Day 36 – Huascaran Day 1
I met Brad at his hostel at 7am. After some shuffling around of communal gear and after a quick breakfast, we were at the collectivo station destined for Mancos (S5) with a transfer to Musho (S2.5).
By 11am all out gear was sorted and we began hiking. We had monster packs – double boots lashed to the exterior, double technical axes, rental tent, 1.5L of fuel, a 50m rope, 5 days of food (including an unnecessary kilogram of cheese), plus all the usual. Our goal was to hike past base camp and all the way to morraine camp in one day. It wasn’t until we looked at the route description that we realized that this would be 3000m (10,000 feet) elevation gain in one day.
The hiking was nice, with perfect weather. I decided to forgo my hiking pants for this trip to save weight, so I hiked in just my base layer. There were many junctions in the trail, but we always headed to the biggest path. I figured they would all meet up eventually anyways.
It was a long day of hiking, and was especially difficult with our packs. We were bringing more weight than I had brought on any of our other climbs.
At 5:30pm, still not at morraine camp, but with an enticing field by a river, we decided to call it a day. We had started at 3000m and ended at 4400m. Not bad for one day!
| Published on July 6th, 2011 | | Posted by admin |