the Solteracocha moraine with them, a height gain of only some 150 m above their basecamp.

After leaving them we followed an amazing path traversing across the steep rocky/grassy mountain face for about a kilometre to reach the start of the long broken up moraine and slabs between the Rasac ridge and the icefall.

Looking down on Laguna Solteracocha with Laguna Jahuacocha beyond

We stopped for a brief rest on the grass before setting off on the long haul up the path that went up the moraine crest, stopping along the way to look at a lovely clear water spring in a little gully next to some slabs at about 4 500 m - a pleasant resting place with phenomenal views of Rondoy and Jirishanka and a rather end-on view of Yerupaja. From here the approach to both Rondoy and Jirishanka (going around the north side of Epsolon Norte) looked difficult – the icefall here was tremendously broken up and looked very dangerous. As we continued up the path going around the northeast side of Rasac Norte we watched a series of small seracs toppling over the rock barrier below Rondoy onto the glacier apron above Solteracocha. Also looking at all the debris on the glacier below Rondoy’s west face, we surmised there must be a lot of avalanche activity there too. This face was largely rock and apart from Rouse’s line up the obvious couloir in the centre, looked very difficult.

View of Jirishanka, Yerupaja Chico, Yerupaja Grande and Rasac Norte from above Solteracocha

The West Faces Rondoy Norte’ (5 820 m) and Sur (5 881 m) seen from Nevado Mexico’s Northwest Ridge

Rondoy Sur and Jirishanca

As we climbed higher up the moraine path we were met by a couple of Belgian climbers coming down. They had done several carries to a high camp that they had set up just below the exit onto the glacier that they had sited because of its advantage of having running water close by. But they were so exhausted from doing their carries that they had only had two days of climbing out of ten available days, six of the days spent trying to recuperate at Jahuacocha! They had cried off Yerupaja because of their inexperience and the difficult ice conditions that they had encountered.

Stopping for a rest on the climb up the dump for our Yerupaja subcamp, Yerupaja Chico and Grande behind

We continued gaining more height, but now moving much more slowly, finally collapsing next to a big boulder at about 4 950 m and stopping for about an hour to eat a very welcome lunch of salami and cream crackers, dried figs, oranges and warm tea. While feeling somewhat revived from our rest I was still not moving very fast, though it did seem probably slightly better than the others – we were all carrying heavy packs of around 22 kg. We passed the first of several tents on small shelves cut into the moraine and then went on up a trough between the moraine and the glacier sometimes in the trough bed where a clear stream of water flowed and sometimes on the glacier’s dry ice. After some uncertainty where we should make our dump, Paul went on to recce a bit further up and chose a spot close to another camp on the moraine where we finally made our dump at 15:45 - a carry of 6¾ hours total from basecamp (5 250 m – about 1 200 m above basecamp). We put all the food, ropes, clothing, etc into polythene sacks and stacked the hardware next to them, piling some large rocks on top to weigh everything down. After shouting some 100 m across to a couple of climbers we had seen at the nearby camp (we guessed probably French), we started off down at about 16:10. Some care needed at first going down the trough but then easier progress descending the path and sliding down sections of steep loose scree.

The New Zealanders’ moraine subcamp below Yerupaja Chico

We made a short stop to chat with the members of the New Zealand party who had set up their subcamp at about 4 800 m on the moraine, and another at the stream where we had stopped on the way up in the morning. I came down rather more slowly than the others because I was finding my running shoes pretty unpleasant on the scree run sections. A fast return along the path above Solteracocha and then another stop dropping down from the Solteracocha moraine to savour the evening light on Jahuacocha and take some photos. A last chat with the Belgians at their camp and then pleased to be “home” at our basecamp feeling quite tired and with a bit of a headache. Gordon did the cooking and made a great job of preparing supper – oxtail soup, mutton stew and a Royal pudding with oranges (salvaged from those that have started to go off in the store tent). A noggin of whisky and to bed, though sadly another not very good night - coughing badly and being unpleasantly congested.

Gordon went out with the others on what turned out to be a hot walk up the Quebrada Huacrish. Some disappointment for them to see that Tsacra Grande which they thought might be a suitable climbing prospect was obviously a far more serious climbing proposition than they thought.

Our strange observation for the day was seeing a dog coming down the moraine from the glacier with the Belgians!

Sunday 19 July

Our day was spent in basecamp preparing for our second carry to the Yerupaja subcamp. I started the day fishing from the rocky shore of the lake, this time with some success catching one trout and Paul another after he came across to bring me some coffee. After breakfast of an omelette filled with mushrooms, I embarked on an intensive session washing myself (including my hair) and a big pile of dirty clothes. For the first time our weather looked less good. There was quite an ominous bank of cloud stretching over Rondoy and Jirishanka and spreading right over our valley too and we wondered whether this might presage a spell of bad weather. As it was my turn to do the cooking for supper I went out with Russ and Benedicto after lunch to try to catch some more trout. Benedicto had a tin full of earthworms, but I persevered with my spinning, fishing from the bank of the lake in a more northerly direction and having some success catching several more trout. There was a lot of fish activity on the lake, we surmised possibly due to the unsettled weather. Our efforts were prematurely curtailed when Russ somehow managed to break the handle of Hermann’s spinning reel, so we decided to call it a day and limped back to camp with five fish for six people! To remedy this shortfall, Benedicto was detailed to “get more fish” and came up trumps with another four trout - Paul who had been deputised to help preparing the meal elected rather to go fishing too, but didn’t have any success. In the end supper was quite a feast – a chicken soup starter followed by trout fried in the pan with slivers of brazil nuts and served with mashed potatoes mixed with fried onion and then ending with fresh apples with a pecan nut filling baked with a little water in the pressure cooker and then simmered for a few minutes more with some whisky before being served with a crème caramel “custard”. A fabulous evening after supper sitting in the shelter with everyone singing! Then off to bed early, though without much hope that we would be able to get off to our subcamp as the weather still looked pretty suspect.

Benedicto, the fisherman

Gordon had another very bad night having to get up several times to take pills to alleviate his continuing headaches. To conserve fuel, which looked as though it was going down rather fast, we started using a fire to heat all our water in basecamp.

Monday 20 July

To our surprise the morning dawned fairly clear. There was a fresh sprinkling of snow that we could see on Nevado Mexico and a little later clouds did start gathering around the peaks again. But the easterly drift of high cloud we had seen previously was no longer there, so we decided to press on with our second carry. Sadly Gordon told us that he had decided to leave us and return to Chiquian via Llamac since he had just not been able to acclimatise. We helped him with the arrangements for his departure and in between this and our own hurried packing of food and equipment I managed to write a short letter to send off with him for posting home.

Eventually we were packed and set off from basecamp at 09:40. This time the trip up to our subcamp seemed much easier – we stopped after an hour at the hollow beyond the path traversing past Solteracocha and again after a second hour at the stream above the first long moraine crest. Here we met three Colombian climbers, also on their way up, who we later discovered were on their way to collect gear they had left in a subcamp before retreating off the mountain. They told us that they had tried to climb Yerupaja Sur, but without success due to the hard ice they had encountered on the climb and a lack of acclimatisation. They warned us that they had heard that some parties had experienced problems with gear being stolen from high camps on the mountain – however in the case they mentioned, we later learned that the gear had been retrieved.

Further on we came across a lone New Zealander who was on his way down to pick up the last of his party’s gear stashed at the lower camp where we had previously seen them. He told us that they had now set up a higher subcamp on the moraine at about 5 100 m in preparation for climbing on Jirishanka and Yerupaja. He himself was planning to climb on Yerupaja on the same day as us – we thought this would be nice to have some company. Going on, after lunch at the same nook we had used previously (4950m), we did see the rest of his party at the higher subcamp and waved to them as we went past, before arriving at our cache at about 15:45 (we had made much better time reaching the cache on this trip, cutting nearly an hour off our previous time). During the day the cloud had remained over Ninashanka, Rondoy and Jirishanka, but Yerupaja had remained clear. On our way up to the cache we saw and heard some massive serac falls from the icefall above Solteracocha.

The icefall below Yerupaja Chico that we passed on the way up to the Yerupaja subcamp

We found that the camp site beyond our cache had now been vacated so we found a way across some dry ice to get to it and set about enlarging the tent platform to accommodate the VE24 before lugging the last of our gear up too. The siting of our subcamp looked good – it was at an altitude of 5250m, had running water and there was easy access onto the glacier we would have to cross to get to the start of our climb. On Tuesday we would recce this approach and see if a slightly higher camp might be warranted.

Moraine subcamp below Yerupaja Grande (6 634 m) and Sur (6 515 m)

Last light on Jirishanca

And on Rondoy Sur

After first making a brew we set about preparing supper – soup and noodles followed by sausages with vegetables. We savoured the most fantastic views of all the peaks wreathed in cloud, quite beautiful in the soft light of the setting sun, Yerupaja Grande the last to lose the sun at 18:00. From our camp we looked straight across at Yerupaja Chico which had an amazing hole right through its summit cornice. To bed at 19:30, a pretty cosy crush with four of us crammed into the VE24. I didn’t have a good night - very restless and the expected headache! The temperature was -2.5⁰C when we went to bed.

Tuesday 21 July

The sun reached our subcamp at about 08:00, in the morning, rather feeble as the peaks were shrouded in cloud – a beautiful sight as the peaks appeared and disappeared in the early morning light. It was not a very good start to the day for me as I had a pronounced headache – almost as if the tooth that gave me trouble on the ’82 expedition could be starting to play up again. As we were finishing breakfast we saw and waved to the New Zealanders on the glacier – presumably humping loads to their subcamp for Jirishanka. We felt pleasantly warmed by the sunshine at our camp, but were also experiencing some lethargy after yesterday’s big carry and a long but not very restful night. So it was a slow start getting our climbing equipment ready for our first recce of the glacier and the route we would have to follow to get onto the West Face. We eventually got going at about 10:30 and walked up onto the dry glacier proper – the access onto the glacier from our camp proving to be very easy (only having to negotiate a few fairly small transverse crevasses). Paul, Russ and I were now clad in short sleeved shirts and shorts because the temperature was already amazingly high – the glacier rather like a huge reflective bowl. It had also not been very cold during the night at our subcamp. When we got up the little stream was already starting to flow again.

The New Zealanders’ subcamp for Jirishanka set up on the glacier below Yerupaja’s west face and looking at the possible options how to get across the bergschrund below the face

On the glacier we were surprised to see that the New Zealanders had pitched their camp for Jirishanka on the ice only a short way on, rather than over the Espolon col as they had planned to do. When we reached their tents some 30 minutes after leaving our subcamp, they told us that they had looked at the route over the Epsolon col, but had found it to be savagely crevassed and virtually impassable. Their enthusiasm for crossing the Epsolon col had been further dampened when one of them fell into a crevasse while trying to take a photograph.

There was a very prominent bergschrund at the bottom of Yerupaja’s west face which split in two on the north side. We would first have to see how it would be possible to get across the lower branch of the schrund, so aimed for the most likely looking (seemingly more broken) part of the lower schrund. To start with we continued on over the level glacier still in our boots but then stopped to put on crampons when we reached the steeper ice below the schrund. After cramponing on for a short distance to where we could drop our packs, we went on up a short ice wall to where we could make a stance. Russ and I then climbed on up to what appeared to be the obvious line to bypass the bergschrund and I front-pointed up a short ice wall and then an easier sloping section to get to the lower part of the schrund by an easy passage between two ice blocks, but to my surprise then found what we had thought should be an easy crossing, was in fact impassable. I found that I was looking down into a very wide icicle fringed chasm that we wouldn’t possibly be able to cross. Further to the left it seemed we might just get across behind a huge triangular shaped serac, but with a very difficult looking water ice pitch we would have to negotiate to reach the traverse line. I first managed to traverse to a point beyond the serac, but found the climbing beyond that would be would be too difficult and dangerous. Then Russ tried to find a way through a narrow ice cleft to the right of the serac, but this also turned out to be impassable. Paul tried next to make a traverse along the lip of the schrund from where we had started, but again found the climbing there would be so complex and difficult that this would also not be a viable option.

Trying to find the way across the bergschrund

While we had been engrossed in our attempt to find a feasible way to cross the bergschrund, the weather had clagged in quite badly and polystyrene beads of snow started to come down on us. We decided this was not ideal weather for climbing in shorts and made our way back to our packs by an easier slope further to the north. After a quick drink and packing gear, we walked back down to the NZ camp where we took off our crampons. Speaking to the New Zealanders it seemed most likely that they would try to reach the col to the south of Yerupaja Chico and climb Jirishanka from there. Our own best choice to get across the lower branch of the schrund we had been battling with seemed to be either to start much further over to the left, crossing an easy looking snow bridge, and then having to do a technically difficult looking traverse back to the right above the schrund, or alternatively following a direct line more towards the col between Yerupaja Grande and Sur in order to cross the schrund there and then doing a less difficult looking, but also very long traverse back to the left to where it then looked possible to get across the schrund at the point where it split in two. Both these traverse lines looked risky because they were directly exposed to ice fall from the serac bands higher up on either side of the main face. The final consensus was that the righthand route would probably be preferable because we thought it would probably be slightly safer.

After chatting some more with the New Zealanders we set off down the glacier stopping along the way to pick up five bags of trash the Colombians had left behind at their glacier camp! When we arrived back at our subcamp after dumping the Colombians’ trash down a crevasse, we cooked up a big brew of tea to restore some sense of decency. Amazed to see the spoor and then again the lone pero eyeing us from the glacier. We reckoned he must obviously be very hungry - not good news for leaving our food out overnight or while we were away from camp. The weather really clagged in while we were eating supper, the mist closing in around us. With the uncertainty about the weather and feeling pretty tired after our rather frustrating day, we decided we would not make a specially early start for the climb on Wednesday. Under Paul’s tuition we held a subcamp bridge school before hitting the hay!

Wednesday 22 July

During the night it cleared so that waking late we expected to see the NZ party on the face, but they did not appear – it was only later that we saw them coming back onto the glacier. After they unroped and took off their crampons next to our camp, they told us that they had made a very early start to again try to reach the col earlier in the morning, but in the dark couldn’t find a way through some big seracs and, not being very motivated, had finally decided to call it a day. Anton, the leader of their party (who seemed to be the most motivated in their group) had then tried to climb Rasac, but had also given up after climbing a couple of pitches. We had a long chat with them about items of general and specific climbing interest in RSA, NZ and elsewhere, our discussion ending up with lunch and an amusing gift we made to them of some biltong - in response they gave us some short abseil stakes. We swopped names and addresses before they left to go down to Jahuacocha.

We then started to make our preparations for making an early start for our own attempt on the West Face, deciding we would try to cross the schrund directly below the col between Yerupaja Grande and Sur (the righthand option previously described). One of the NZ party (John) who had been with us, was suffering from a tummy upset and appeared to have been badly affected by the sun, spent a couple of hours gratefully recuperating in our tent, before going on down to rejoin his party. I was concerned that my toothache/headache still seemed to be persisting!

Thursday 23 July

We were woken by the alarm at 03:00 and were able to make a fairly easy start in the cold but clear morning, because we had prepacked everything the previous night. We roped up from the start before setting off across the glacier (Russ and I and Paul and Ulrike) heading for the funnel at the start of the righthand route which we reached at about 06:00. To me the others still seemed to be experiencing problems with their headlamps prematurely fading, most probably caused either by the cold or possibly faulty batteries. We all found it very trying crossing the glacier and gaining height, Ulrike especially seemed to be feeling the altitude and her heavy pack, sitting down in the snow whenever we halted. A bitterly cold wind gave us the promise of a windy day. When we reached the steeper ice, I put on my crampons and with Russ belaying set off up an ice ramp, stopping some distance further on to put in a couple of ice screws for a running belay, but then had to stop again when Paul called up that Russ was again experiencing the same looseness in his chest he had been previously been suffering. After a discussion where Paul and I checked out the food and equipment we were carrying, it was decided that Paul and I should continue and at least check that portion of the route to get past the schrund while Russ and Ulrike would return to our subcamp and if necessary continue on down to basecamp for Russ to recuperate – a rather disappointing turn of events for both of them.

As if to emphasise we should take the climbing here quite seriously, at a point coming up this last pitch one of Paul’s crampons slid off the ice and he started sliding down before being pulled up by the belay.

Embarking on the traverse above the lower schrund - Rasac Principal (6 040 m) behind

Reaching the level of the traverse we made three long traverse pitches finding the climbing quite demanding as it was all on quite steep and very hard ice (the average angle around 50⁰). This finally brought us out onto easier angled snow where we could move together and breathe a sigh of relief because the sun was now already on the face and we felt there was a very real danger posed by the seracs higher up on the righthand side of the face. We now had to make another decision and after some discussion elected to look for and hole up in a place where we could safely bivvy in an ice cave in the schrund so that we could make an attempt on the face the next day. Before starting to look for our ice cave we watched Ulrike’s lone figure on the glacier walking up to the col at the head of the valley. When she was nearly opposite us we watched in fascination as a monster ice avalanche from a serac breaking away from just below the summit swept down the whole face, at its bottom simply obliterating the route we had followed on the first couple of pitches we had climbed earlier in the day!! There was absolutely no way either of us could have survived if the serac had fallen while we were there!

On the end of the rope I traversed across to the end of the schrund but couldn’t find anything suitable for our bivvy. Then moving back towards Paul a little I almost fell into an ice cave that looked ideal – a good fairly level floor and a roof with a projecting lip that should give us good protection if anything did come down from the face above. Paul brought the packs across and we set about levelling the floor and making ourselves at home - hanging up our ropes and equipment. By now it was already lunchtime so we had a bite to eat and drank some game from our thermos flasks before realising that with the sun starting to flood into the cave we would soon start feeling pretty hot. To provide some shelter we rigged up Paul’s single bivvy bag (that he had given to me to use) as a Heath-Robinson but very effective solution and promptly collapsed in its welcome shade.

Bivvy in the Yerupaja bergschrund

Late afternoon recce

Preparing the pitch giving us access onto Yerupaja’s face above the bergschrund

Later in the afternoon at about 16:15 we sallied forth and did a long traverse further to the left on snow, which by now was pretty soft, to look at the route we would have to follow to get across the top schrund onto the face proper.

I gave Paul a belay on a couple of good snowstakes and after putting in a decent looking ice screw he cut some steps in incredibly hard glassy water ice just to prepare a start on this first pitch we’d have to climb in the morning. An incredible sight to take in the reflecting bronze of the setting sun on the near vertical ice rib on which he was climbing.

After he climbed back down, we retraced our steps in the fast gathering dusk, moving together along the traverse back to the cave – a welcome home. Extending the earlier work we had done levelling the floor with our snow shovel, we finally had lots of room. We climbed into our bags and cooked supper by the light of a half candle we set in an ice niche we cut in the cave wall. Supper was a good meal of Swedish ready-prepared mince with rice and mushrooms, which we decided rather tasted of fish! A very cold but clear night, pretty comfortable in our bivouac.

After Ulrike returned from her walk up the glacier, she and Russ packed up, closed the tent and descended to basecamp.

Friday 24 July

The alarm went off at 05:00 - we had decided to make a later start because of the cold. After breakfast in our bags we had the usual battle struggling to get dressed inside our bags and to put our boots on inside our rucksacks. We eventually got away at about 07:00 and went back across the traverse in the previous evening’s tracks. Paul re-climbed the water ice pitch and then went on up the face after putting in a couple of Snarg ice pitons at the halfway point of the 50 m pitch (climbing on two 50 m x 9 mm Everdry ropes). When he had set up his belay I followed, the steps he had cut at the start of the pitch making access onto the face quite easy. The climbing on the face itself was tremendously impressive, possibly approaching 60⁰ on hard water ice with a feathery ripple of ice projecting at the surface. The climbing was extremely hard work – you either had to simply shove your ice tools in at shoulder height and front point upwards, or if you wanted to rest, hit your axe in several times to get some purchase because the ice tended to shatter and dinner plate chunks were breaking off. It was a tremendously slow and tiring exercise climbing a 50 m pitch with a rucksack weighing some 20 kg. After getting up to Paul, I shared my concerns about the time it was going to take to reach the top ‘schrund where we had planned to make our next bivvy - 15 odd pitches we knew we would have to climb in similar ice conditions carrying our packs.

However, to get a better idea of the time that might be involved, we decided to see how long it would take us to climb the next pitch on the face, and Paul led off again taking about 30 minutes to reach and set up the next belay stance and the same amount of time for me to follow. At this rate we realised it would take us about another 15 hours climbing to do the main part of the face. We realised too that we would be doing most of the climbing in the gruelling heat of the sun which was by now already beating down on the face. Although we had been able to protect the climbing quite well, the threat of another ice avalanche was also worrying – in fact when Paul was climbing out of my sight, there was another fall of ice from the field of seracs above us which went past him some 10 m to his left. Weighing up the time aspect, the boiler plate ice conditions we were encountering and the threat of more ice possibly coming down the face, we finally decided we would call it a day and would descend by abseiling back directly over the bergschrund.

The upper third of the West Face showing the serious cornices you have to negotiate traversing to the summit.

We initially planned to make our second bivvy in the upper bergschrund

We had with us the T-section stakes (about 500 mm long) and the tube anchors the New Zealanders had given us and used them to set up the anchors for the abseils (though we found it was quite a battle to bash the T-stakes into the hard ice). We first had to abseil down the last two 50 m pitches we had climbed cutting generous belay stances, putting in a couple of snargs and clipping the knotted end of our doubled ropes into the belay at each of them. To rig the abseil to get over the schrund about 28 m below our second stance, we hammered in the tube, which seemed to work much better than the T-section stakes. Again I said I would go down first –I wanted to be sure our ropes would reach the bottom, so when I went over the edge it was with some relief that I could see that the abseil would land us on a snow cone bridging the massive crevasse at the bergschrund and that our ropes just reached. To safeguard my passage getting past the massive fringe of icicles overhanging the ice face below, I put a prussik above the figure eight I was abseiling on before recceing where it would be best to go over the edge. At the edge I was able to kick away the fringe of icicles immediately below me and was suitably impressed when this in turn triggered a huge avalanche of broken icicles falling into the schrund below – I reckoned I must have dislodged at least a ton of ice. With the sudden release of this mass of ice I also found myself hanging free, now with my safety prussik engaged. Hanging free in my harness from the prussik, I first sorted out the problem of my pack pulling me over backwards by clipping it onto a sling attached to my harness and dropping it below me. Next, to save strength sitting upright, I used a sling to make a chest harness and also clipped that into the rope below the jammed prussik. Then to free the prussik, I first tried standing in a sling attached to a second prussik I installed just below the first one, but, whatever I tried to do to free the original prussik, it remained well and truly jammed. After trying unsuccessfully to tell Paul what had happened and what I was doing, I pressed on to get all the way down. Firstly to provide added safety,I looped the free hanging abseil rope back up through an extra carabiner attached to my harness and then pulled up my pack so that I could take out my knife to cut the engaged prussik free. Cutting the engaged prussik was spectacular to say the least – I scarcely touched the prussik with the knife blade and my weight suddenly came back onto the main abseil rope and I could easily go on down in a free abseil to land safely on the snow bridge and go over it to safely reach the outside snow slope.

Paul abseiling over the bergschrund to get off the face

Paul, who must have been wondering what was going on, soon joined me and we quickly coiled the ropes and packed up while I filled him in about my own slightly more adventurous abseil. While we were getting ready to go on down, we watched two figures slowly ascending the glacier towards us and found that it was Hermann and PG when we shortly afterwards met up them. They had come up the glacier to see how we were getting on and to get some exercise. We stopped where we met them and had some lunch at the same time catching up on each others’ news. After this we all walked down the glacier together, stopping briefly to collect the last of the Colombians’ litter and drop it down a crevasse. By now the snow had become very mushy in the afternoon sun so we were very grateful when we got back to our subcamp, Paul, PG and I settling into the VE24, Hermann on his own (without a sleeping bag) in his small bivvy tent and Denis and Steve, who had just walked up from basecamp, bivvying on a lower platform. We made supper in the open in the last light of a perfectly clear evening and after discussing our plans for Saturday, retired quite early to bed.

For the first time my tooth really started to play up during the night – by morning I felt terrible and could feel my face really starting to swell – I wondered if this was going to be a repeat of my 1982 trip!

Back in basecamp Russ and Ulrike enjoyed walking up the Rasac valley to Laguna Rasac. In the evening they invited some of the NZ party over and, to wish them well on their way home, Ulrike prepared a magnificent meal ending it with a cheese soufflé that Greg managed to conjure up in the packaway oven over an open fire – the food all washed down with KWV brandy. A fine end party for the NZ team’s departure.

Saturday 25 July

Hermann had said that when he left basecamp, Greg had told him that he wanted to go home, planning to leave basecamp with the NZ party on the 25^th. Paul wanted to speak to Greg before he left so he got away from the subcamp at about 07:30. He did manage to catch up with Greg at basecamp, where Greg confirmed his wish to leave, saying that his leaving wasn’t anything to do with the expedition. He asked Paul to pass on his goodbyes to the rest of us.

Hermann and PG got away from the subcamp at about 08:30 planning to walk up to the col at the head of the glacier and Denis and Steve staggered out of their bivvy bag shortly afterwards at about the same time as I surfaced. As I had no inclination to eat any breakfast, I started packing up too, savouring the sun, said goodbye to Denis and Steve who were also on their way up the glacier and then packed up the last of my own stuff ready to go down. The descent took me about two hours with a stop at the water above the first long moraine and then again a short rest at the start of the path traversing above Solteracocha. By the time I reached basecamp I was tired and feeling miserable, but soon cheered up again being together with Ulrike, Paul and Russ and picking at a lunch of onion fried with cheese and some fried eggs. After eating, I went through the medical kit to see if I could find the Amoxil antibiotic to treat my problematical tooth (as far as I could remember I had used Amoxil under very similar conditions when I was on Tullparaju in 1982). After taking a double dose of Amoxil as well as some Dolerol paracetomol pain killer that Russ gave me, I spent the whole afternoon dozing in the warm sun in the doorway of my tent, but was somewhat alarmed by evening to find my gum inside my mouth had swelled up like a golf ball.

A nice surprise in the late evening when Hermann walked into basecamp after he also decided to come down. I had a rather subdued trucha supper – a bit miserable trying to cope with food with my substandard mouth and obviously also concerned whether the Amoxil would successfully beat the bugs in a reasonable time. After supper there were deep discussions in the kitchen about possible plans. Paul wanted to have another go at the west face with Russ, trying to make a direct crossing of the bergschrund next to where we abseiled off the face (though Russ didn’t say much about what he would like to do). Hermann favoured following a diagonal route up Yerupaja’s southwest face from the nek at the head of the glacier, to reach the col between the main and south peaks and then to see what the ridge to the main summit looked like from there. For me there was a big question mark about the viability of this ridge traverse following the comments that the Poms and Belgians made to us about their experience on it. My own first concern was obviously to get well as soon as I could so I regretfully excused myself from Paul’s immediate plan to first do a two day trip up the Huacrish valley with Hermann, Ulrike and Russ and to try to climb Ancocancha Norte.

Hermann and PG did in fact manage to reach and recce the col between Yerupaja Sur and Seria Norte and Denis and Steve also reached the col between Seria Norte and Rasac Principal after spending time bouldering on a massive ice block near the head of the glacier. They again spent the night at the moraine subcamp.

When I woke up several hours after we had all went off to bed, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the swelling in my mouth seemed to have reduced somewhat.

Sunday 26 July

The swelling inside my mouth definitely seemed to be subsiding and it looked as though the Amoxil was working. After breakfast Paul, Russ, Hermann and Ulrike slowly packed up in preparation for walking up the Huacrish valley. It was their intention to set up a subcamp near the Auxilio lake and then to try to climb Ancocancha Norte. They finally managed to get away at about 11:30. I spent the morning bathing and washing my hair and clothes – quite a stack of dirty clothing had accumulated by this time. While I was writing up my diary Benedicto informed me about the progress of three Austrian parapent jumpers who were climbing up a ravine on the north side of our valley. The first of them took off at 13:00, his total flight time down to a landing right in the middle of our basecamp must have been around three minutes. The photos that I took of him flying against the backdrop of Rondoy and Jirishanka unfortunately didn’t come out because I later discovered that the film hadn’t engaged properly in my camera’s winding mechanism. We then watched the other two Austrians coming down too, the first flyer taking scores of photos of their flights. This parapenting certainly looked spectacular – what a way to come down off a peak! The weight of the parapent is only about 5 kg and it packs into a volume slightly larger than a big sleeping bag.

While we were enjoying an extended lunch, Denis, PG and Steve arrived seemingly rather exhausted from their long descent from the Yerupaja subcamp. While they were getting stuck into lots of liquid we were surprised to see an obviously very depressed Russ trudging back to basecamp along the lake shore. He had only managed to ascend some 150 m along the path up the Huacrish valley before turning back because of a recurrence of the tummy ailment that had bugged him before. Pulling out the medical kit we dosed him with Septron, the antibiotic which he had been taking before. While the others all collapsed after lunch I did some more writing and reading, before organising food for supper – a starter of pate’ on biscuits followed by mushroom soup and a sort of gratin Dauphinoise (sliced potatoes with cheese salami and onion cooked in the pressure cooker). The night turned out quite cold.

One of the Austrians parapenting down to our basecamp with Jirishanka behind

Paul, Hermann and Ulrike walked all the way up the Huacrish valley and set up their subcamp immediately below the moraine wall of Laguna Auxilio.

Monday 27 July

Possibly the best day of the expedition for me so far. I spent the day on my own exploring the Rasac valley which I found interesting and beautiful. The day didn’t start very well because, when I got up quite early to take some photos of the lake and our camp, I finally discovered that the film that I had put into my camera rather in haste to photograph Paul abseiling through the “chandelier” icicles coming off Yerupaja, hadn’t properly engaged and that, as a result, I had lost about 13 photos. Hopefully I would be able to retake some of the shots that I lost, also I hoped I would be able to get the “tail” of the film projecting from the cassette, so that I could still use it.

My tooth did feel somewhat better, but my face had remained quite swollen. It seemed it might take a while to subside. With the three who had returned from the Yerupaja subcamp by now quite ravenous, Denis conjured up a magnificent breakfast of eggs and bacon, which Russ sadly had to miss as he was still feeling pretty fragile. After breakfast I packed a day pack and set off on my own, first along the rather confused animal tracks on the true lefthand bank of the Rasac river- although the main path followed the opposite bank, this approach was perhaps easier because one gained height more easily going up the valley. Taking some more photos looking back on Jahuacocha and basecamp I was disappointed that the view was slightly spoiled by gathering clouds. After passing a waterfall, I continued on following the boisterous river up a gently sloping valley filled with lupins and other alpine flowers, stopping for a little time to photograph a man and his wife with a tiny child, a dog and a pig as well, all slowly moving up the valley as the man fished his way up the river. A little further on, going past an empty corral, I came across a lady spinning, with her small child tending a flock of sheep. This brought me to the valley’s portada and the first view of Laguna Rasac, another truly beautiful glacial lake set beneath the massive limestone slabs below the summit of Rasac Norte. I could see that the valley seemed to be used mostly for grazing cattle. The valley’s west wall and floor were seamed with cattle tracks and you could see the animals everywhere, to the extent that the evident overuse of this grazing was clearly leading to erosion problems. Stopping to photograph the lake and the magnificent views of the Rasac peaks, particularly the fine needle of Rasac Oeste, I realised with dismay that I had brought my 2 x converter with me in place of my wide angle lens. Time and again during the day, with ever more exciting views unfolding, I regretted the lack of care I had taken packing my camera gear.

View looking down on Laguna Rasac with lots of cattle grazing next to it

To continue beyond the Laguna Rasac I chose to climb steeply over some moraine crests on the western side of the valley to reach an obvious series of less steep shelves where the cattle tracks would take me still higher towards the moraine containing the valley’s upper lake. This worked out very well and I made good time traversing the slope going over pleasant meadows dotted with small boulders and more barren hillsides all with cattle everywhere. Reaching the trough between the slope and the moraine I came to a path continuing up the valley passing a last small meadow and becoming rockier. Here the limestone displayed a wide variety of textures, sometimes mottled or striated.

Just after I put up some snipe-like birds the path became steeper and then crossed onto terrain more like a scree and I noted that from here it looked as though it would be possible to traverse out onto the big ridge separating the Quebrada Rasac from Quebrada Tsacra, considering that this might be an option for walking out. As the limestone cliffs of Tsacra Chico Norte closed in on my right I came to some running water and shortly afterwards an obvious bivvy site that must have been used by climbers. Where the path eventually reached the crest of the moraine ridge next to the glacier, I stopped briefly for a drink and a snack and considered what I should do next.

High up in the Quebrada Rasac – Rasac Principal (6 040 m) on the left and the pointed peak Rasac Oeste (5 700 m)

At first it appeared as though I would have to descend onto the glacier to reach the col, but then on closer inspection, I thought I might be able to follow a long ledge in a westerly direction on Tsacra Chico Norte if I could climb up to it by way of what looked like a fairly easy scramble. By doing this traverse I would be able to look down into the Quebrada Huacrish and would also be able to see if it might be possible to descend that way. After the scramble to reach it, my traverse along the ledge did go quite easily at first and looking back from a high point I also realised that by climbing slightly higher and then going back in the opposite direction it would be possible to reach the Rasac 5 129 m col, without having to go onto the glacier. Continuing my traverse to Tsacra Chico Norte I found my ledge narrowed, but just allowed me to scramble across into a big scree bowl. At this point it was very exciting to see a pair of large horned animals (probably ibex) that watched me for a time and then rather to my disappointment, moved off and climbed up a narrow gully to cross over the ridge crest and disappear from view. I then continued climbing diagonally up the scree, this quite easy over the larger rocks, but with a lot of sliding where there were smaller stones. Scrambling up easy rock interspersed with gravel, this brought me out on the edge of the bowl looking back down over the Quebrada Rasac, from which I could easily climb the last few metres to reach the ridge crest.

Looking back over the Quebrada Rasac’s upper lake to Rondoy Sur

From here I could look across to Tsacra Grande above me and also down into the Quebrada Tsacra with the rather muddy looking water of its characteristically kidney shaped lake and a beautiful much smaller lake with crystal clear water to its north. Wonderful views looking down to the confluence of the rivers in the Quebradas Tsacra and Huacrish with the southern peaks of the Cordillera Blanca beyond and further to the east the impressive Rasac peaks, now clearer with the clouds dispersing. Where I had come out on Tsacra Chico Norte’s ridge there were some last remnants of a glacier that was once there. Also horrifyingly steep and loose-looking gullies descending to the screes in the valley below – it would obviously be out of the question to descend this moonscape into the Tsacra valley, though a short distance to the north crossing the ridge did look a whole lot easier.

The Tsacra peaks at the head of the Quebrada Tsacra (Tsacra Grande at 5 774 m)

Retracing the way I had come up, I reached a point where I had reckoned I would have to start my descent - by now the time was 15:30 and I estimated I should just have sufficient time in hand to still try to reach the 5 129 m Rasac col before heading home. After climbing up a short way to an obvious traverse line, I followed a fairly complicated route threading my way between boulders and over screes to eventually gain the col without encountering any real technical difficulty. There I was rewarded with another fantastic view looking down into the Quebrada Seria with Siula Grande (6 356 m) (partially obscured behind the Seria ridge) and Sarapo (6 143 m) to the east and even Trapecio, Puscanturpa and the Rosario peaks clearly visible in the distance. To get down into the Quebrada Seria from here one would have to descend over the glacier to get onto the moraine – a route that looked fairly simple. Crossing over the 5004 m pass next to Seria Sur on the Seria ridge from the Quebrada Seria to reach Laguna Sarapococha also looked quite straightforward as the pass was not glaciated.

Now with the time 16:20 I decided I must fly. Choosing a lower route back along my ledge (through some boulders rather than the higher route I had followed across the screes), I got back to my original lunch spot quite easily. I went on past the bivvy site and descending the path at the upper moraine put up what must easily have been two dozen Viscacha bounding off among the boulders or inquisitively watching me - fabulous little bushy tailed creatures. I followed the path down the moraine trough and then elected to traverse the slope along the cattle paths again (often rather narrow and eroded), eventually coming out where I had climbed the slope above the lower lake in the morning. Instead of descending there, I continued traversing and went down the steep shoulder where the Rasac stream started falling steeply into the main Jahuacocha valley. A last unpleasantly steep and dusty descent down the approximate route I had followed in the morning brought me down to the valley floor just as it was getting dark (about 18:20). I was surprised to catch sight of one of our Austrian friends gliding down to our basecamp with his parapent – a beautiful sight coming in over the lake. Reaching camp just in time for supper, I learned with some appreciation that Steve, concerned for my safety, had walked up the Rasac valley to see if he could find me – fortunately he arrived back in camp soon afterwards. Fish kedgiree made with trout that Benedicto had caught, for supper – tasty but pretty bony. PG made a fabulous crème caramel to finish the meal. I went to bed quite tired but very satisfied with what I had accomplished during the day. Denis, Russ and Steve visited the lady who lived at the bottom end of the lake to catch up on some beers. There was no sign of Paul’s party.

Paul, Hermann and Ulrike got away from their subcamp at about 07:00. They experienced difficulty finding a route through the icefall, Paul eventually trying to make a direct route to get onto Ancocancha Norte’s snow ridge, necessitating a pitch of direct aid, while Hermann and Ulrike persevered and did manage to get through the icefall.

They eventually joined up on the ridge, the climbing on fairly straightforward snow, except for the last pitch going up to the summit which was steep (70⁰) and full of penitentes. They discovered that the point they had reached was about 30 m lower than an adjacent rock summit, but reckoned they had done enough and didn’t go any further. They descended back to their subcamp at about 18:00.

Tuesday 28 July

I spent the day at basecamp. Steve and Denis packed up and got away for a subcamping trip to the Quebrada Huacrish leaving basecamp at about 10:30.

They intended to camp more or less where Paul’s party had camped earlier, to climb Raju Collota Norte (5 427 m) from the 5 256 m col and then return over the col, climb Ancocancha Sur (5 560 m) and Norte (5 647 m) before continuing along the ridge as far as possible towards Tsacra Grande Oeste (5 589 m). About mid morning Ulrike arrived, evidently quite far ahead of Paul and Hermann. Earlier the three Austrians did some more parapent jumps from the ridge on the south side of the valley – this time I did manage to get some better photos of them. They made good landings except for one who landed where the stream enters the lake and got his camera gear pretty wet! For the occasion of welcoming the others back to basecamp I baked some bread in the packaway oven. I managed to find some raisins and some caraway seed. I balanced the oven on some stones packed around the fire which I kept quite low and baked the bread for about an hour. The bread rose and re-rose like a charm after re-kneading (sheltered from the breeze in a bowl covered with a sheet of plastic).

Paul and Hermann eventually arrived back shortly before 13:00 – they had taken longer to return because they walked around the northern shore of the lake. We all had a magnificent lunch sitting in the sun, the bread a resounding success disappearing in one fell swoop! In the afternoon Russ and Dave, one of the New Zealanders, organised some parapent jumping lessons with the Austrians launching from the ridge on the north side of the lake and “landing” on the meadow below! Russ came back late in the afternoon nursing skinned knuckles from landing among the meadow’s rocks and certainly slightly more sobered that parapenting wasn’t just such a doddle. A cool breeze off the lake prevented the Austrians themselves from more jumping until sunset.

The rest of us spent the afternoon relaxing - soaking up the sun and reading. I also managed to photograph the Ibis that feed in the stream near our camp – rather distressed to find one of them flopping around in the water, I thought most likely injured by a stone from Benedicto’s catapult! I put it in a sheltered spot where it appeared to recover some time later. Ulrike organised supper, a sort of stew of potatoes, carrots and lentils cooked with cut up salami - we have learned that salami is not a good substitute for meat in a meal like this!!

A cold night. Getting our minds geared up for the long haul back to our Yerupaja subcamp on Wednesday to explore Yerupaja’s southwest face.

Wednesday 29 July

We started the day with a large breakfast finishing off the last of the bacon and eggs and then went on to sort and pack our gear. The morning was enlivened by the Austrians jumping from the south side of the valley, made quite tricky by the fresh breeze at basecamp coming off the lake. After tea with the Austrians in our camp and saying goodbye to Benedicto and his son Emilio (who arrived from Pocpa earlier in the morning), we set off at 12:00 on the long grind up the moraine. I met an American and his wife on the traverse above Solteracocha – they said that they had hoped to climb Yerupaja’s west face, but had decided to come down after seeing the hard ice. I noticed how badly eroded this section of the path had become from the heavy traffic on it during the relatively short time we had been here. Continuing up, we stopped to have lunch at the first water on the slabs and a little later were joined by the New Zealanders Dave and Linda – they had gone up to recce a lower approach to Jirishanka that Dave and the American hoped to climb. And then while we were having lunch another group of two American guys and two girls with a Peruvian arrived, apparently from a trekking camp at the lower end of the lake – this was all getting rather overcrowded! It got quite cool as we were having lunch as the sun was hiding behind clouds that had gathered around the peaks. We said goodbye to our friends and staggered on up the path under our heavy loads, this one seemingly the heaviest of the three I had carried up, probably because I took most of my climbing gear and my stove down the last time I went down to basecamp.

Late evening light on Rondoy Sur

At last at 17:30 we arrived at our original subcamp and got organised. There were six of us – Paul and Russ would sleep in the Light Dimension tent in preparation for their attempt to try again to climb the West Face, while Hermann, Paul G, Ulrike and I would squeeze into the VE 24 for the night and then go on to set up a new subcamp at the col between Yerupaja Sur and Seria Norte with the idea to climb an angled route across Yerupaja Sur’s southwest face to reach the high col between the main and south peaks. After sorting gear and changing into warmer clothes, we ate a communal supper put together out of the already opened HA food packs. Beautiful views of the peaks around us unfolded as the sun went down and then as it grew dark the clouds cleared and lightning highlighted the peaks from behind. A little bit of light was also offered by a thin sliver of a waxing moon.

Not a very good night for me, space at a premium and both Ulrike and Hermann snored!

Thursday 30 July

Despite rising early it took Paul and Russ some time to get organised and they only got away from the subcamp (to fix the rope on the direct line that we had seen over the schrund to the left of the triangular shaped serac) at about 09:00. It was not a very prepossessing looking morning - high clouds shrouding the peaks and a low bank of mist creeping in from the Blanca side. We struck the VE24 and packed up our own food and gear to eventually get away with even heavier packs at 10:00. As we slowly hefted our packs up the glacier we caught a couple of brief glimpses of Paul and Russ heading for and then reaching the schrund, before they too were swallowed up in the mist. Our long walk up the glacier, though not very steep, was still quite tedious. Fortunately the cloud cover meant that the snow had stayed in good condition. As we neared the col between Seria Norte and Rasac Principal we veered to the left up a firm snow slope and stopped next to a prominent ice boulder (that Steve and Denis had used earlier to practice their steep ice climbing) for lunch. By now the weather had totally clagged in and light snow was beginning to fall – we could also feel that there was a definite drop in the temperature. There was no reason to dally any longer after a fairly frugal lunch so we donned our crampons and staggered on up a much steeper snow slope of about 150 m to reach the col between Yerupaja Sur and Seria Norte’ eventually dropping our packs with some relief on a little snowy ridge just below the col at about 14:15, now in thick mist with snow sifting down. After a quick sip of “slurp” (chicha morada cooldrink), we set about looking for a suitable ice cave for our subcamp (rather than having to pitch the tent). This was neither easy nor very successful – most of the schrunds that we looked at in the mist were very deep, some of them in fact enormous and evidently very active! So we agreed to rather pitch the tent on the level crest of the ridge where we had dropped our packs. There was an unexpected crisis when, as we were busy putting up the tent, Ulrike put two of the VE 24’s aluminium poles down on the snow and they rocketed off down the slope like torpedoes. She did manage to grab one, but Hermann was too late to catch the other. A very mollified Ulrike set off down the glacier to try to find the rather vital missing pole – fortunately not having to go too far before discovering that it had got caught up on one of the little ice ridges that had formed on the surface of the ice slope. Taking a whole lot more care this time, we finished putting up the tent, anchoring the fly sheet guys by attaching them to plastic bags that we filled with snow and buried.

Subcamp below the Yerupaja Sur/Seria Norte’ col

After organising our gear and getting the stove going we climbed into the tent – the afternoon now decidedly gloomy and no real sign of the mist lifting. The weather was certainly not looking so good for climbing on Friday and we wondered too how it might be affecting Steve and Denis in the Huacrish. In the comfort of the tent we brewed up one brew after another, catching up on our liquid intake and filling our thermos flasks for the morning. We were again four bedding down in the tent – more than snug, but we nevertheless spent a fairly comfortable night.

Reaching the schrund at the triangular shaped serac, Paul and Russ climbed a hard water ice pitch behind it (Russ leading out a full rope length) and fixed a rope so that they would be able to make an early start on the morning of Friday 31 July. They went back to sleep at the moraine subcamp.

Friday 31 July

When we woke at first light and started preparing to get away, we could see that the weather was still unsettled. Snow had fallen during the night and more clouds were moving in. Melting snow for our brews and taking turns to sort out our gear inside the tent, it took some time for us to get away. We eventually left at about 08:30, first climbing up the snow slope above our camp to reach the ledge below the large schrund cutting right across the face there. We were each carrying a rucksack weighing about 15 kg plus the climbing equipment divided between us that we expected we would have to use on the face – 10 ice screws, 4 stakes and 2 deadmen. At the schrund we walked to the left for about 50 m to where there was a tenuous bridging point leading on to a complicated looking serac system above. After chatting to Hermann who didn’t seem too keen to lead the first steep ice pitches that we would have to climb, we decided that we should climb as a single party of four. I led off across the schrund which was made more difficult because my goggles kept fogging up, and then continued front pointing up on steepish ice to where I could put in an ice piton and make a stance.

The ice face below Yerupaja Sur’s southwest ridge

The next section was over a bulge of steeper ice (about 55⁰) and we couldn’t see what was in store for us higher up, so I continued without my bag, grateful that I did so because I had scarcely started when the mist thickened even more and I could only see about 25 m. Above this we bore more towards the right, more by intuition than anything else because we could see so little, until we found our way barred by a still steeper ice face which forced us back to the left.

The climbing on hard ice above our Yerupaja Sur/Seria Norte’ subcamp

This brought us out onto an easier angled slope, which I guessed seemed about right to take us up to the major schrund cutting right across the southwest face at this level – really pleased to find this reckoning was in fact correct when the cloud lifted off the face a little later and we could better see what lay ahead.

We were making very slow progress climbing as a party of four, mainly due to the time that Ulrike and PG were taking on the pitches climbing very cautiously on the ice. Despite the appearance of the face being mainly snow, we found the snow cover over the ice was generally too thin to be of much help to us and that nearly all the climbing was on hard ice. There was also no let-up in the climbing – nowhere did we find a level platform or ledge big enough for us to pause to rest or have a bite to eat, so we just had to go on climbing. As we climbed out onto the easier angled slope above the seracs, the clouds started to disperse and we were treated to spectacular views of the West Face and the serac barrier between it and where we were. The summit cornices and the broken rocks high up on the main peak appeared very close and highly broken up. Far below we spied a lone figure crossing the glacier, but there was no sign of Paul and Russ on the West Face and we wondered what had become of them.

Climbing out of the clouds with a view onto the West Face appearing beyond the seracs

As the slope we were on steepened, Hermann took over the lead on the last pitch up to the schrund – more hard ice. Once there we found that we were at last on a tiny fairly level platform. Also inside the schrund it looked as though, with quite a lot of work, we should be able to level a platform big enough to accommodate all four of us for the obvious bivvy we would have to make (because by now it was already late afternoon). In terms of the standard of the ice caves we had so far become used to, this one certainly couldn’t be described as luxurious, so I decided to scout further along (ie to the north) to see if we could possibly find something better. In the fading light I climbed about another 35 m on before seeing that to continue we would have to climb around another ice bulge, which would obviously be too time consuming for us to consider. So I retraced my steps back to the others just as the sun, a spectacular blood red ball shining through the clouds, set behind Rasac. So we decided to make the best of where we were and Hermann and I set to work to make a platform big enough for us all. This was tricky because our platform was rather like an island surrounded by crevasses and holes threatening to gobble up any loose articles falling from our packs. There was also a rather large hole in the middle of the platform which took Hermann a lot of effort and a lot of ice blocks and other debris to fill up. Even though it was still very uneven we moved in and I put down my bivvy bag and tied our packs and the climbing gear to ice screws to make it feel like home. PG rigged a safety rope down the steep little descent pitch we had to negotiate coming down into the schrund. We were soon in our bags with the MSR purring. The problem of getting enough snow to “feed” the billy was somewhat tricky – we had to resort to scraping the outside edges of our “island,” which rather looked as though it might threaten collapse of our platform! Supper comprised soup followed by a mixture of Toppers cooked with dried onion which was not very palatable and rather like dynamite later in the night when we were incarcerated in our bivvy bags! Getting into our bivvy bags required some interesting acrobatics, but we were grateful we had taken this precaution because snow showers went on right through the night. Our ice cave was less cheerful without any light from our candles which we had unfortunately left behind in the tent at our moraine camp. It was interesting to watch Hermann loading a new battery (Eveready or Rayovac ?) into his Petzl headlamp – at first a healthy beam, but soon reducing to a pathetic glow.

Paul and Russ got away from the moraine camp at about midnight (the previous night) but had to give up any plans to climb almost immediately because Russ suffered a recurrence of his tummy problem. As a result they decided to rest all day on Friday and to set off again at about 21:00 that night. When they did so they only managed to reach the schrund before Russ again suffered another tummy explosion. As they were now completely defeated, Paul used his Gibbs ascenders to climb up the rope they had fixed over the schrund and then after reaching its top belay, abseiled back down off one of the tube stakes that had been given to us by the NZ party. After walking down the glacier with Russ (who decided to again sleep over at the moraine camp before going on down to basecamp), Paul decided he would try to join us again and set off on his own up the glacier. However, it didn’t take long for him to realise how dangerous going up the glacier in the dark was going to be and, instead at about 03:00, he simply put down his groundmat, climbed into his sleeping bag and went to sleep in the middle of this vast expanse of ice on the glacier!

Saturday 1 August

Our day started with long arguments teasing Ulrike that we hadn’t quite reached 6000 m. But in fact from our schrund bivvy we could look over the summit of Rasac Principal to the ranges beyond and we also appeared to be on a level with the central schrund on the West Face, both of which observations clearly put us higher than 6000 m. We woke fairly early, but the usual difficulties trying to get going as quickly as possible under the extremely cramped and uncomfortable conditions on our platform meant we didn’t have much hope of achieving this. Firstly getting out of our bags and trying to pack gear with too little space to move, trying to melt snow and eat granola when our tummies rebelled at the mere thought of food and the exhausting performance trying to pull on our frozen boots. But at last everything was done and we left the bivvy – uncertainty in my own mind as to what stage on our climb we should take a decision to go back down if the climbing got too difficult or dangerous . From the climbing we had done to our bivvy, I could see our party was not strong enough to climb the steeper boiler plate ice pitches we could see below the col and possibly to have to retreat back down them (if we took that decision) with a reasonable factor of safety in terms of time and our energy reserves. I was also concerned that all the leading that was being expected of me would inevitably take a toll on my own energy reserves. However, we resolved to continue traversing to the left below the major schrund over the next few pitches of fairly easy terrain and then to evaluate what we could see of the upper section of the route and also get a better idea of what the weather would be doing, before deciding if we should continue or not.

The climbing above our Yerupaja Sur bivvy

After climbing one more pitch and me leading on for another ropelength after that, I could see that we would have to climb several more pitches like the ones we had just climbed before getting onto the steep bare ice at the major serac fall below the south peak’s rock tower. And looking back behind me I could now also see that the Blanca peaks were being enveloped in a bank of heavy cloud moving in towards us. What a contrast the weather of the last couple of days had been compared to the seemingly endless cloudless days we had enjoyed over an extended period at the beginning of our expedition. In fact we later experienced much more of the bad weather that had prevailed over the previous couple of days. Taking the likely unfavourable weather we could see coming and the more difficult climbing in front of us that we could see we would have to do, Hermann and I finally took the decision to turn around. PG who was still at our bivvy was told to remain there and the rest of us reversed order, moving together and downclimbing the easy pitches on a single rope with stakes hammered in at every rope length. Where the slope steepened and became more icy we went back to climbing down singly to a point where I could cut a bollard in a projecting rib of ice and we could abseil off it for about 40 m to reach the level of the traverse we had made the previous day. From there we could follow a further diagonal descent line to reach a point where we could rig another short abseil over the main schrund at the bottom of the face to land back close to the tent.

Two things of interest caught our attention while we were climbing here. Shortly after we left our bivvy we saw four climbers slowly climbing up the east ridge of Rasac. They proceeded to the end of the horizontal section in the middle of the ridge and then inexplicably, at just about the same time as we turned around, they too started descending.

Seria Norte’ (5 860 m) and the East ridge of Rasac Principal (6 040 m) with the peaks of the Tsacra group beyond

Secondly we saw that a couple of packs had been left outside the tent and sometime later saw a person at the tent. As we continued on down, we saw that it was Paul and were pleased when we were nearing the bottom schrund that Paul was able to help us identify the best descent line - abseiling off a stake with a couple of ice screws for a back-up belay over the schrund in a mostly free 35 mm abseil. When we later spoke to him back at our subcamp, he said the four climbers that we had seen on Rasac were the Austrian guides (when we were able to speak to them later, it transpired that they had decided to turn around because they thought the route was too dangerous). So, from setting out from our bivvy earlier in the morning at about 08:30, we eventually finished our last abseil over the schrund at our subcamp at about 16:00. The four or five climbing pitches we had descended diagonally seemed to take an age because they mostly involved descending on hard ice beneath the thin snow cover. Back at our tent we gratefully downed one gorgeous cup of sweet tea after another from the flasks that Paul had prepared for us, while taking in his full story of Russ’ recurring tummy upset, his lonely night on the glacier and a walk with a pack that was too heavy to finally find our tent and gratefully collapse in it. He woke to speak to the Austrians when they came past and somewhat later heard my voice on the last stage of our descent.

After our bivvy the previous night the VE24 seemed to offer positively luxurious accommodation and squeezing into it we brewed and went on eating until it was getting dark (luckily PG and I had packed the only packets of Mountain House from the HA packs). The ultimate snug squeeze as we settled in for the night – you might say that it was “cosy” packing the five of us into the VE24! So much so that both Paul and I woke at about 02:00 with a real feeling of claustrophobia, my own night further impacted by PG’s Cheyne Stokes breathing almost in my earhole, until I made the rest of the night more tolerable by swallowing a Mogadon.

Sunday 2 August

The day for us to go down off the mountain back to basecamp, waking up and staggering out of the tent a decided relief after the night’s squash.

Preparing to descend back to basecamp from the Yerupaja Sur subcamp

We rationalised our leftover food stashing it in a cache left for whoever might be able to use it and jettisoned the unused fuel except for some saved for the walk down. The weather was still very unsettled with more mist and cloud moving in over Yerupaja and Rasac. Hermann, Ulrike and PG glissaded down the slope below the subcamp on their vibrams (about 09:00) while Paul and I elected to rather traverse to the col for one more time to take some more photos of Siula and Sarapo – worth it because the cloud effects were spectacular.

We then also made our way down, for the first 100 m quite cautiously wearing our crampons as the slope was still quite icy. A party of two we saw coming up the glacier later turned out to be two new French arrivals intending to have a crack at Yerupaja Sur’s southwest face we had just attempted. By now the snow cover on the glacier had already got quite soft and it was not very pleasant walking with our heavy packs. We did not travel very far down the glacier before we could start to see Yerupaja’s West Face and were excited to see two climbers on it – an immensely spectacular view of those two miniscule dots seemingly suspended on a vast sheet of blank ice, the upper face mirroring the sun with mist starting to rapidly engulf the summit’s ice flutings.

Siula Grande (6 356 m) West Face with Sarapo (6 143 m) beyond from the Col between Yerupaja Sur and Seria Norte

Two climbers on the vast sheet of blank ice on Yerupaja’s West Face

A little later we could see two more climbers at the schrund at the bottom of the face, obviously climbing just the one pitch to fix a rope over the schrund. When we later could speak to two Frenchmen we met coming up the glacier, they told us that the two climbers quite high up on the face were two guides from the Austrian guide party and the two at the schrund were new American arrivals. I stayed behind for a while as the others pushed on to the moraine camp, but my hopes of getting some better photos of the climbers were thwarted when more cloud drifted in obscuring most of the face. Also while I was watching a tremendous serac fall occurred from the fractured ice at the rock face between the West face and the direct fall line below the col just slightly to the right of the bivvy Paul and I had used. Continuing down the glacier I realised there were more crevasses to cross than I remembered. This and the fact that the two French climbers were roped made me realise that my walk down to the moraine camp alone and Paul’s long walk up the glacier to our subcamp alone were possibly the more dangerous parts of our trip. Just before getting off the glacier onto the moraine I met up with the Austrian parapent guys (who looked exhausted) who told me that they were also on their way up to establish a subcamp above the Col between Yerupaja Sur and Seria Norte also hoping to climb Yerupaja Sur’s southwest face. Talking to the dark haired Austrian, who seemed to be their leader, I was not to know that he would shortly suffer a really serious fall on their climb!

At the moraine camp I found there was now a regular tented village – both the Austrian guide parties’ Salewa tents and the Americans’ tent had gone up since we left. Stopping for some lunch and to dismantle the Light Dimension tent that Paul and Russ had used, we talked some more with the leader of the Austrian party who we found spoke quite good English. He told us that the two Austrians we had seen on the West Face were reckoned to be a couple of Austria’s best guides. They had intended to leave the moraine camp at 04:00, but overslept and finally only got away at about 07:30. It seemed that only the second man was carrying a pack with a stove, some food and a little emergency bivvy equipment in it – but no sleeping bags. They were climbing singly with ice piton belays at the stances and were going pretty fast. Our Austrian friends said that they would climb on without stopping until they reached the summit and would then go straight on with their descent. This was certainly an interesting comparison with our own attempt weighed down with our heavy packs!

We took a long rest at the moraine camp chatting with the Austrians who were there and with Paul also repacking to fit in the extra tent. While we were stopped there was a dramatic change in the weather – we were enveloped in thick cloud and polystyrene snow beads started to souse down on us. We eventually shouldered the heaviest packs we had yet carried and stumbled off down the moraine trough with the snow stinging our faces – altogether a dreary and rather tedious descent. Reaching the path where the glacier ended, I changed into my running shoes and went on rather more slowly than the others, Ulrike pushing on ahead. A relief to have the badly worn path across the cliff above Solteracocha finally behind us and then also pretty pleased to walk into basecamp with sleet welcoming us home. We found that Denis and Steve were back after a successful trip and that our American friend Glen together with the New Zealanders Dave and Linda were also there to welcome us with a cake they had baked earlier in the day.

Russ had gone through a pretty miserable time after his return to basecamp, but had now stabilised and looked more cheerful. We were in time for late afternoon tea, after which we got organised and then enjoyed a delightfully different supper. This was because we were all back together with Dave, Glen and Linda joining us. We had soup and trout, finishing off with apple pancakes flamed in whisky! Also what a welcome change to be only sleeping with two of us in the VE24. For the first time that we could remember we sat in the kitchen shelter listening to the rain and sleet lashing down on the tarpaulin roof cover. Orphila arrived late in the evening with her niece Sonia and dog Petrofina!

Monday 3 August

This was a day of preparation and packing getting ready for the final walk out. Fortunately the morning was sunny and what a pleasure it was to be able to have a good wash and shampoo my hair. The bushes around basecamp were soon festooned with clothes that were drying and the whole camp was strewn with a clutter of equipment as we sorted our communal and personal gear. The food tent was finally emptied and apart from the food that we would need for our walk out to Chiquain and the food that PG and I would have to take on to Huaraz for our Huascaran climb, we could see that there was going to be quite a lot of food left over which we decided we would distribute among the locals and the climbing friends we had made – a sort of supermarket bonanza! With our leaving Orphila had promised us another “pachmanca” sheep braai and Benedicto set about the arrangements for this celebratory feast with some enthusiasm, building a huge fire under a hearth of packed stones, while one of his other helpers caught and slaughtered the luckless animal and cut up all the meat. Later when Benedicto’s “oven” had reached the required temperature, all the meat and the papas were packed in alternate layers between the heated stones and finally covered with a cardboard insulating layer. Lunch and our “pachamanca” feast were ready somewhat earlier than I expected, which caught me slightly unawares while I was still busy washing clothes, but this was an insignificant problem with the volume of food we had to consume! It was certainly a fitting and very enjoyable occasion with Orphila and Sonia, Glen, Dave and Linda together with all the members of our party very relaxed and happily sitting together in the shade of the shelter with the spectacular backdrop of Rondoy and Jirishanka right behind us.

The lady from the “restaurant” at the bottom end of the lake arrived with her baby child that had an ugly looking boil on its back, which we reckoned was probably due to a dietary deficiency. After Ulrike had helped treat the child, I spent the afternoon finishing packing and catching up on my diary. When the rest of the burros and arrieros arrived in the late afternoon Orphila apologised that Alberto would not be able to accompany us on the walk out as he had to fulfil a commitment with a newly arrived Swiss trekking party. She certainly was a remarkably well organised lady - quite a contrast seeing her here on the “sharp end” organising the arrieros and burros for our walk out in comparison with the rather “smoother” business lady we had dealt with in Chiquian! There was a cool breeze off the lake again in the evening. After our huge midday meal we ate a rather quiet and anticlimactic light supper of soup but it was made a whole lot more interesting by the addition of two magnificent loaves of bread that Glen had baked. Pulling the last bottle of whisky out didn’t really succeed much in revving up the party!

But if our evening was seemingly anticlimactic, what happened next was all too dramatic. Paul was halfway through singing the Ballad of the Idwal slabs when Thomas, one of Austrian parapent party, burst into camp to tell us that Heli and Aquino, their Peruvian porter, had just come down off the mountain with the news that Kucksi had had a serious accident. He said two members of their party had been climbing the southwest face and had decided to retreat at about the same point we had. Kucksi had apparently sustained about a 30m fall over the schrund, evidently at the place where we had crossed it on our ascent. He had been solo downclimbing on the ice when he slipped. They had managed to take him down to a snow hole that they made at about the same altitude as our subcamp below the Yerupaja Sur/Seria col where fortunately a doctor from the French party was close enough to be reached. According to Thomas it seemed likely that Kucksi had sustained internal injuries, possibly a suspected ruptured spleen. Heli and Acquino had already pushed on to Llamac so that they could get to Chiquain on Tuesday to try to arrange for a helicopter to fly out from Lima.

After discussion it was agreed that Thomas would return up the mountain with Dave and Glen in the morning – we felt that there was little more help that we could contribute as there was already substantial manpower available on the mountain, about sixteen climbers in all (including the three remaining Austrian parapents, four Austrian guides and the two American climbers). Notwithstanding this logic I was still concerned about the moral aspect of our leaving in the morning, knowing that perhaps extra manpower on the mountain could mean the difference between survival or death of the climber who had been hurt. Denis went through our medical kit with Glen and was able to give him ampoules of adrenalin and a drip set to take back up the mountain.

A rather disturbing and concerning end to our evening. Looking up at the calm scene of the mountains around us gleaming in the moonlight, it again brought home to me how much you must rely on your own resources when you are climbing in a remote region like the Huayhuash!

Benedicto, Thomas and Glen went on a sortie down the valley to see if they could find some poles that they could use to construct a stretcher.

Tuesday 4 August

Dave and Glen didn’t get away very early after all, only at about 07:00. In the end they gave up their idea of trying to find poles suitable for the side runners of a stretcher – they felt it would be better to simply lash ski poles together for this purpose.

Although the night started off brilliantly clear and cold (I tried taking a time exposure of the mountains standing out brilliantly in the moonlight), it dawned a cloudy and rather miserable looking day. After a quick breakfast we took down the tents and finished our last packing – looking at the flysheet of my VE24 I noticed it had become very light coloured and crackly from the UV exposure it had been subjected to at this high altitude! Loading the burros we discovered that we had one drum load too many, so had to repack the extra load into plastic bags and make adjustments to a couple of the burros’ loads. We dismantled the shelter, burnt the rubbish and filled in the loo, eventually getting everything ready to leave at about 10:30. The arrieros were taking the burros the usual way along the lake’s south bank, but the rest of us followed the path along the lake’s north bank, Russ, Steve and Denis setting off ahead. This was my first time going this way and I was very impressed by its beauty (many very old quena trees and lovely grassy meadows bounded by stone packed walls). We had arranged for Benedicto and Sonia to take us over a pass going over the ridge to get into the Llamac valley so that we could pass through the small village of Pocpa upstream of Llamac village. Our path struck up the slope some distance below Laguna Jahuacocha’s containing moraine and then went on up a wide ravine past wild looking summits of limestone and shale with enormous black screes below them, the slopes also dotted with grazing sheep. Benedicto had two of the loaded burros with him, so the pace was reasonable. As we climbed higher the views of the main peaks as well of the peaks of the Tsacra group became progressively more impressive, if slightly spoiled by cloud covering the highest summits.

Laguna Jahuacocha’s north bank

Looking over Solteracocha and Jahuacocha with the Tsacra and Ancocancha peaks in the distance

Catching up with the others at the top of the pass (4 550 m), we stopped for lunch where we could still look back at the wonderful mountain vista. Looking at Yerupaja Grande through binoculars we were certain that the two miniscule figures we could see obviously descending the West Face must be the two Americans. Also looking to the west down the Llamac valley we could see the small town of Pocpa far below us as well as the descent we would have to make down into the valley to reach it.

Walking out – last views of Rondoy and Jirishanka

Our path down into the Llamac valley took us down a shallow ravine, at first on grass and then into horrible thorny scrub – I’d never seen so many varieties of plants with prickles, thorns and spines! There was very little grazing let alone cultivation in the valley until we were quite close to the town – a long rather stony and uninteresting route in comparison with the route we had followed over Pampa Llamac on the walk in.

Paul entertaining some of Pocpa’s inquisitive children

However Pocpa itself turned out to be a charming village – situated on a steep slope it had some fascinating architecture, the streets closed off by walls at the main square with access to the square through charming narrow alleyways. It was possibly a little larger than Llamac village and because it was slightly more off the beaten track, its inhabitants seemed friendlier and more interested in people like us passing through. We stopped at a store that Benedicto pointed out to us to drink some Cokes and Cristal and spent some time wandering through the town just enjoying it, before setting off down the valley to Llamac.

The walk of about an hour down the path going along the river bank to Llamac was also quite beautiful – after the austere high altitude scenery we were used to, we just soaked in the wonderful lush greenness of the grass and the trees, the birds and the clean rushing water of the river, now under a perfectly clear blue sky. At first the path meandered through walled fields, then entered a true canyon with high rocky walls. Close to Llamac we first heard then saw a large helicopter, probably a Sikorsky, flying up the valley obviously on its way up to Yerupaja – Heli had clearly managed to work the seemingly impossible!

Arriving in Llamac and again setting up our camp on the sportsfield, we found Orphila and the burros were already there as well as Alberto with his Swiss trekking party. The Swiss party had suffered the misfortune of losing a lot of their food when one of their party’s horses had fallen into the river, so Ulrike sorted some of the excess food we were bringing back and sold it to them. We also did some protracted negotiating with Alberto selling him some of the excess equipment (ropes, stakes, etc) we would no longer need (Russ’ rope was simply swopped for Alberto’s magnificent Alpaca jersey!)

We made supper from the food we had brought back from basecamp and then dossed down quite early in the three tents we had pitched for our group. We went to sleep with a last memorable image of our arrieros camped in a circle with our stacked equipment around them, rather like “Custer’s Last Stand!”

Wednesday 5 August

This was the last day of our walk out to Chiquian. We settled up with Alberto including paying for an extra burro as we had had to use one more than originally contracted – the revised total cost came to 20 800 Inti. Also Benedicto, who had spent the night at Pocpa, came through and, apart from a decent tip, we gave him some of the excess equipment in recognition of the excellent service he had given us – most of the kitchen equipment, the Hurricane lantern and a length of polypropylene rope. We eventually got away at about 09:30 after a good breakfast of fresh bread from the village. The first part of the walk down the valley was beautiful, walled green pastures with crops and some animals grazing in them, large trees in the riverbed and the boisterous river tumbling over boulders. As one got further away from Llamac the mountainsides got progressively more arid and there was less cultivation and fewer pastures alongside the river. We passed the landmarks we remembered from the walk in – the Rio Achin junction and the trail going up to Pacllon, the Rio Pativilca branching off the valley to the south and the bridge at the Rio Quero, where we stopped for our first rest at about 11:45. Beyond this the trail followed a line high up on the slope above the river, this section far more arid and the path stony and thorny but some compensation in the form of a wonderful view of a pair of Condors swooping low over us – a clear view of the characteristic white marking on top of their wings and a true appreciation of their huge size.

We made our next planned stop for lunch at the bridge at Timpoc after congregating in the local beer shop and quenching our thirst with Cristal and Coke (the shop’s dark interior filled with locals quaffing chicha overseen by a contrasting mixture of pictures of religious scenes and bare breasted girls looking down on us from the furthest wall!) Denis for some strange reason, possibly to overcome the effects of drinking a bottle of imitation Pisco at Llamac the previous evening, mixed Andrew’s Liver Salts with his Cristal and suffered dire consequences later when we were eating a protracted lunch under the trees next to the river (with an animated bunch of children hovering around us to catch any “caramelo” handouts).

The bridge and the local beer shop at Timpoc

At Timpoc the trail left the river and started climbing steeply for about 450 m up to Chiquian - a last long hot slog to end our walk out! Paul and I stayed together and pushed on until the last even steeper section where we deviated into a grassy meadow and collapsed to rest in some shade and to drink in our last view of the Huayhuash peaks spread out in the distance. Meanwhile Denis’ affliction had started taking a greater toll with him suffering from stomach cramps, these later becoming so bad that he gave up trying to walk any further - so that when we reached Chiquian we had to organise a horse through Orphila for him to ride on.

We all settled back into the San Miguel with Betty delighted to see us back, sorted out Denis and put him to bed after dosing him with some medicine we ferreted out of the medical kit. In the late afternoon some of us walked around the town for a bit and then we all ate at a restaurant we hadn’t tried before about halfway up to the Plaza de Armas – rather watery soup followed by good bifstek served with rigid chips, a rather protracted meal because of the lousy service! Orphila came to find us while we were eating to tell us that it was not going to be possible for the six of us travelling to Lima to get seats on the Lima bus. Instead we would all have to travel to Huaraz and the six travelling to Lima would then be able to do that on the evening bus from there to Lima.

What a great feeling to be crawling into a bed with clean sheets again! This despite the fact that the bed was distinctly sagging and the night was later disturbed by rockets being let off – probably in anticipation of the Chiquian festival that was to be held later in August.

Thursday 6 August

A large fairly noisy French trekking group also staying at the San Miguel got us going quite early. We finished our last packing (those going to Lima getting everything ready for their departure flight) and made our own breakfast in the hotel’s storeroom where all our kit had been put. Orphila had promised to try to organise a minibus to come from Huaraz to pick us up, but when we hadn’t seen or heard from her, PG and I checked at her home and discovered she was out. So instead we went on to the collectivo depot on the Plaza de Armas and were able to purchase 8 tickets for a truck to take us and our baggage to Huaraz (@60 inti each). We also arranged for the truck to pick us up at the hotel to save us hauling all our baggage to the depot. It arrived at the San Miguel at about 10:40, fortunately with not too many other passengers, and we loaded all our equipment and other gear under the upper level floor behind the cab, said goodbye to Betty and jumped aboard ourselves. A slight delay picking up some more passengers at the depot (and nearly leaving Paul behind, busy trying to buy a poncho for one of his children at the church shop) and then finally pulling out of Chiquian just after 11:00.

We got quite warm standing in the back of the “Virgen de Carmen” as the truck first made the interminable grind up the pass above Chiquian, really a very evenly graded section of the road - Paul holding a long political conversation with an Englishman and a West Berliner who we met when we were in Llamac. Rather sad to see the scourge of rubbish strewn around here too, just tipped off the side of the road in various places. Our view looking back at the Huayhuash peaks partially spoiled by cloud but nevertheless still very impressive. Reaching the small settlement at the top of the pass we watched in amusement as one of the local farmers loaded ten of his sheep onto the truck (destined for the Huaraz market) enveloping Russ up to his knees in rather dusty wool. We picked up speed (with a marked drop in temperature in the thin air), going along the flatter section of the road to Conococha, making a stop there to offload passengers as well as one of the sheep, which promptly and unceremoniously had its throat cut right beside the vehicle. With the road now changing to a tarred surface, we made better time but were also getting bitterly cold with the wind whistling past our ears. It had also by then become quite cloudy so that our first glimpses of the Blanca peaks were unfortunately not very spectacular. We stopped for about 30 minutes in Catac, sufficient time to restore some warmth drinking a cup of coffee in the local restaurant. Our truck driver also met his collectivo opposite number on his way to Chiquian – they both stopped facing each other in the road’s descending lefthand lane to catch up news and compare notes. It became progressively warmer as we descended into the Santa valley, the river now also much bigger, in comparison with the upper valley where it was much wider flowing over beds of river stones. Thinking back to my previous visits to the Santa valley, I could see little change evident in villages like Recuay and Ticapampa. Just outside Huaraz everyone had to duck down when we stopped at the road control post and then we were in the town at about 16:30.

We offloaded everything at the collective depot and, while most of the party stayed there, Paul went to see if he could find Alberto’s partner Mathias at Andino Travel while I did a round of the hotels to try to find a place to stay. From my enquiries it soon became evident that Huaraz was still full of people after a regional fiesta which had been held at the end of July and also because it was still school/university holidays. Los Portales (360 inti for a double per night) and the Lunandina (260 inti) both full. After meeting up with Paul again, who had managed to find Mathias, we transferred all our gear to the entrance portal of Mathias’ office and while the two of them went on to try and organise the bus to Lima (the earlier booking that Orphila had tried to make in Chiquian had apparently not worked), PG and I persevered trying to hunt down a hotel. Eventually after drawing a few more blanks (helped by Anton the member of the NZ party we had met up with in the Huayhuash and who Russ had now bumped into in Huaraz), we were happy to confirm accommodation at the Catalune (260 inti) after meeting Pepe, the proprieter, and looking at the rooms. Accommodation really did seem quite hard to come by!

We returned to Mathias’ office and found that he had managed to organise a minibus to take the others to Lima overnight for US$190. While they all had a quick bite to eat PG and I looked after the baggage and then helped load the minibus before saying our final goodbyes to them all at about 19:30 – the end of another significant stage of our trip and quite an emotional parting. Mathias was going to go to Lima with the others because he had to pick up some stuff there, so we arranged that we would meet up with him again in Huaraz on Friday afternoon so that we could also book our own bus tickets to Lima. After the minibus departed, Alberto’s brother, who also worked for Mathias, helped us transfer our gear to the Catalune by bicyclette. At last we caught our breath enjoying a welcome hot shower before setting out to find a place to eat supper as we were now both pretty hungry. We found our first choice, my old favourite the Rivoli, was unfortunately closed, but enjoyed an excellent meal at the Restaurant de Puya where I knew the others had eaten before (sopa criolla made with milk, fried bread, noodles, chilli and a fried egg – excellent, and carne’ supreme, which turned out to be chicken, but was still very good, followed by cake for pudding and café’ con leche). Back at the hotel our hope for a really restful night was dashed by an incredibly noisy disco nearby in Avenue Raimondi and more fireworks let off during the night. Too much after the wonderfully quiet nights we had enjoyed in the Huayhuash!!

Friday 7 August

We spent the day getting organised for the next stage of our trip. Our room looked straight out onto Huascaran and we enjoyed gazing up at it while eating breakfast of palta (avocado), oranges, bananas, maracuja, and pan with mantequilla. Our first task of the day was to register at the Parque Nacionale which we found to be rather disorganised. After some coffee and a stop to have a look at a photographic exhibition at Monttrek, we tried to find Alcides Ames at the Jr Juaylas, but without success. However, we had more success through the efforts of Pepe at the hotel who managed to trace him by phone. Alcides came to the hotel and we took him out to have some coffee – how good to see my old friend again. He talked about the Garganta route we intended climbing on Huascaran and drew up a rough itinerary for our trip. He also arranged to have us round to dinner at his home on Saturday together with four French climbers who at that moment were on Huascaran. After he left, we worked out our cash requirements and went to draw money at the Bank Nacional (US$ 1.00 = 37.0 Inti) – a rather long and tedious process. We had some lunch back at the hotel (more palta with tomatoes and a melon-like fruit) and then spent the afternoon sorting out the food and equipment we’d have to take with us. While we were doing this it was wonderful to see a familiar face at the door – none other than Alejandro Aurelio our basecamp “minder” from our 1982 Blanca expedition. He had somehow come to hear that I was in town! He told us that he wanted to accompany us on Huascaran as a porter at 200 inti a day and we agreed to this, also that we would meet him at 18:00 to talk about arrangements.

View of the Nevado Huandoy peaks, Nevados Huascaran Norte (6 654 m) and Sur (6 768 m) from near Huaraz

Later in the afternoon we went to Mathias’ office and found he was back from Lima. On his advice we made a booking with Impresa Ancash for our return journey by bus to Lima on the morning of 17 August, finding that the bus was already heavily booked up to the 15^th. Alejandro did come to the hotel at the time we had arranged and we agreed that we would meet him there at 06:30 in the morning – well pleased that we had finalised all our arrangements.

After showering and changing we walked up to the centre of town to find the post office (next to the Plaza de Armas) and then back to eat at the Rivoli – banana tortilla followed by steak served with banana, onion, chilli and bread on top and capped with an egg. A much quieter night and we both slept well.

Saturday 8 August

This was our last day of relative inactivity, but it proved to be a useful day making our final arrangements for Huascaran. A similar breakfast, but this time with lady finger bananas and a strange very sweet tasting fruit a little like a delicious monster. We bought cards to send home and spent the morning writing them together with some letters while we enjoyed coffee at Raimondi. The day had turned out to be magnificent and all the peaks looked stunning. We caught up with some of our long overdue washing leaving it to dry on the concrete slabs of the hotel’s roof tank. After posting our cards and letters at the Post Office and eating the last of the fruit over from breakfast in our room, we sorted the food for Huascaran into four packs and packed the rest of our communal equipment into sacks for the burros. After I went out to get one of my supergaitors repaired at the local zapetaria (for 0.10 intis), we packed our last remaining stuff into boxes to be left with Alcides and had a quick shower. Alcides came to pick us up at 19:30 and we squeezed into his beetle together with the two boxes. A delightful evening at his home with his wife Francesca and children Pepe and Angelique as well as the French climbers who had just come down from Huascaran (Bernard, Christina, Jean and Alan). Bernard showed us on the Kinzl map how they had set up their camps – one day to reach the moraine camp (4 600 m) from Musho, another days’ climbing to go up the glacier to Camp 2 (5 800 m) and then about a four hour climb from there to reach the summit of the North Peak. They said they had experienced very strong winds which had decided them against trying to climb the main South Peak. Francesca served up a marvellous meal of soup, fish cooked with tomato and onion with a sauce together with potatoes and beans finishing with a fresh fruit salad with shortbread and mate’ coca tea. A melange’ of Spanish, French and English spoken at the table, but great cameradie prevailing making it a special evening. We walked back to the Cataluna and were in bed by 10:30.

Sunday 9 August

We were up at 06:00 to find it had dawned another beautiful day. We finished packing our last few odds and ends and left them with a bag of clothes we wouldn’t need at the hotel’s reception. When Alejandro failed to arrive at the 06:30 time we had agreed, we took all our baggage down into the foyer and I walked up to the crossroads to wait for him there. Eventually at 07:05 his son arrived and told us that Alejandro had gone down with a bad dose of influenza and wouldn’t be able to join us. He paid back the 200 inti advance we had paid and gave us the name Abran Cordero in Musho who he said would be able to help us get organised including providing an alternative porter. We couldn’t quite make out the reason for Alejandro’s sudden change of mind, but were determined not to let this unexpected hitch affect our plans.

Nevado Huandoy Sur (6 160 m) in the foreground and Nevado Huandoy (6 395 m) from the Santa valley below Nevado Huascaran

We carried all our stuff up to the main road, found out where the Mancos collectivo stopped and jumped aboard the first one coming past at about 07:15, putting all our gear up on the roof. It was a long ride (the bus fare 20 inti) to get to our destination, Mancos, with stops only made after Carhuaz, arriving in the centre of Mancos at about 08:30. We had hardly climbed out of the collectivo when a truck driver offered us a ride to Musho – some haggling over what it would cost us with the fare eventually settled at 200 inti. The road to Musho took off through the centre of Mancos (very bumpy) and climbed rapidly up the valley behind the town, Musho being one of only a couple of small settlements on the high ridges below Huascaran. The house where we first stopped also fortuitously turned out to be Abran Cordero’s house so we could meet him and his wife straight away. Talking to Abran we felt that there was an immediate rapport. It was obvious that he was highly organised and it didn’t take very long for us to also establish what a really nice guy he was.

The set up there was clearly very well organised - specifically for Huascaran with lists showing the names of available porters, aspirants, arrieros, etc. Our original plan to engage a porter almost immediately fell through when we discovered that they operated at a standard tariff of US$ 15.00 per day and that it would be far more economical for us to hire a couple of pack animals and an arriero. So while we enjoyed café con leche with some pan, mantequilla and fresa marmalade, we repacked all our equipment and food to better suit the mode of transport we would use. We left a little excess stuff at Musho with Abran and loaded a horse and a burro with our gear for the mountain under the watchful eye of the arriero we had engaged called Elias – all this was going to cost us a total of 200 inti.

Loading the burro at Musho

We left Musho (3 000 m) at about 10:40 and started the long slog up to basecamp, first through cultivated fields, then a long zig zag path going up the moraine out onto a ridge with marvellous views looking up to the two Huascaran summits. Even from here we could see the powder snow being blown off the ridges, an obvious indication of how strong the wind must be up there.

The walk up to Huascaran’s basecamp with Huascaran Norte in the background

Finally passing through some grassy meadows and a quena forest growing between the granite slabs, we reached basecamp (4 200 m) in just under three hours, offloaded our gear and had some lunch. There were several tents pitched at the site, but nobody there – though one party did come down off the mountain while we were there. We packed up and shouldered our now monstrously heavy packs ±30 to 35 kg (PG even having to carry the bivvy bag and one of the food bags because he couldn’t fit anything more in his pack - a distinctly unwelcome change from the loads we had been carrying up to here) and following the beacons made a traverse to the right across the granite slabs at the start of the way up to the moraine camp (4 600 m). The route was highly complicated weaving up the granite slabs and across the many meltwater streams, but was easy to follow because it was so well beaconed. After we started up the slabs we encountered several more parties coming down off the mountain – a long haul (about 3 hours) to reach the moraine proper where we found a small encampment of tents including two Italians who had passed us earlier coming up and a party of four Dutch climbers who had just come down off the mountain after climbing the South Peak. Just as the sun set at 18:15 we pitched the VE24 on a rock slab and then organised a simple supper of noodles, dehydrated meat and tomatoes. Later after it got dark a full moon came up transforming the mountain into a glowing beacon, the Santa valley still partly in darkness with the lights of the villages twinkling below.

We enjoyed a good night’s sleep after a restless start.

The granite slabs leading up to Camp 1 with Huascaran Sur in the background

Monday 10 August

The Italians got away at about6 06:15 but we only managed to leave at 08:00. The route now went on up more granite slabs until we reached the edge of the glacier and then continued over dry ice up a long whaleback and a further slope to eventually come to Camp 1 on the ice at 5 200 m.

Huascaran Sur’s West Face - the prominent ice face in the centre is the “Shield”

The quite exposed siting of Camp 1 with Huascaran Norte (6 654 m) in the background

Camp 1 was exposed (to the wind) and we thought it looked rather grotty. After passing a party of Venezuelans (also going up) camped on the ice just before this, we came across quite a few more parties descending – all sorts of nationalities from Japanese to Peruvians. After a short rest we continued up the well-trodden trail, the terrain becoming more interesting as it started winding around the first seracs and crevasses.

The route up to the Garganta becoming more complex above Camp 1

Here the route started climbing quite steeply up a funnel between the West Ridge (of Huascaran Sur) and a rock face to the right and an impressively steep band of seracs on the left. It had taken us three hours to reach Camp 1 from the moraine camp, but we found we were moving considerably more slowly beyond Camp 1. After a short stop for some lunch about 200 m above Camp 1 we went on to exit from the funnel onto a sloping ice ramp going up to the left before traversing around the top of a huge vertical crevasse at about 5 700 m and dropping down about 50 m to reach Camp 2 in a bowl of snow and ice with two tents in it, one belonging to a German called Roland living in Canada, who was on his own and the other belonging to the two Italians who had come up in front of us. Roland told us that the Italians had simply gone straight on to climb the peak after they reached Camp 2 – we learned later that only one succeeded - but it was still a phenomenal achievement to have made the summit from the moraine camp in a day, notwithstanding the fact that they had been travelling exceptionally lightly. At this point we realised that the wind was going to be a serious problem – most of the descending climbers we had passed warned us about it. So, after scouting around, we elected to set up our camp in an enormous ice schrund on the Garganta side of Camp 2. We levelled a platform and pitched the VE 24 – it looked a “cosy” set up and seemed pretty well sheltered , but of course the reality was we were effectively settling into a deep freeze!

Camp 2 “deepfreeze”

Roland came across just as we were completing the preparations for our camp and stayed for a while chatting over a mug of hot chocolate – he seemed keen to join us on the climb. Our plans were to recce the climb the next day so that we could make a really early start on the day of the climb. After Roland left we made some soup and a highly successful freeze dried “reindeer stew” from Sweden! Welcome bed after making a couple more brews and then diligently catching up on my diary by candle light. So far the only indication of wind was the spindrift sifting down on the tent. Weatherwise it had been a perfect day with hardly any cloud and we hoped that would continue.

Tuesday 11 August

As this was to be a recce day we didn’t make a very early start. We ate breakfast in the tent and then walked across to talk to Roland at his tent. Although we had spent a good night, the advantage of being out of the wind seemed to be at least partially offset by the intense cold in the crevasse. We both woke to put on more clothing during the night, but were still feeling cold in our sleeping bags. Roland hadn’t got up yet so we had to wait for him to get ready – pulling on his boots, etc.

Garganta recce

Then setting off, we climbed up a short way to get past a crevasse and went on ascending steeply past another campsite onto an ice ridge bounding a huge ice cleft parallel to the contours of the slope leading up to the Garganta. As we came out from the relative shelter of the lee slope the wind really began to hit us – it seemed to funnel through the Garganta from the East picking up clouds of spindrift with it. The trail, consolidated from all the climbers tramping along it, stood proud where the softer unconsolidated snow next to it had been blown away. When we were about halfway across the gently sloping snowfield leading up towards the South Peak on the Santa side of the Garganta, the “path” disappeared and we suddenly found ourselves floundering in deep soft snow with the spindrift streaming past us. From here we could see that the route through the seracs on the Garganta side of the South Peak looked quite straightforward and felt we had seen enough to ensure we would be able to get going over this part of the route quite quickly and easily the next morning.

We made a quick descent back to the tent passing a party of four French climbers setting up their high camp at the upper camp site. Arriving back at our own tent, we found that two Germans had just arrived, one of them pretty exhausted from the climb up – so much so that after chatting with us for a while, they decided that they must go down. We had seen that Roland too had been moving very slowly when he accompanied us on the recce and he later also said he had decided that he must go down. We spent the afternoon sleeping in the tent and then made a big brew in preparation for getting away very early in the morning. Somewhat later in the evening I became concerned that I seemed to be developing an upset tummy – feeling rather miserable and still cold. Not a good start to thinking of getting away really early for the climb!

Wednesday 12 August

I didn’t really sleep well at all. To cope with the cold I had put on my polyprop thermal underwear, a thick woollen shirt, my Super Salopette and my Javlin jacket and even inside my Shearwater bag and heavyweight down sleeping bag I still felt marginally cold, though from the much better night I spent the following night, I suspect this may have been partly psychological! In addition my tummy was churning away like a washing machine – we had discussed waking up at midnight to move off at 02:00, but waking at midnight I felt so miserable that I decided to wait for a while longer, eventually getting going at 01:15. The usual agony of such an early start – all I could face was a brew of lemon tea. I had put my boots in the sun the previous afternoon, then kept them inside my sleeping bag during the night and while we were getting ready to move off in the morning, so that at least putting them on was not too difficult. Showers of spindrift spattering down on the tent and the sound of the rushing wind above the crevasse forewarned us that we were going to have wind early, despite our earlier hopes that we might have a relatively still moonlit start. In fact when we much later returned from the climb, we found that there was whole lot more spindrift that had blown into the crevasse and covered the tent than we had seen the previous day – so we reckoned that the wind must have been worse.

At last everything was ready and we set off at 03:00 – out into an incredibly beautiful moonlit landscape. This was the night after the full moon so that with the reflection off the snow it was almost like daylight and it wasn’t necessary for us to use our headlamps at all. Retracing our steps up to the Garganta we started to feel the full force of the wind – passing the French tent flapping furiously in the wind we wondered if they were still asleep and might hear the crunch of our crampons as we passed by. But in fact they had got away from their camp at 01:00 and were already quite far ahead of us. On the Garganta the conditions could not have been more discouraging. The wind was howling (we estimated the gusts must have been at least 100 kph) with the spindrift cascading over the surface of the snow – at this stage PG said he was extremely unhappy and I think he was very close to turning back. The cold was a very real problem – taking off an overmitt to adjust a crampon strap, one’s fingers immediately became numb. I was wearing a silk balaclava under my woollen one and was only just warm (the same wearing my polyprop thermal underwear and woollen shirt under my salopette and heavy anorak).

Garganta maelstrom

In the maelstrom we spied two sets of lights ahead of us, one pair of climbers (the French) already on the face and the other, three climbers not far ahead of us. As the three started climbing up the snow gully at the first steeper face at the start of the route up the south peak, we caught up with them and then passed them as they were already roped and we were still unroped. But when we then stopped to put on our harnesses and rope up ourselves at a slightly less steep section of ridge next to the gully they again passed us. The route now bore to the left winding through bands of seracs (the altitude ± 6 000 m).

Huasaran Norte with Nevado Santa Cruz (6 259 m) beyond

View to the north looking over the Garganta - Nevado Allpamayo (5 947 m), Artesonraju (6 025 m), Piramide (5 885 m)

and Chacraraju (6 112 m)

As we came to a slightly more technical ice pitch the first sun started to light Huasaran Norte’s southeast face highlighting its bands of seracs. And looking over the Garganta a host of wonderful looking peaks to the north glowed in the early morning light. The ice pitch started at a stance protected with an ice piton and then went up for about 20 m on 45 - 50⁰ ice with cut steps to a stake that was obviously used for abseiling the pitch. We continued beyond to a higher stance and then followed closely behind the three climbers in front of us moving together again up a slightly ascending traverse line taking us to the righthand corner of the face. While it was slightly more sheltered from the wind there, it was still desperately cold as we were still in the shade. Finally continuing up the corner we did reach the first sun but it unfortunately didn’t seem to make too much difference to how cold we felt.

First sun lighting Huascaran's North Peak

The view spreading out to the north was simply fantastic – peak after peak and incredibly satisfying being able to put names to most of them. Our route now veered back to the left up a steep snow slope with spindrift still cascading down over it. A little higher up after a couple more pitches the two Frenchmen passed us on their way down. The slope we were on seemed interminable, we just didn’t seem able to gain height relative to the north peak, our climbing reduced to taking some thirty steps, resting and then repeating the process. But eventually almost imperceptibly the north peak and the array of peaks further to the north did start to drop below us. The party of three in front of us were moving more slowly so we again passed them. It just went on and on with the wind still gusting strongly until the route veered to the right and became perceptibly less steep, the rather flat summit dome eventually arriving unexpectedly soon. I was ahead of PG as we had discarded the rope as soon as the slope lessened and coming out on the summit first just drank in the stupendous view all around and then trying to shelter my camera from the wind, did my best to record it.

Nevado Santa Cruz (6 259 m) with Nevados Pisco (5 752 m) and Caras 1 (6 025 m)in the foreground

It had taken us 8¾ hours to get to the summit. It was too unpleasant to dally, so PG started going down while I walked to a subsidiary crest to the north to take more photos. I rejoined PG and we roped up descending past the party of three who were still on their way up. It was an easy, but quite steep slope going down – slight excitement when PG slipped and half managed to stop on his own, the other half on my axe belay. There was no respite from the wind, even passing the corner and entering the seracs it went on still cold in the sun, but we did pause for a snack and to have a drink. We continued going on down following a more direct line down a short ice pitch. Here we met up with the party of three once more. They turned out to be Ecuadorians, their leader called Pancho, and agreeing to join forces, we made a 40 m abseil from a fixed stake down an ice wall and then a short pitch down an ice rib to reach easier ground and the Garganta snowfield through the last seracs. A relief to be safely down.

Piramide (5 885 m) and Chakraraju (6 112 m) with Pukajirka Sur (6 039 m) behind

Kitaraju (6 040 m), Nevado Allpamayo (5 947 m) and Artesonraju (6 025 m)

Nevado Chopikalki (6 345 m)

View to the southeast from Huascaran Sur with Nevado Huantsan (6 395 m) and Yerupaja (6 634 m) in the distance

A longish walk back to our subcamp in the late afternoon with the wind still not letting up. We were back at the tent at 18:00, 15 hours after setting out in the morning. We were pretty pleased with the way the climb had gone. Brew after brew and then we fell into our bags for the best sleep of the whole expedition - a really great day.

Thursday 13 August

This was to be the day for us to descend to basecamp. We had a lie-in, only waking at 09:00, then dallied some more over a lazy breakfast – my tummy now seemed to be behaving and I was quite hungry. After packing up and leaving our excess food and fuel at the main camp, we got away at about 11:45. It took us an hour’s easy descent to Camp 1 passing a party of three more French climbers on their way up. Everyone else at Camp 2 and immediately below it had already gone down including Roland, who must have gone down with the Germans on the 11^th. We chatted to four Austrians/Germans at Camp 1 and then continued down to the bottom edge of the glacier, just before reaching it, meeting up with Rudi Rosel who told us that he was a one-time South African, now resident in Switzerland. When he was in South Africa he had been a member of the Northern Transvaal section of the MCSA. We took off our crampons and went on down to the moraine camp arriving there at about 14:30. A joy to relax with no one else there, sitting on the warm rocks. I took a few more photos and we had something to eat and drink. We were relieved to find the things we had cached at this camp were still safe, especially as I had inadvertently left US$ 50 cash in my shorts pocket! After changing into my running shoes, we set off down the moraine again at 15:30. This was quite straightforward until we followed a different line of beacons on a higher traverse line than we one we had come up, which ended with some excitement having to climb down a sloping chimney and a short vertical pitch below it where we had to manhandle the packs. But it proved to be a more direct line and we were pleasantly surprised when we found that it came out directly above basecamp and that it had only taken us 1¼ hours to descend from the moraine camp. The camp was simply crammed with tents with a large migration of climbers obviously on their way up the mountain which we were pleased we were going to miss. A fabulous last night for us to remember, first sitting in the sun and then later relaxing over supper beside our tent in a magnificent balmy evening. We had arranged for the arriero to meet us with the burros at 08:00 the next morning – we would have to see if that was going to work!

Friday 14 August

It dawned another absolutely perfect day and we were amazed and delighted when our arriero and the burros actually did arrive exactly on time. We had enjoyed a reasonably good night (certainly supremely comfortable – if perhaps a little disturbed thinking back about all that had happened on the expedition). It took only a short time to strike the tent and pack our bags then load them onto the burros, while at the same time watching a stream of climbers setting off up the slabs.

We got away at 09:00 and below the quena forest waited for the burros to catch up with us. Looking back at Huascaran Sur we could see it was wreathed in spindrift – obviously there was still a tremendously strong wind blowing there.

Our arriero and burros getting ready to go down from basecamp

Spindrift still being whipped off Huascaran Sur's summit by the wind

There was an enhanced appreciation of the natural beauty of where we were on the way down – the trees, the flowers and the birds, things that you truly do miss in the more austere realm of the snow and ice. I stopped by a crystal clear stream to wash my face and then lagged behind PG and our burros to simply take in the mountain and the surroundings we were passing through on my own – a man ploughing a field with two oxen, the subdued chuckle of the water flowing in the irrigation furrow next to the walled path we were on. It was truly a mixed bag of other parties passing us on their way up the mountain, the last a party of three Israelis. Arriving in Musho at about 10:15 it didn’t take much persuasion to accept Abran’s suggestion that we should stop to have a bite to eat. It may have been the frame of mind we were in descending into this seeming paradise, but the meal he served us helped make this the culmination of a memorable morning – pollo with papas fritas washed down with Pilsen and followed by good coffee. We settled up with Abran and gratefully accepted his help organising a camion to take us down to Mancos – glad we had decided against walking as it is quite a long way (Musho 3 100 m and Mancos 2 650 m) and it had become a really warm day. There was almost no wait in Mancos before we could jump into a green mamba collectivo to take us on into Carhuaz where we walked to Alberto Torres’ house to see if any of the family were there. But we were out of luck, there was no-one home. So we simply decided to wait a while sitting on the pavement in the shade next to our packs, pretty soon becoming the objects of the attention of a horde of schoolboys just out of school. Seeing these goings on, a lady passing by on a horse said it was Alberto’s birthday and the family had gone out. So, after deciding to leave a note, we had hardly started writing it (with the “help” of the schoolboys), when the whole Torres family arrived, highly excited to find us there (after what had obviously been a very good lunch accompanied by quite a few cervezas). So the afternoon rather developed into a further celebration. What wonderful hospitality – more cervezas (dissolving any perceived language barriers) and more food “caliente/picante” with chillies – soup followed by potatoes with rice and egg. We had to pay a visit to the church, then more photos and swopping of contact details before the last goodbyes and finding ourselves on a collectivo bound for Huaraz.

We booked into our same room at the Cataluna – a home from home, but tinged with disaster when we found there was no more hot water after PG had taken a shower. So a forced relocation to Los Portales and a little later a light supper at the Tabriz before crashing into bed.

Saturday 15 August

Breakfast at Los Portales after a not very good night filled with fireworks (rockets) and people crashing around the hotel. But delighted to find that Cesar was in Huaraz because his son Marcello was joining a French youth climbing group visiting the Cordillera Blanca. After arranging to meet and have a meal with him and Gunther that evening we collected the stuff we had stored at Alcides and Francesca and arranged to see them on Sunday. We were keen to pay a visit to the fantastic archeological ruins at Chavin de Huantar so booked a tour to the site on Sunday and then with help from Mathias, changed US$60 on the local black market (38 I/US$). After stopping for coffee at the Guides Association offices we wandered around the covered market/fish market before going back to the hotel for a quick fruit/avo lunch and some of the last packing that still needed to be done. Bought a(nother!) jersey in the afternoon and then met up with Cesar and Gunther in the evening to have an excellent meal at La Puya – good to catch up news with them. When we walked home we came across a group of people singing and stopped for a while to enjoy it. It had been a nice relaxed day.

Chillies in the Huaraz market

Young Huaraz girl

Sunday 16 August

Thank goodness – it was a better night, there were no fireworks! And another beautiful morning. We had breakfast at Los Portales after a power failure disrupted my efforts to do a bit of washing (no hot water). Our Chavin tour bus arrived late so we only got away at 09:30 - a three hour drive to Chavin over the Puerta de Cahuish, stopping at Querococha. At the high point (4 516 m) you go through a tunnel before descending steeply to Chavin. After eating cuy (roasted guinea pig) at a restaurant in Chavin, we were taken on a fascinating tour through the Chavin ruins (a Pre Columbian World Heritage site) dating from 900 BC – comprising a central open air plaza surrounded by three temples, the oldest housing the Lanzon Gallery which in turn contains the “Lanzon,” a huge carved stone monolith of an anthropomorphic deity with a feline head and human body. A long return journey home with a stop for some of the passengers to eat trout caught in the lake, fortunately arriving in time to still meet up with Alcides, Francesca and their daughter Patricia and take them for supper to the Rivoli.

Monday 17 August

Effectively the end of the expedition for PG and myself catching the Impresa Ancash morning bus back to Lima and then the long haul home by air.