Day 1: I was picked up at the agency along with three others: Jason from England and Bruno and Matthieu from France. We were first driven to an equipment storage where we each got trousers, a vest, boots, leg protectors, crampons and an ice axe. The biggest outfit available was all orange so I'd look like a Guantanamo prisoner for this climb. Then it was off to Huayna Potosi, an hour's drive from La Paz. The mountain looked far more impressive and difficult than I'd expected, it's a real monster.

We were housed and fed in the refuge below the mountain, at 4700m, and then went off to a gletsher to get a quick ice-climbing instruction. Luis, our guide, proved to be the impatient type. After about 20 minutes of basic how-to-walk-on-crampons, he climbed on a near vertical icewall using crampons and two ice-axes, and then made us follow him one by one, providing counter-weight with a rope. It was incredibly tiring but we all made it, though only because of Luis' counter-weight. It was good to know we could overcome an 80 degree ice wall with some help, though we expected we wouldn't have to do anything like this during the actual climb. The evening was deadly boring with the four of us just sitting around the fire but still feeling too cold to do anything fun.

Day 2: On this day we first waited until noon, then walked from the refuge to a metal cabin at 5200m. It was a tough scramble over rocks that took nearly three hours. Jason was having AMS symptoms and had a hard time following. In the metal cabin Luis made us some fine soup and noodles on a gas flame. Through the door we could see the top of the mountain looming above; it looked even more impressive now and I felt a bit intimidated and not so sure I'd make it. We went to bed (5 of us on 4 adjacent matresses that filled the cabin floor) at 5pm, definitely the earliest I've ever been to bed. I just lay there twisting and thinking about the climb for 8 hours. At 8pm I forced myself out in the freezing cold to pee, but seeing the mountain glow in the moonlight with thousands of stars above was actually worth it.

Day 3: We got up at 1am. I hadn't slept for a minute and felt terrible, with a headache that I feared indicated AMS, but while gearing up I started feeling better. By the time we set out at 2am adrenaline was rushing through me and I felt just great and eager to go. Jason had a bad headache and an obvious case of AMS, so he wisely decided not to try the climb and stayed behind, which left three of us to go up.

We first scrambled up some more rocks and then put on our crampons to start a 900m climb on ice and snow. Crampons are irons that you attach to your shoes and that have peaks that you kick into the ice to get a grip. Another guide, Lorenzo, had joined us and he roped up with me while Luis roped up with Bruno and Matthieu.

There was a three quarter moon that night which provided plenty of light and it was a fantastic sight as we got going: thousands of stars in the sky, the snow glowing in the moonlight, the dark silhouettes of the mountains all around us, and the vague figures of small roped-up groups of fellow climbers with headlamps trodding through the snow elsewhere on the slope. I think about 30 people in total went up that night.

At around 5500m we got the first two small ice-walls. I had got the hang of using my crampons by now and swung my ice-axe like a dwarf and overcame the walls without a problem. I was getting irritated with my guide Lorenzo though; the rope that tied me to him was only hindering me because I had to use one hand to keep it to the side so I wouldn't step on it. He and Luis were also setting a very fast pace while I was in no hurry at all and in fact wanted to make sure I wouldn´t arrive at the top before the sun was even up.

At some point we could see the thousands of lights of La Paz glowing in the distance on our left. When we stopped to admire this fantastic sight Luis yelled "mas rapido es mas bonito!" (the faster you go the more beautiful the sight) which was dead funny but also summed up the attitude of our guides: they wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. We passed several other groups.

At 5700m it was easy going again and though I was very tired and constantly breathing hard in the thin air, I was feeling great and euphorious about the whole experience, which had something surreal because it was night. I felt so happy being there and doing that that I had a lump in my throat.

Then at 5am and about 5900m high we arrived at the final stage of the climb. Above us was a steep wall of about 200m high. Two people had told me that this final slope was 45 degrees, and I thought they'd been exagerating, but in fact it was far steeper than that, about 60 degrees, and it looked very intimidating. This was obviously going to be a long and exhausting climb with the crampons and ice-axe.

I wanted to take my time for it, but Lorenzo was in a hurry. In the beginning of the climb whenever I was out of breath and wanted to get my heartbeat under control, he never gave me time to recover. At a certain point when I really needed to rest I three times said "espera" (wait) but three times he waited just five seconds and then moved on, each time almost pulling me out of balance with the rope that bound us together. After the third time I burst out completely and pulled the rope so hard that he almost fell down (luckily he didn't as I'd have slid down the wall with him). I'd been innerly cursing the guy for a while because he was just making the climb more difficult and more dangerous for me, and now I yelled all the things I'd been thinking, in Spanish mixed with French because I couldn't think clearly. We argued a while and made a spectacle of ourselves for the climbers around us, but afterwards he did let me set the pace and generally didn't bother me anymore for the rest of the day.

I think that final slope took me about an hour. Since Lorenzo was being nice now I did my best to go as fast as possible and I completely exhausted myself, collapsing against the ice to catch my breath whenever I had a good grip with my axe. It seemed an endless effort and I've never gone so deep physically. By the end of it I was so out of my mind that I was still swinging my axe and pulling myself up on the final meters of the slope, even though those were less steep and other people just walked on them.

At about 6:30am I reached the top of that wall, and it turned out to be the top of the mountain as well, which I hadn't known. What an incredible moment it was when I suddenly looked over the edge of the mountain, saw a whole new landscape below me and realised I had made it all the way to the top, 6088m. The sun had just come above the horizon behind me and the view was fabulous in all directions.

I collapsed on the top of the mountain (a thin edge of some 20m wide), completely drained both physically and emotionally and so intensely happy and relieved and overcome by the moment that I almost started crying. I had tears welling up and wanted to turn on my belly to hide my face but the guides yelled to stop me - the edge just consisted of snow there and I might tumble over the mountain if I'd lean on it too much - and that quickly brought back my cool :)

So I'd made it and after regaining my breath I sat up and started making pictures. Luckily I noticed that on the first pictures I asked the Frenchies to make of me I still had a teary face, so I had some cooler ones made a bit later :) I also made a 360 degree panoramic movie and a series of pics I will stitch together. After about half an hour we decided to go down.

On the way down Lorenzo let me go first, didn't say a word to me and just stopped whenever I stopped to make a picture - which was many times. Since it had been dark on the way up I had to make all my pictures of the actual climb now.

I'd insisted on making my way up 100% by myself and I did, never using the rope to pull myself up, but I have to admit that I wouldn't have made it down in one piece without that rope :) Lorenzo let me absail (rappel) from the three ice walls with a 50m rope that he let down very fast. Absailing is easy (just lean back and plant your feet against the wall as you are being dropped) but also very exhausting, strangely. I was always glad when the rope was finished and I could rest.

Back at the metal cabin I removed all my upper clothes and laid them in the sun to dry (totally wet from sweating) as I cooled down, which took a long time. After about an hour we left for the final descent back to the refuge. I was feeling exhausted and my feet hurt like hell (the climbing boots were too tight) but I still hurried up just to get it over with, arriving half an hour before the rest at about 11am.

I have uploaded some pictures of the whole endeavour to my web album, check them out here:

Huayna Potosi

Aug 12, 2006 - 18 Photos

Since we mostly took pictures of each other, I'll get a lot more pictures on which I'm featured myself later on.

I was feeling very bad by the time we were back down, because I hadn't slept that night and had woken up at 5am the night before. I also had a bad headache, my back hurt a lot, and I discovered two huge open blisters on my feet.

When we arrived back in La Paz at 3pm I wanted to get a good hotel room, but I'd made a reservation with the hostel I'd been in before so I went there. I tried to sleep but couldn't, and by 5pm the tiny room was ice cold, I was feeling totally miserable, and felt that I was gonna be sick. I needed a shower but couldn't get myself to use their shared cold shower, I needed to take care of my blisters but couldn't, and I needed a good meal. I collected my energy, got out of bed, packed my stuff, went down to the reception and paid for my room, left, stopped a taxi, had it drive me to a really good hotel and was very very fortunate that they had 1 room left because I hadn't the energy to go hotel hunting.

This hotel room had a heater which I turned on, and a private bathroom where I took a hot shower for half an hour until I felt human again. I took care of my blisters, and then had a great sumptuous dinner in their restaurant which is the best in town (I had already eaten there with Nicole before which is why I picked this hotel). After all this I felt so good that I went to an internet cafe and uploaded the pictures you see above right away to secure them, and afterwards enjoyed the cable tv in my hotel room. Very good decision to change hotels, I really needed the luxuary for once.

So that's the whole story of my first real mountain climb. I've also uploaded a few pictures of the day hike through Cañon de Palca:

Cañon de Palca & Valle de Animas

Aug 9, 2006 - 3 Photos