Yesterday I climbed to the top of 6088 m (close to 20,000 ft) Huayana Potosi; I think it was the hardest thing I´ve ever done, we walked for 14 hours out of 24 and most of my body still hurts today but I´m so happy I DID IT!!!!! My mom at least has requested a blow-by-blow of the climb so I´m going to indulge..
Basically I got to La Paz kind of ready to get out of the city for a bit so I was walking around talking to the different agencies about trekking, and then someone mentioned Huayana Potosi, and all of a sudden it was one of those things I just had to do once I though of it. I signed up with a really good agency and paid $140 (more than my visa to get here!) and rested up to leave Thursday morning. Apparently there were supposed to be three of us but the American guy was too sick so it was just me and Rotem, a 21-year old Israeli girl with lots of trekking experience in SA but also without any technical climbing experience.
After getting set with some gear (clothes, ice axes, crampons) we drove up to the refugio at the base of the mountain, which was really cute and ski lodge-y. There was a big group getting ready to go up that day, but we got to mostly laze around and acclimatize to the higher altitude. We did hike up to some snow/ice to practice using the ice axes, which was really cool and also reassuring because we got to see how much our guide Mario knew about climbing in the snow. Basically we just tried climbing at different gradients with slightly different techniques, and at the end we got to rappel down! Like rock climbing but colder, but lots of fun for me.
The next day we hiked for about three and a half hours up and up and up (lots of scrambling over big rocks) to the tiny little middle refugio.. oh and at this point we were joined by Loik (sp?) a nice French guy and his guide, who had skipped the practice and were doing the climb in two days. At the second refugio we marvelled at the views (finally above the clouds) and ate even though we weren´t hungry and went to bed at 6.
We woke up at 12 in the middle of the night, drank a little coca tea, got all our gear on, and started climbing at about 12:30. Then 6 hours of walking uphill in the snow.. in the dark it was easy to kind of zone out and just concentrate on the little light from my headlamp, but then when the sun rose at like 5 and we could see what was ahead, it got a lot harder not to keep looking up at how much was left. I was really lucky and didn´t have any problems with the altitude besides difficulty breathing (which I would have had anyway just from the excercise) but I was definitely out of shape and was basically just really tired the whole time. I guess I just didn´t let myself consider the possibility of not getting to the top.. it also helped to be roped up (I felt like those kids you see in the mall tied to their mom) to Rotem and Mario; I knew if I stopped I´d be letting Rotem down, and Mario was amazing, going really slow and steady and letting us take breaks just when we really needed it. Songs I had stuck in my head: the Bolivian parade song that all the bad marching bands play, ¨Come On Over Baby,¨ ¨Back in Black¨, several random OC songs, that rock song with ¨we´re not gonna take it¨in the chorus; also I had a nice mantra going that was ¨"Tene.. (step).. mos.. (step).. suer.. (step).. te..(step)..pode..(step)..mos..(step)..hacer..(step)..lo" (we are lucky we can do it). Some parts were steeper than others, and occasionally we had to kind of climb up with the ice axes; the trickiest part was right before the top when we had to climb up kind of a rock/scree slope. And then maybe 15 more minutes of walking in the snow and we were there!! Anyone who knows me well will not be surprised to hear that I cried.. but it may have freaked Mario and Rotem out a bit. I was just so exhausted and so happy and amazed that we actually made it.. and I didn´t have enough oxygen in my brain, okay?
After all that we could only stay at the top for like 10 minutes because it was so sunny already and the snow was getting wet/sticky/dangerous. The descent took about 3 hours and we were slipping all the way down, with the snow clumping on our crampons.. I lost a waterbottle to the slope that Rotem almost slid down but luckily that was the only casualty. We rested a bit at the middle refuge and then went another hour and a half or so (down the bad rocky bit) to the base refuge.
Back to La Paz, I decided to go to the Israeli hostel w/Rotem b/c it´s cheap and central and for a different kind of cultural experience; we checked in and then went to a salsa class! And dinner and ice cream to celebrate and then I realized I had no energy left. It feels pretty surreal right now but I DID IT!!!!!
Pictures...I just checked the preview and somehow I messed up the captions again my b but oh well, it can be like a puzzle to figure out.
views when we finally got above the clouds (Illimani far away), the little refugio, la cumbre!
view from top w/lake titicaca in the distance, cordillera real!, me on the top! w/ my Israelita climbing buddy Rotem, w/our awesome guide Mario
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another view from the top, views on the way down, the bottom (Huayana Potosi park sign w/very peeling paint)
me in the Potosi mine, Jorge who showed me around Sucre posing with a sundial, castillo outside Sucre, llama foetuses in Cochabamba, my favorite snack: api (sweet hot and spicy) and pastel (fried dough w/melted cheese inside)
busy La Paz streets, crazy Valle de la Luna eroded snadstone landscapes outside town, me in Valle de la Luna, the cool Aymara guy playing music there that I chatted with
2 comments:
you crying on top of mountain is very endearing COME HOME ONE DAY
why are llama fetuses so big
AAAH that's so cool! i'm so impressed you actually got to the TOP of a MOUNTAIN that's crazy. it sounds like you are having an incredible time, glad you're bonding with some israelis, also your hair looks good growing out.
I MISS YOU!
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