Trip Reports

Alpamayo & Huascaran - 15 Jul to 16 Aug '06

Written by Leader Lydia Bradey, August 2006

The Jagged Globe expedition began as it continued, in very good humour, with lots of laughing and wise-cracks between a group full of stories and positive outlooks. Gavin, Paul, Beth and Mike gathered in Lima in mid July, with Lydia Bradey, one of our two mountain guides and drove with our other Peruvian guides to Huaraz.

Once out of the sea fog, after a lunch of (optional) guinea pig ("does it taste like chicken?"), we summited the pass between the mountains and the sea, over the Cordillera Negra, at 4,100m and stood amazed at the view. Stretching grasslands met steep and stunningly beautiful mountains that rose in snowy flutes to perfect summits. How often we would comment on this trip about the pyramid shape of so many mountains, many of which are accessible to us as moderate climbers.

We had a rest day In Huaraz, and the very first evening Mike was purloined by a busker man in a wee dress to perform to the public and Paul had a photo with Alpacas in sunglasses for the children back home.

The next day we walked to a beautiful alpine lake, Laguna Chirup, and then the following day departed for our first Base camp of the trip, in the Ishinca valley, at 4,400m. It was a hot walk and we were still all struggling with the altitude. Skip cruised along interpreting for anyone who needed to communicate and telling us stories of the surrounding mountains.

Most of the mountains appeared to offer a climbable side, but at first we struggled with the names and our orientation. After a rest day we climbed to a beautiful moraine camp under Ishinca at 4,900m, and climbed Ishinca (5,530m) in perfect weather, the next day. Everyone summited although one person was beginning to feel unwell, and everyone stood on the very top point of the mountain.

We descended that day to BC and ate a huge amount of excellent food, having suffered a few altitude headaches, only to go to sleep early for the next day’s climb.

We departed at 3.30am to climb Urus Este, Beth unfortunately descending after an hour of feeling very unwell. Everyone else stomped their way to the summit via the route which had lots of interesting travel and beautiful views. We were down for lunch and a very well earned rest, departing early the next day for Huaraz, then Alpamayo Base Camp.

The walk in to Alpamayo Base Camp take two days through the Santa Cruz Valley, camping en route, surrounded by boulders in smooth-grazed grass paddocks and fluted mountains. Catering, help and general care from our small Peruvian team, Martine, Cuiy (said "Qwee"), Zac and Justino was excellent and the food was amazing. The only complaint anyone had was that they felt too well treated and that mountaineering was supposed to be hard! I tell you, those boys worked very hard, carrying their own weight uphill, and getting up at 5:30am to ensure we had hot water and food at almost any time. As the mountains got higher and the physical demands increased, the good food and a supportive team were more than appreciated and desired!

Alpamayo Base Camp sits high in a side valley under the impressive and challenging access to the Alpamayo Col and overlooking the valley across, which stands the most beautiful mountain Artesanraju. We took two days of rest at BC due to acclimatisation and inclement weather. Then we moved to Moraine Camp at 4,700m and the following day, climbed the steep ice access to the Alpamyo Col Camp, where we were greeted by a dog! The small dog had apparently been at camp for 10 days high on the glacier and that afternoon two Americans who had just come off Alpamayo took the dog with them and abseiled down the mountain, off the glacier with the dog in their pack.

We had poor weather for one day and waited until our last day on the mountain to climb the Basque Route on Alpamayo. We climbed independently as two teams and reached the summit at the end of the last and steepest pitch, in broken sunshine. This rapidly clouded over again and as we descended it began to snow. The route was busy and was shared with a large group of Germans who jumared ropes their guides' ropes, which were fixed all the way up to the summit. Our team were pleased that they had climbed the whole mountain independently.

The return to camp through deep new snow was exhausting and the climb remained the highlight of the whole trip, as it was so steep, technically challenging exciting and at the end, in the daylight, beautiful. Our wonderful staff came to meet Gavin and Beth’s team, as did Skip who had returned with his team earlier.

Our whole team descended in cold conditions to the Moraine camp and then walked down in broken sunshine to BC, looking forward to the chickens we had brought up to BC in a stew! From Alpamayo we returned to a smaller town, Carhuaz and stayed in a lovely little hotel that was light, clean and attractive and full of Peruvian art. We said goodbye to Mike, who was sad that he couldn’t stay and hello to Jim, who was joining us on Huascaran but came over to confess that he had decided that he was not a mountaineer and didn’t like suffering and that he was not going to come to climb Huascaran. We laughed and said (with our various scratches, bruises and black eyes from falling ice) that we didn’t know what he meant!

Thus, Beth, Paul, Gavin, Skip and Lydia departed as a smaller group for Huascaran. We took a few days to get to camp one, using a base camp and Moraine Camp, and although the mountain is not the most beautiful of the Peruvian mountains, the campsites on the glacial-smoothed rock are in amazing locations. Once we were high the problem of crossing a huge 6 metre plus crevasse in the middle of the Garganta became too dangerous a game, and so we retreated.

Eager to salvage the extra time we had remaining in Peru, Skip and I planned a trip to yet another beautiful glaciated valley at 4,400m, to climb Vallunaraju (5,657m). This final climb was absolutely beautiful and lots of pleasure; we were all acclimatised, fit, happy not to be even a little scared and all really enjoyed each other's company. Some of us climbed both the high North peak and the lower South peak and we all wandered down to the Base Camp for a huge lunch and a leisurely drive out to Huaraz.

The last day in Huaraz was spent shopping, exploring and packing for our journey back to Lima and the rest of the world.

Many thanks to Beth, Gavin, Paul, Mike the climbers, and to Skip, our guide and our fantastic Peruvian staff for an amazing month. Also thanks to the brief appearance of Jim who would have fitted into the group perfectly, if he had enjoyed having cold feet!

Lydia Bradey, expedition leader« Previous report | Next report »

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