Huayna Potosí Climb Part II

June 30, 2007
Day 582
Huayna Potosi Climb Part II Day 3

I got up at 1:00 AM along with everyone else at high camp and quietly started preparing to leave. I rented all of my climbing gear, but there was still a question of whether I’d be warm enough in the -10 degree Celsius conditions. I had on my thermals, a couple of fleece jackets, a windbreaker, a pair of Bolivian clown pants that are all the rage in backpacker fashion at the moment, and a pair of rain pants, basically a potpourri of all of my clothing that made me look more ready to join the circus than to climb a mountain. But warmth is more important than fashion, right?

It was hard to tell faces in the middle of the night while wearing our winter gear, but a couple people at the lodge didn’t look familiar. They were two French Canadians who had only shown up an hour earlier straight from La Paz for their summit attempt. On top of that, they were going to attempt the French Route, which is much more difficult than the Normal Route everyone else would be doing. They explained that they were trying for a one-day summit because it would be much easier for them not to have to carry any camping gear or extra food to the high camp.

Everyone left within half an hour of each other, and Roque and I started out near the end of the pack. The moon was only one day away from being full, so I quickly realized that I didn’t even need my headlamp. We slowly made our way up the hill and passed most of the other groups along the way. We never really stopped long enough for me to get cold.

Before long we were at the mountain’s only crevasse, about halfway up. Pepe the Spanish firefighter and Teo were the only people in front of us. There was no need for a belay as we went around the crevasse and the steep hill that followed. The four of us took a longer break because we were on pace to summit far before sunrise. Pepe called his friend in Spain and explained that he was at 5700 meters.

Pepe then asked if I had a digital camera, explaining that he only had a cell phone camera and a film one. I didn’t have my camera with me because Guillome and I agreed that because we’d have to carry so much gear with us that we’d only take his camera because it was lighter. He took it back to La Paz with him yesterday. When we were ready to start walking again, the next group caught up with us and none of them had a digital camera with them either. D’oh!

The four of us walked together the rest of the way. It was a steady, easy climb until we made it to the final summit push: A 200-meter wall with a fifty-degree slope. We had a long break until my fingers and toes were beginning to freeze, then began our ascent. Roque went first and stayed several meters ahead of me the entire time. I used two ice axes and slowly picked my way up. The climb normally wouldn’t have been too difficult, but at this altitude, I was out of breath after every step. I didn’t remember the summit push being so hard last year. I must have blocked that part out of my mind.

It took nearly an hour of exhausting climbing, but finally I reached the summit. The view from the top was just as good as, if not better than, last year. About ten minutes after I got to the summit, the moon made its final descent behind the horizon of the altiplano to the west, and directly opposite above the yungas in the east, the golden sun began bathing me with its flames and bringing back the feeling to my fingers and toes. Besides the yungas and the altiplano, I could see the whole Cordillera Real, Lake Titicaca, El Alto, and even Sajama, the tallest mountain in Bolivia, which was 100 miles distant. I didn’t have a camera with me, but that picture will be burned in my mind forever.

Other people started making the summit about twenty minutes later. Pepe struggled his way to the top along the same path I had taken. It was weird seeing him so close, a distance that would normally be walkable in ten seconds, yet knowing that it took every ounce of strength he had in him to move another inch. Yet I knew exactly what he was going through. Some of the other Bolivians began summiting next, opting to get a full fifty meters ahead of their clients to set up a safe belay system at the top.

The summit began getting crowded after half an hour, and it was time to go back down. Roque and Teo used two snow stakes to set up a rappel system for Pepe and I, who were both put on the same rope. We quickly made our way down the hill, stopping every sixty meters so our guides could set up their anchors again. I’m sure this section would have been very difficult if it were just Guillome and I, but with the guides doing all the work it was a piece of cake.

After a quick break, we walked the rest of the way down. The only time we had to stop was at the crevasse, where Roque pushed his ax into the snow, wrapped the rope around it a few times for safety, and let me climb down first. I almost could have run the rest of the way down. We were back at high camp by 9:30.

The Canadians attempting the French Route had just gotten back as well. They didn’t make the summit because of the waist-deep snow they encountered near the top. They still seemed quite happy with their near-success, and vowed to come back for another attempt next year.

I envied the ten or so other climbers who turned back before the summit and were already fast asleep in their sleeping bags. I desperately wanted some sleep, yet I knew that my ride would be waiting for me at the bottom, and if I laid down, it would be for at least a few hours. Instead I peeled off layer after sweaty layer, stuffed everything into my backpack, had a quick lunch and headed back down.

The rest of the walk was tough in my plastic boots and heavy backpack, but I made it down with no dramas in less than an hour. Miguel was waiting for me, this time with the owner of my hostel and a different vehicle. He told me that the tires in the other car were fixed, and I decided not to ask any questions. Despite the horribly potholed gravel road, I slept most of the way back.

Several people at the hostel that I thought would be gone by the time I got back were still there. I found out that the reason was because the miners of Potosi had blocked the main road leading out of town in protest. Everyone had been stuck for about three days. I thanked my lucky stars that I wouldn’t be leaving La Paz until the road would be open again. Little did I know of events yet to come.

Despite all of the setbacks, climbing Huayna Potosi for the second time was still an amazing experience. Nothing in the world matters when you are standing on top of it.

June 28, 2007
Day 580
Huayna Potosi Climb Part II Day 1

Miguel was a mountain guide who was going to drive in my hostel’s car with two clients to Huayna Potosi. He said there would be enough room Guillome and I in the car, and agreed to take us along for a low price. Unfortunately, both of the other two clients got sick and could no longer go to the mountain. It would have been nice to see how good of a mountain guide Miguel was. That way we’d know if we’d feel comfortable going to Illimani with him later. However, he still agreed to drive us to Huayna Potosi even though the other two weren’t going anymore.

The ride to the mountain was bad from the beginning. Miguel could have turned left one block from our hostel to get to the main road in La Paz, but instead he decided to continue going straight for another fifteen minutes. He eventually made it to the main road, but we had to double back all the way to where we started, wasting half an hour in the process.

We had to drive up to El Alto to get out of La Paz. On the way up the hill, Miguel was driving really slowly. Cars and buses were flying around us nonstop. I thought maybe his vision wasn’t very good and he was being way too cautious as a result. When I asked if everything was alright, he said that he thought the tires were low on pressure. He stopped in the middle of the highway for a look, but they appeared fine to Guillome and I. Still, he insisted that the tires needed more air and stopped at the next service station to inflate them more.

Driving through El Alto was problematic. There was lots of traffic, and Miguel didn’t appear to see people using turn signals and sticking their hands out the windows as an indication that they were about to change lanes. On more than one occasion, someone shifted over just as we were about to pass them and almost hit us. On top of that, Miguel killed the car at least three times, once because he tried to start from third gear. Most Bolivians drive like maniacs, but Miguel drove like an old lady.

Once we got past El Alto and onto an empty gravel road, the journey ironically got smoother. With no other traffic around, Miguel relaxed and drove better, albeit still at a snail’s pace on the bumpy track. Miguel felt so good, he even stopped at one point so we could take pictures of La Paz, Illimani, and Huayna Potosi.

After another hour of driving uphill and away from the city, we stopped at a police checkpoint. Miguel got out of the car and had a surprised look on his face. I got out to see what was wrong, but it’s what I heard that surprised me. The front passenger tire was hissing like a cobra as it lost all of its air and went flat before my eyes. Flat tires are so common in Bolivia that it wouldn’t have fazed me, but Miguel was still standing on the driver’s side of the car, oblivious to the flat that I saw. I walked over to see what he was looking at and discovered that the tire on his side was flat too!

At first this just struck me as a very unfortunate coincidence, but then I remembered that Miguel had insisted on putting more air in the tires only an hour ago. He must have overinflated them, and when we drove up another thousand meters, the reduced air pressure outside caused the tires to expand even further and burst. Miguel claimed the car came from Chile, which somehow meant that the tires were of a poor quality, but that seemed unlikely to me. His lack of competence during the drive put serious doubts in my mind whether I’d want to put my life in his hands while climbing a difficult mountain.

Despite the flats, I still wanted to get to the high camp at a reasonable hour. One option would have been to walk, but the trail head was still at least an hour away by foot. The car actually had a spare tire with air in it, so we put it on one side, but there was still nothing we could do about the other side. One good thing was that, while the driver’s tire had a huge hole in the sidewall, rendering it unusable even by the Bolivians, the passenger’s tire at least appeared to have only a slow, repairable leak in the tread. Miguel said that when another car came, he could take the tire back to El Alto, get it repaired, and come back to drive us the rest of the way. This would take at least a couple of hours.

A taxi showed up a few minutes later heading toward the mountain, but when the driver got out at the checkpoint, he discovered that he had a flat tire too! Also in the car were a guide named Teo and a Spaniard named Pepe who were set to climb the mountain. We all had a laugh at the latest unfortunate event while the driver put on his own spare tire. They would have taken us the rest of the way to the mountain, but there simply wasn’t enough room in the little car for all five of us plus the massive amount of gear we were hauling.

Soon, another taxi showed up, fresh from dropping off a customer a at the mountain. He claimed he was in a hurry to get back to La Paz, but would generously drive us the rest of the way to the mountain for a ridiculous fare. Our choice was either to go with him or wait possibly the rest of the day for Miguel to get his tire fixed, so we just paid the money and got on our way.

We only had to walk up about 400 meters to get to the high camp, but it proved difficult. Guillome and I were both carrying backpacks with all of our mountaineering and camping gear. There was a refuge at the top, but we had no way of contacting it in advance to see if there was enough room for us to stay there, so I carried my tent, just in case. The path also involved a fair amount of rock scrambling, which isn’t very comfortable when you’re wearing plastic mountaineering boots. The refuge still had plenty of room for us, but I decided to camp outside anyway, partially because I didn’t want the fact that I had brought my tent with me to be in vain, and partially in order to get a good night’s sleep because I knew that all of the people sleeping in the refuge would be getting up at 1:00 AM for their summit attempts.

Guillome wanted to go over several safety techniques with me, but that was problematic. For starters, because of the earlier flat tire delays, we got to the high camp much later than expected. The next problem was that there was no running water at the refuge, so we had to melt ice and filter out the myriad minerals that it contained. It’s necessary to consume a lot of water at this altitude, and my stove works at about half the efficiency here that it does at sea level, so this took forever. Before we knew it, it was time to cook dinner, another arduous task.

By the end of the day, Guillome had only managed to teach me how to tie some knots, but we still had all day tomorrow to practice because we won’t be making a summit attempt until the next day. Still Guillome figured it wouldn’t be enough time to teach me everything he wanted to. He suddenly came to the conclusion that he no longer wanted to climb the mountain and would return to La Paz tomorrow. This obviously had me pretty pissed off. I understood his safety concerns, but he admitted to me that he wanted to teach me everything he had learned in several weekends’ worth of rescue courses in one day. I thought he was just going to show me a few basic techniques for getting out of crevasses in case of an extreme emergency. I began to wonder why he had invited me in the first place. I know safety is an important issue, but I also happen to know from experience that this mountain has only one crevasse, and it’s easily avoided.

Guillome’s decision had been made, so I had to decide what I wanted to do next. I could just go back to La Paz, but I rented all of my gear so I could summit a mountain. I already climbed this mountain a year ago, so doing it again with a guide wouldn’t be anything new, but I figured as long as I had already come this far, I might as well go the rest of the way. I decided that I’d try to find a guide willing to take me to the top tomorrow and then put the whole mountaineering thing behind and head off to Peru. Climbing a mountain requires such a large amount of gear and preparation that I’m finding it’s not worthwhile to do it while on a trip around the entire continent, especially when I’m traveling all alone.