Huayna Potosi (6088m)

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Monday morning we met at the offices of 'Refugio Huayna Potosi' Climbing School at 9am, paid and went to the equipment store where we picked up our Ice Axes, waterproof pants, jackets, crampons, boots and gloves. It was a totally disorganised shambles but eventually we got our gear (not in the best condition) and ourselves up to the first refuge (4400m) in the company's old Toyota Land Cruiser.

Training on the Glacier

After lunch we trudged up to the glacier where we were to train in using the gear. Putting the stuff on in the refuge was tiring enough, but we walked the 40 minutes up there exited about the prospect of climbing the mountain then next day.
Our guide, Choco put my crampons on for me and I pottered about in them while Sarah and Dominic had theirs put on. It was great fun walking up and down 60 degree slopes of ice with total confidence. 'Trust your crampons' they said, and trust my crampons I did.

When we were all ready we hopped over one of the crevasses and proceded to be taught proper use of the crampons (3 different techniques for walking up and down ice) and the ice axe for climbing steep ice - anything up to 80 degress plus. Great fun and you really get to whack that ice axe into the ice.
We did a long climb each and were belayed by Choco down a steep ice-face. Toria, if you read this you'll be really proud of us!

So, we returned to the first refuge after the training and had dinner and warmed ourselves by the fire before going to bed.

Tuesday

After a cold night in the refuge we had some time to prepare for the hike to the second refuge. At 12.30 we left, in a hailstorm (weather not looking too good) to climb from 4400m to 5225m with all our gear on our backs. Heavy stuff particularly climbing up steep rocks taking big steps!
After 2 and a half hours climbing we reached the second refuge at the edge of the snow - a small round hut that we were thankful of seeing as everyone else with other companies sleeps in tents - losers!
We had to go to bed very early that evening because we were due to start the proper climb at 1am...

Very, very early on Wednesday

Managed to get some sleep until about 10pm when the dog (who we would later dub super dog) from the first refugio started barking at some really early hikers. Pete popped his head out at this point and informed us all that the weather was perfect but that there was a really impressive thunder storm going on in the distance. At 12pm we struggled in to all our gear and walked in our boots to the start of the snow and ice where we put on our crampons. Pete and Dominic were roped to our guide Choco and I went with the assistant Benancio. It had unfortunately started to snow at this point so it was hard work trudging along in the dark and tricky for the guides as they had to identify any crevaces that were covered by the snow. A couple of other groups seemed to have less experienced guides and they followed Choco who could identify the crevaces for them - lazy buggers! We kept going, followed by ´super dog´, in the snow up to 5,670 mts. At this point Choco decided that it was too dangerous to continue, the crevaces were difficult to see and he mentioned an electrical storm. The basic choice he said was "Do you want to live or die". Even though Pete was wearing his "Live fast, die young" t-shirt, we went with live. We got back to the refugio for 4am where we slept for a few hours before making our way down the mountain, a bit disappointed and back to La Paz.

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Photos

The Old Glacier on Huayna Potosí
Sarah, smiling with glacier in background

Huayna Potosí From Afar
A big scary mountain in the distance

Changing a flat tyre for a bald one
No, we don´t like spending money on new tyres - cos they nick ´em

Sarah & Pete on Glacier
Stood on a 85 degree slope - them crampons are GOOD!

Whack that Ice, Girl!
Action shot, and this time the wall is at nearly 85 degrees. I was kidding before...

A bit of descending for Sarah
Hope that rope´s attached to someone!

Toasty warm!
Pete and Dominic in Refugio Uno

Inside Refugio 2 - say Queso!
Sarah, Choco and Benancio inside the second refuge

Refugio 2
Somewhere on the moon...

At 5670m
Still smiling despite the disappointment

Superdog! and Buddha...
No caption necessary

High Altitude Buddha
Time for a bit of meditation. Buddha, you sound like a broken record....always with the meditation

She´ll be comin´ round the mountain!
She´ll be comin´ round the mountain when she comes,
She´ll be comin´ round the mountain when she comes,
She´ll be comin´ round the mountain,
She´ll be comin´ round the mountain,
She´ll be comin´ round the mountain when she comes,

Comments

[anonymous]

you lucky b's!!!!
ciao pete, ciao sarah, this is johnny, hailin' forom italy as usual... you're around the world while it's friday night and I'm tapin' on dis k-bor, is that fair?!? saq gave me the url to your blogger so I just had to peep, now I'll get some serious reading and then I'll write you a proper mail. you left without sending me your mail, you beeeep. lots of love, johnny

[anonymous]

Huayna is not a breeze
Guys, I recently found this excellent travel blog. I am temporarily stuck in a training program to become an Anesthesiologist so I cannot currently travel at will but I aim to again....I wish this had existed when I was traveling around! Back in the summer of 1995 when I was traveling alone in Bolivia (I am one of the few weirdo's from the states who did) I met up with 3 Israeli's and a Brit who were itching to climb something big. Me too. We paid the group fee to get equipment and 2 Spanish speaking only guides to get some gear and direction (my advice is bring your own gear, especially if you're a tall dude like me; my sleeping bag sucked and was too small). All went well at first...We climbed a vertical ice wall for practice after reaching our 1st base camp (terribly freaking hard work!). One of the Israeli's in our company who was named Ayal got his hand lightly wounded that day by stepping on it with his own crampons. The next day we climbed to the 2nd base camp at 5500m and pitched some tents. After foolishly frolicking around in the snow with the others a bit, me and the British dude pitched our tent and took some much needed rest...Around 16:30 Ayal came by our tent asking for a lighter to extinguish his toilet paper (he was very environmentally conscious). An hour and a half later, it was time to boil some tea and dinner. We called for Ayal for about an hour and finally concluded he had fallen into a glacial crevasse, which was somewhat hidden but not 30m from our camp. We spent the night trying to bring him up (it was >40m deep and he was stuck on ice overhangs). That night was one of the most unforgettable in my life as I prayed we could possibly get him up still alive (there was not even a chance, he was no doubt dead upon impact). The next morning, with additional help we got him up, frozen, blue and dead. We did not reach the summit that day. We spent the cold morning in silence and bringing him down the mountain. The 2 other Israeli's got in touch with his family. That evening me and my new British friend angrily bargained in La Paz for a hostel room (I'm not sure if they truly understood our tragedy despite my best Spanish). I ended up getting into medical school, having some other later adventures (I joined the military and unexpectedly found myself in Iraq during the start of our ill conceived war)...but the point of this story is that we felt the shit got kicked out of us. Huayna Potosi is not a benign peak. I later heard of 5 Chilean climbers who went down at once a couple of years before. We were all pretty inexperienced climbers, but Ayal had more experience than any of us and he still made a mistake. To everyone else who climbs these Bolivian Andes, be a little bit careful. Best regards and continued adventures, Rob [e-mail]