"Touching the void" (updated with photos)

This fellowship has kept me quite busy since I began this journey a little more than a month ago. Sure, it is all one big personal vacation, but occasionally one gets the urge to do other things besides explore Chinatowns. Urban adventures begin to wear on the bones. Unfortunately, this job has kept me pinned to the Chifa and the vegetable markets. So, in order to explore something completely different, I had to send out a friend of mine (who shall remain anonymous at his request) into the Peruvian Andes, the fabled Cordillera Blanca.

What follows is tale of mountaineering adventure -- of snowed-over crevasses, breathtaking ascents, avalanches, blinding blizzards, of monumental ice walls. Lost at the summit for five hours in white-out conditions.
I'm taking this title from the book "Touching the Void, a book/film about a disastrous descent from Siula Grande, also in the Peruvian Andes. You can actually watch the entire movie off Youtube, in twelve segments, starting here. My friend recounted the entire climb in excruciating detail, and I'm going to try to whittle it down to get at the most interesting parts. So here goes his story.


The mountain

Nevado Pisco is a mountain in the Cordillera Blanca, about 60 km north of Huaraz, which is about 400 km northeast of Lima. Huaraz is reachable by bus, which takes about eight hours.

At 5,760 meters above sea level (or about 18,900 feet), the mountain is significant in size yet climbable without taking lots of expedition gear.
The mountain can be climbed in one push; it takes about ten hours of normal-paced climbing. Most people, however, stay at the base camp at about 4,600 meters, and there is a second moraine camp in a moraine field at about 4,900 m or so, about 3 hours from the base camp. The moraine camp is not accessible by donkeys and has no fresh water, so it is mainly used by those who require two nights for the climb. The glaciers begin at about 5,000 m or so, and from then on its about a five or six hour climb to the summit in the snow.

In the past, the mountain has presented few technically difficult sections, with only a few crevasses to negotiate and a short ice wall. The Andes range (which is the second largest range after the Himalayas) has apparently bore the brunt of global warming, however, and there are many disturbing photos and signs that the glaciers are fast retreating. Glaciers have broken away and now there is a significant 50m ice wall to climb before summiting. Conditions on the mountains are always somewhat unpredictable, but guides seem to acknowledge that many mountains in the Cordillera Blanca are changing rapidly and unpredictably.

(From Google images)

Motivations
I had never climbed a major mountain, and Pisco presented the perfect opportunity. It required little technical skill, and could easily be done in two days. Even though hiring a guide for climbing was significantly more expensive than for trekking, I knew I wanted the experience, at least once, of climbing a mountain.

Before the climb I tried to acclimatize myself by hiking up maybe 500 meters above Huaraz in the canyons for about 3 hours. The day before the climb I went mountain biking, climbing about 850m over 10 km in about an hour... a steep grade of about 8.5%! The mountain biking was tough, but at least got my heart pumping for an hour before about a 3 hour descent through little Andean villages.

Day One: Base camp (4,600m)
We set out from Huaraz at about 8 am in a station wagon loaded with gear, mostly food and cooking stuff. There were four of us: Victor, our guide; John, a New Zealander now residing in California; Roosevelt, our cook and porter; and myself, a Gringo. The car ride took about an hour and a half, crossing into Huascaran National Park.

We were dropped off at about 3,900 m in the "cebollapampa" (high altitude grasslands?), and climbed the 700m or so for about two hours to the base camp, arriving before 1 pm. To my surprise, we used three donkeys to carry up all of the cooking equipment and tents, so I only had to carry a day pack. We spend the day milling around the base camp, setting up our tents, anticipating the climb ahead of us.

My tiny one-person tent at the base camp! My ice axe sits majestically at its side.

Roosevelt sets up a cooking tent and prepares fried chicken for dinner. A Norwegian expedition team is headed back down from the base camp; apparently one of the guys got sick from the water there. Pisco is a popular acclimatisation climb for higher peaks in the Cordillera Blanca, so there is a mix of professional and amateur mountaineers.

We try to go to bed early, at around 8 pm, but I have an upset stomach the entire night and only manage to sleep for maybe half an hour at most by the time our guide wakes us up at 12:50 am.

Day Two: Summit (5,760m)

1:40 am, 4,600 m. The three of us -- Victor (guide), John (Kiwi, fellow climber), and myself -- set off from the base camp after a breakfast of toast, yogurt, and tea. I am carrying cramp-ons, an ice axe, harness, two liters of water, some snacks, a down jacket, sunglasses.

It is dark, and we begin climbing up a moraine field illuminated with our headlamps. It is quiet and cold, nobody talks, the only sounds are the sounds of our steps and breathing. Up ahead we see two faint lights high above: Victor tells us it must be climbers leaving from the moraine camp 300 m up.

3:45 am. around 5000m. We reach the the edge of the glacier. For the past hour or so, we see two headlamps working their way closer to us, it must be the Austrian team climbing for acclimatisation for a tougher peak. When we reach the glacier, we begin putting on our equipment -- harnesses, crampons, rope, ice axes in hand -- I put on my down jacket as it has gotten significantly colder. The Austrian team leaves before we do, climbing at a quick pace.

6:00 am. Sunrise on the glaciers. It begins to get light out and we turn off our headlamps. The wind is quite strong and it is snowing lightly. We can't see the sun through the clouds, and the altitude is finally beginning to take its toll on my lungs. Five steps up the mountain and my heart is pounding. I try to breathe but feel like I'm not getting anything in.

9:05 am. Summit! At 5,760m (or thereabouts) we push through the last two final challenges. The last climb we face is a nearly-vertical ice wall, maybe 50m high. Victor climbs it first, then attaches our harness to a pulley at the top. I scale the ice wall trying to do it in one go, digging my crampons and axe into the ice, trying not to lose momentum. After I reach the summit, I collapse from exhaustion and to catch my breath. When I am able to get up, John has already scaled the summit and collapses. We all embrace each other.

At the summit. Visibility is very poor. Can't seem to rotate images in blogger or on the computer.

Reaching the summit is a feeling of elation, exhaustion, relief, adrenaline, all wrapped up into one. At once I am too tired to comprehend all the physical exertion I've put into reaching this point. It is quiet, it is completely white. We can't see anything; occasionally we catch a glimpse of nearby mountains, but they quickly fade into the clouds and the snow.

9:30 am. We begin to make our way down. John first, me second, Victor last. We can make out a few tracks, but it is difficult in the white-out conditions. The footprints fade and after descending about 100 or 200 m, we realize that we must have taken the wrong route.

10 am. We continue to try new paths to try to get back on track. The snow continues to come down, and it is impossible to distinguish between cloud and mountain. It is all white: directionless, contourless.

11 am. Victor thinks he knows a way out. We rappel down a glacier about 50m. We begin to walk around and see footprints. We follow the footprints to the right.

11:30 am. The footprints to the right lead nowhere, useless. We turn around.
12:00 pm. We go back the other direction, but it also leads nowhere. We have to climb the ice wall we just descended. Another ice wall to scale for the mistake we made.

John leads the way on another unsuccessful descent.

12:00-1:30pm. We continue to try different paths. At one point we begin walking and the snow begins to sink quickly. Victor realizes this is avalanche territory, and we hurry back in the other direction. He advises we climb about 50-60m and skirt the avalanche.

1:30-2:30pm. Continue to be lost, continue to try to find a path out. I am dehydrated, exhausted, falling asleep in the snow. Worried.
John suggests building a snow shelter until the weather improves.
I tell Victor that I have to conserve my energy and that I can't waste any more time on dead-end climbs. Climbing at over 5,500m drains my energy and I simply can't keep climbing unless I know that it'll lead to a safe descent.

2:35 pm. Clouds clear for less than a minute, but Victor finally sees the correct path down. We are all somewhat skeptical, but also feel relieved to know that this might finally lead to a safe descent.

2:45 pm. This is the way down. We follow a long trail down the glaciers.

3:00 pm. John slips into the snow. I had slipped numerous times, but this was the first time he does. A snowed-over crevasse is the culprit: John manages to stop himself with the ice-axe (and perhaps long legs), so I don't feel the tug on my harness as he slips.

We continue descending rapidly down the glacier, I feel the muscles tense in my knees but am at least not breathless. At times, we are practically sliding down the mountains. The powder is thick and I am constantly cleaning my crampons.

4:15 pm. Off the glaciers at last. It is such a relief to get onto the moraine, even though it is probably more painful to descend, but it feels great to get off the snow and glaciers, after over twelve hours in the snow.

At the edge of the glacier; off with the crampons. Happy.

5:30 pm. Stumble back to the base camp. Relieved, dehydrated, sunburnt, exhausted.

Day Three: Back to Huaraz.

We have a late breakfast and pack up the tents and the donkeys at about 10 am.

Going down, we see others going up to the base camp. Eager, anticipated faces. Shaven faces, sharp and determined. We are exhausted going down, lips chapped and swollen, our bodies dirty and foul-smelling.

When I ring the doorbell at the hostel, the normally quiet hostel-owner remarks, "Bad weather recently, eh?"