The Adventures of Andrew Maurer

We set off around 2am. I wasn’t very optimistic about making the summit since the route hadn’t been well marked up to now and there were no other groups camped near us. Max, the guide, and his group were supposed to be attempting Yanapaccha today, but we had seen no sign of them.

We went about an hour until we hit the glacier, following rock cairns through the dark. Luckily the trail here was better than before. We got to the glacier, roped up, and began following the route from a picture we had photocopied from the guidebook. After a few hours on the glacier, we saw four headlights on the glacier far below us and headed up in a direction nearly 90 degrees off from where we were headed. I took out the GPS and saw that we were headed up an unlabelled summit, not the summit labelled NE Yanapaccha.

We decided to change route and follow the countour of the glacier across to the path where the other group was headed (and with a more direct bearing to Yanapaccha NE on the GPS). It was pretty dark out because the moon had already set and it was a bit tricky navigating the rather torn up/cravassy glacier. Eventually we intercepted the other group’s path and it turned out to be Max’s group.

We continued for a while, with me much more optimistic about making the summit. About 300m from the summit there was a very steep section. Max and his group chose one line, where Max went first, setting up a 60m rope for the others to follow. In that way, there would be no consequences if one of the clients fell because the rope would hold them.

Alex and I decided on another line, heading up to the same ridge, 30 m beside. I led and was very nervous because of how steep the slope was and because there was a small crevasse to cross at the beginning of the slope. I led up, placed a piece of protection 15m up, and then set up an anchor to belay Alex after 30m, at the end of the rope. Alex ascended and then I did the next pitch, this time being comfortable withour protection for the 30m. The snow wasn’t very good quality – somewhat crusty. We would have to kick hard through the crust with our crampons, otherwise the crust could break off and we could slip. I didn’t have great axe placements either, because it would slip through the snow when much force was put on it.

Eventually we made it up the three pitches to the summit ridge. We had seen Max’s group on the summit and they were now desceding back to the ridge. Alex and I were pretty scared about what we had just down and talked about retreating. Instead, we made a deal where we would make the summit of Yanapaccha, but then go back to Huaraz instead of continuing on to Chopicalqui. I swore to myself that I’d never climb again.

We passed Max’s group, and decided to go as fast as possible to the summit and back down. The weather looked like it might be beginning to sock in. We were roped up for this 20 minutes to the summit, but it wasn’t steep enough to need protection (though the ridge was exposed on either side). The last 10m to the summit has a huge relief. We were climbing up on hands and knees towards the summit, with a brilliant light right behind it because of the sun and the reflection off the fog around the summit.

It wasn’t long until we had to face our fears of going back down. Luckily there were a few fixed anchors that Max had left on the route they had ascended and descended. There was also a loose picket just lying on the summit ridge by the first anchor. I brought this with me as I rapelled, in case our ropes weren’t long enough to get to the next anchor (we tied each of our 30m ropes together to make 60m). Sure enough, when I rapelled to the end of the line, the next anchor was still 10m below me. Alex came down, I set up the picket that had been left on the summit ridge, and rapelled the next 10m to the final anchor. We were able to make it to the bottom after this.

It was another couple hours getting back to base camp. We took the more direct route (avoiding the mess-up we had made in the morning), but the glacier was much more broken up and we spent time navigating around cravasses. We eventually made it back to camp, thoroughly exhausted, by 12pm. I asked myself why I’d been scared, decided that it was irrational, and decided that I did actually want to climb again.

We had a long day of hiking today – 1.5 hours down from Pisco base camp to the valley and then 5-6 hours to Yanapaccha base camp. We met some Canadians down in the valley and I was happy to see that they weren’t being guided. It’s a whole difference experience when you have to carry all your weight on your back and set up/tent-to camp yourself as opposed to others doing it for you.

The first half of the trail to Yanapaccha base camp is on the highway-of-a-trail to Laguna 69. However, the second half was unmarked and went through alpine meadows filled with cows. We were very happy to finally arrive at a site marked by large cairns on a slab/rubble field giving way to cliffs below and with a view of the Huandoys, Pisco, Chocoraju, and Laguna 69.

We later found out that this was the old route up (we were using a 2003 version of the guidebook after all). We found out that the new route takes the road much higher from the valley bottom, with less hiking needed to access the glacier.

We went to bed later than wanted, around 7pm, ready to wake up at 1:30am the following day to climb Yanapaccha.

We meant to wake up at 1:30am, but slept through the alarm and woke up at 2:30am from the sounds of other groups. Granola bar and trail mix for a quick breakfast and we were off towards the flacier of Pisco. There were quite a few other groups setting off around the same time, so it was easy to follow the trail of headlights. At the glacier we roped up and readied our crampons and ice-axes and then set off towards Pisco.

It was beautiful getting up to the Pisco-Huandoy col still in the wee hours of the morning. The silhoutte of Pisco on one side, Huandoy the other, and endless starts in front and begind. The route wasn’t difficult, but Alex and I were both feeling exhausted from the altitude. There was one steep pitch of about 60 degrees, apparantly not there last year due to the changing nature of the glacier.

We were thrilled to arrive at the summit, about an hour after sunrise, and posed for some summit photos before descending back the way we had come. There were many groups still on the ascent, but it wasn’t hard to skirt around them.

We got back to moraine camp around 9:30am looking forward to taking  a nap. But when I got to our campsite I found it flooded with streams of runoff from the glacier. I immediately grabbed our thermarests, sleeping bags, and packs and threw them above the water line. Luckily the tent floor of the EV2 is quite waterproof and nothing got wet… until my sleeping bag blew off the rock it was perched on and into the muddy water.

We spent a long time packing up, tired from the morning’s adventure. We were thinking of hiking an hour or so in to Yanapaccha but decided instead to just hike back down to Pisco base camp. We stopped in at the refugio to collect our excess food. I was happy to see the same person to whom I had entrusted the bags the day before. The refugio was quite posh and inhabited by those who did not wish to sleep in tents.

Alex had a particularly bad night, not sleeping well and feeling sick from the altitude (or perhaps from our meals at rather unsanitary spots in Huaraz). But after some diamox and a few hours spent in the camp, we were off to moraine camp – three hours away.

Again, we weren’t particularly fast due to our heavy packs, but we were able to stash quite a bit of food in the refugio – a chalet-type building perched at the top of a hill by base camp. Pisco looked pretty impressive during the hike up to moraine camp, with great exposure from this side. The actual route isn’t nearly so exposed.

We chose a campsite, set up the tent and got to bed by 5pm. We would be waking up at 1:30am to climb to Pisco the following day. Most people start this early because the glacier is hard and easier to walk on with crampons. Later on in the day the snow softens up and each step takes more effort.

By the way from last time:
1 – When we were walking down from Laguna Churup and talking to the Ketchua lady, she was telling me about how many people of Huaraz work in the mountains as porters, cooks, and guides. I was happy to respond with “yo soy guida, soy portador, soy cocinador, soy escalador”.
2 – I was talking with an English speaking woman from Huaraz in the hostel about meals in Huaraz. Alex and I explained how we had been eating meals for S5 or S6 ($1.67-$2) daily. She was shocked and said that as a local she would never eat at such places – they are far too unhygenic. That brings me back to thinking about one night we went to dinner and were sketched out at first when no one else was eating there. Second, when the waiter said that they actually didn’t have most of the items on the menu. Third, when a dog sitting at the front of the restaurant walked back gingerly into the kitchen. And fourth when Alex scopped the top portion of his Jello dessert off because he thought there was mold on it.

We slept in until 7am because we had stayed up so late packing. I figure my pack weighed in at about 30kg as an underestimate (It was 23.5kg on the airplane, but I had added about half my 16kg of food, 1kg of water, less the tent pegs, poles, and the tarp.) The collectivo to Yungay was S5, and lasted from 8am-9:15am. It was a very impressive ride. I was sitting by the window and would exclaim Huascaran! to the old Peruvian man beside me when it came into view – two towering domes 6,900m high.

There were “collectivo taxis” waiting at the collectivo drop-off to take people to Cebollobampa (the trailhead for Pisco). The driver wanted S15 per person, but our book said that it should be S10. He eventually went and got an official collectivo rates document that indeed showed S15. He then said that we would have to wait for two more people, because collectivos wait until relatively full until departing. He said that we could pay the four passengers fairs: S15 x 4 = S60, but we declined. By 10am we bargained down to S50 since it was getting late and we didn’t know if anyone else would be heading to Cebollobampa. Just as we pulled out and drove around the carpark, the driver shouted “gringos!” Lo and behold, two apparent trekkers were waiting. They were headed to Pisco too, so it ended up being S15/person.

The taxi got us to Cebollobampa by 11:30am. We hiked a few hundred meters over the course of three hours until we reached base camp. Out packs were brutally heavy with ten days of food and we were both relieved upon arrival. We had been leap-frogging a group of three guided by a Peruvian named Max, the same guide who we’ve been bumping into a lot.

The camp was very pretty – a large meadow with up-sloping rock slopes on three sides and the view of the valley we had come from behind. From here we could see Pisco, Yanapaccha, and Chopicalqui – the three summits we plan to climb. There were maybe two or three groups apart from us (all guided) with over twenty animals – donkeys and horses. We also saw cows grazing in the meadow, presumably belonging to the posh refugio atop the rock slope beside us. It was unnerving seeing the cows, horses, and donkeys sharing the one water source to the whole meadow – a small spring.

Alex had a turkey freeze-dried meal and I had quinoa for dinner around 4:30pm. By 5:30pm we were tucked in in the tent, crashing after a strenuous day.

We had another 6am wakeup this morning. Our hotel person told us how to get to Pitec. Pretty soon we were on a collectivo destined for a settlement of farms called Lluna. The collectivo sat waiting for a while and we quickly jumped off to grab some fresh chicken empanadas for S1 ($0.33) each when a man walked by with a basket-full. When the collectivo seemed at capacity (about 12 people) we were off. Little did we know that many more people would be squeezing in.

Along the journey to Lluna we picked up 10 more passengers, bringing the total up to 22! It was unbelievable that so many people could fit. At one point a larger Ketchua lady sat on Alex’s lap. We had to squish with our legs not even close to straight in front of us until the lady was able to sit down on our bench beside us. To make matters even more interesting, we were on a gnarled dirt road the whole time and when we hit a rut Alex’s head would go hurling into the ceiling. We both lost circulation in our feet miles before we arrived at Lluna.

When we arrived, the driver said Pitec, and pointed up a a large trail/gnarled road too gnarly for a car. We understood that this was as far as we would get by collectivo and happily got out. We paid the driver S3 each ($1) and started up the trail. It was 1.5 hours walking up to the sign marking the entrance to Huascaran National Park. We passed traditionally dressed Ketchua ladies and a caballero walking a couple donkeys up the trail.

When we arrived at the park entrance, we knew that we would likely need to pay a park entrance fee. We heard from many sources that it would be S65 ($22) for 1 month, but the official wanted S5 for the day or S65 for 15 days. I was pretty outraged and spent a while complaining – showing him my Varsity Outdoor Club membership, since alpine club members are supposed to get a better deal. We later found out that without an alpine club membership, individuals are not allowed to go without a guide into some areas (most of the areas that we’ll be going).

It was 1.5 hours up to Llaguna Churup, with an elevation of 4450m. We were both feeling the altitude as we ascended – Alex’s breathing/heart rate and I had a small headache. We saw other tourists along the trail heading to the lake. We arrived at the lake at noon and took an hour siesta – laying out on a grassy patch beside the alpine lake, with a perfect sunny day. That’s what I call acclimatizing!

We headed back down all the way to Lluna and I talked with a Ketchua lady for 45 minutes or so from Pitec to Lluna. We then took off our boots to wait for a collectivo back to Huaraz. Soon a taxi came by with a couple British people and they got the taxi to stop and beckoned us in. They were from Redding and were in Huaraz for a couple weeks on vacation to do the Huayhuash circuit.

The driving in Peru really is crazy. Just walk into the street and you see cars passing each other with only centimeters to spare. Or in this case on this country road, passing big cows and other animals with hardly any margin for error. At one point when a flock of sheep was in the middle of the road, the taxi actually had to nudge a sheep with its front bumper before the sheep trotted off the road to let us by.

Back in Huaraz, we had a huge list of things to do. We have decided to not do the Santa Cruz Trek (we later found out that even alpine club members may not do the trek without a guide). This was in large part due to meeting a friendly guide a few times since our time in Huaraz (he was also on our Cruz Del Sur bus) and he said he was going into Llanganuco valley to do Pisco, Yanapacca, and Chopicalqui with his clients. He said that he would be flagging the routes and leaving the wands in. We figure that this could help with routefinding.

So we first went to the office of the Parque Nacional De Huascaran to see about permits. We were hoping to show our club memberships here and get the 1 month for S65 price. It turns out that the price got even worse. The women said that for climbers it would be S65 for 7 days. I was really frustrated and spent a lot of time arguing. I ended up talking to another more senior person downstairs. I explained that we were planning to be here for 3 months and that we were without a guide because we couldn’t afford it. How can we afford S65 every 7 days? I told him I wanted S65 for a month. He repeated what the woman told us that that was last year’s rate and it was different now. He had sympathy for us though and told us that he would give us last year’s price of S65/month. He gave us his name in case anyone gave us a hard time.

Then to dinner – something roja, which was really good. I asked for the menu and the man at the front said solo pollo. We sat down and I asked the waiter for 2 dinners. We soon each had a plate of a quarter chicken with fries and salad for 6S each ($2). What a deal! And this place was popular, so I had more faith in the food since there was high turnover.

While Alex headed to the supermarket to buy food, I began the arduous task of individually bagging 10 days worth of food. It’s 10:50pm at the moment and I still have to go finish packing. We have food for ten days and are hoping to climb Pisco, Yanapacca, and Chopicalqui. We have topo maps of the whole area, route descriptions, and gps tracks for Pisco and Chopicalqui.

Ps – I finally heard back from UBC law this evening and was accepted. I’m pretty happy. Though it doesn’t change my plan to do my master’s of economics at Queen’s.

Adios! Back in 10 days!

The bus was a big touristy looking double decker bus. We were thrilled to see such varied landscapes – countrysides, deserts, the impoverished outskirts of Lima. We weren’t so thrilled openning Alex’s bag to find that his laptop had been swapped with a Cruz Del Sur pillow. It’s a huge blow – not only is there the lost value of the laptop, but it will now be much more difficult to process and upload photos to the internet. We’ll have to find hostels with computers and we won’t be able to edit the photos since we don’t expect hostel computers to have photo editing software installed.

What happened was that a man got on the bus like everyone else and was behind us. He helped Alex get his daybag up onto the luggage racks above our heads. We sat down. Ten minutes later, we saw the man leave the bus, still in Lima. We later found out that he claimed to have forgot something important in Lima. 30 minutes later Alex went to get his bag and found that the laptop was gone and there was a Cruz Del Sur pillow in its place.

We arrived in Huaraz and there was a security guard who checked every passenger’s bag for the laptop as they disembarked. We had told the worker on the bus and he had called ahead to the bus station and reported the theft. No luck. Teo from Caroline’s lodging then picked us up and drove us to and helped translate first at the normal police department and then at the tourist police department. The policeman said that if we really wanted (as if he were really inconvenienced) that we could get a police report, but we would have to wait until the bank opened on monday to buy some sort of special official paper for S4 ($1.33). He said that he couldn’t help us further because he claims it is the responsibility of Lima’s police department. He then told us that if we were to go to Lima’s police department that they would claim it is the responsibility of Huaraz’s police department. I couldn’t believe he was saying this. I asked him, so.. “la policia de Peru no funciona?”. “si”.

We went to Caroline’s hostel and were happy to unpack our bags. I hadn’t wanted to unpack my big bag in Lima since I figured it would be near impossible to get everything back in. We then went for dinner – I had 1/4 chicken with fried rice, salad and fries and Alex had the special with some sort of noodles, rice, and meat. It was quite the test for me to have another chicken dinner (we were served chicken pasta for lunch on the bus). This was because as we were leaving Lima we saw a filthy pickup truck loaded with probably 100 chickens – dead… de-feathered… slimy.. and ready to be taken to restaurants for preparation. It tasted fine – it even came with some spicy salsa.

The next day we followed the GPS track to Wilkaiwan. As we left Huaraz at 7:30am, the people in the streets were already getting ready. We each bought 5 fresh and piping hot buns for S1 each ($0.33). It was a relativelty short hike, bringing us from Huaraz at 3100m to a high point at 3600m. Including stops, detours, and lunch at a restaurant when we got back to Huaraz it was about 6 hours. We were happy to get back and have hot showers.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go for a hike with a high point over 4000m. We may begin the Santa Cruz trek the following day (3-4 days).

Note: The following photos don’t look very good since they were imported by Picassa and were somehow “auto-enhanced”. I’m not sure what the palabra is for auto-enhance, so I’m not sure how to turn it off. I’m hoping to figure it out. It’s too bad I’m such a cheapskate and don’t want to pay more than S1 ($0.33) for internet. It’s more the principle of charging your own clients for internet when they’re already paying S35 per night.

Dad picked me up at 5am sharp and we headed out to the airport. I was a bit nervous about being overweight with my baggage (see list on previous post). I put the densist goods in my carry-on bag. Upon weighing them at the airport, the large bag came to 23.5kg (limit of 23kg, but the attendent let it through). My carry-on bag came to 16kg – a huge amount of weight considering it’s a 30L daybag. This was 16kg of food – 2kg of quinoa, 1kg of lentils, 1kg of oats, etc etc. I was worried that the stitching would break when I picked it up by the hang-strap. Dad and I had coffee at Starbucks while waiting for the plane. I wore my hiking boots onto the plane because they wouldn’t fit in my day bag. Though I took them off on the plane to let my feet air and appologized to the person sitting beside me.

On the leg from Toronto to Lima I was seated beside a women who spoke french and spanish, but no english. She identified as una persona regiliosa, which at first I thought just meant she was Christian, but later figured out that she was a nun. I clued in when she started talking about her “hermanas” (sisters). We talked for 3 or 4 hours of the 8 hour flight. I was happy being able to converse in Spanish.

I arrived in Lima just past midnight expecting a man from the hostel to be there waiting, holding a sign with my name on it. The man wasn’t there, so after talking to a few people, someone else called the hostel and drove me. I was gripping the door handle tightly as the driver sped and swerved through traffic, never signalling. Through the next few days I realized that there aren’t many rules for driving in Peru. Stop signs don’t mean much and there’s constant honking.

I spent the next day walking around Miraflores, the area where my hostel, Hostel Kokopelli was. I then took a collectivo for S1.50 ($0.50) 30 minutes to city center and walked around the plaza de armas and some museums. I was pretty excited about seeing the museum of the central bank of Peru.

Alex arrived the next day and we walked around Miraflores with another Canadian he had met on the plane, Rachel. She forgot her camera battery and charger so she got a cheap camera at a store not too far away. We had a cheap lunch of S7.50 ($2.50) including a mystery apple beverage. We saw the waitress go into the bag and stick a pitcher into a big open bucket filled with this beverage. Rachel was a bit sketched out. Lunch was good.

We then dropped Rachel off at her hotel, walked around a bit, and got tickets to Huaraz for S64 ($25). We then went for dinner and splurged on the meriscos menu S20 ($7). We got appetizers of white fish ceviche and then we had some seafood entrees with another mystery beverage. The waitress was very nice and explained the beverage as some sort of non-alcoholic beer-like wheat beverage with lemon. It was very good – we went through two pitchers.

We met Rachel and her hotel-mate Sandra at the bar in our hostel and had Pisco Sours – a beverage including egg white, lime juice, and some sort of liquor. They weren’t bad.

The next morning we woke up bright and early, had the free breakfast of egg, bacon, buttered toast, and freshly blended pineapple and papaya juice. We then took a taxi to and got on the Cruz Del Sur bus to Huaraz.

I have one minute of internet left, so I’ll finish later. We’re in Huaraz right now at Caroline’s Lodging, planning to do an acclimatization hike tomorrow. Alex and I are both pretty excited about starting hiking and climbing.

It’s been an all nighter this night, cleaning up the house for my 3 month absence and getting packed. I’m hoping for no trouble at check-in due to exceeding weight restrictions. Here is my poorly formatted gear list (copying and pasting from excel didn’t work so well). I’m excited to now have a Peru category on the sidebar on the right.