Diarios de Alpanismo

Recent Road Trip with Team VB+

2006-04-16T19:11:00.000-05:00

I recently spent two weeks on the road with three good friends in search of sunshine and rocks. We were successful in locating many rocks... However, often without the required prerequisite of sunshine. We we drove on and ended up settling in Joshua Tree, CA. Visit Amy's web site to view a selection of photographs taken by yours truly... Enjoy!

http://web.mac.com/amykeeling

*The goal of the trip was primarily to boulder. Hence the name "VB". I was successful on a many problems including some which I unexpectedly sent. Here is a small list in no particular order:

Bishop
Jedi Mind Tricks (V3R) - I wanted this route so bad and it happened on my third try, perfect start to the trip...
The Hero Face (V0)
Few other VB's, and VOs

Joshua Tree
Mirage (V4) - somehow?
Peabrain (V3+) - got this first try!
The Chube (V2) - Group favorite
Pinched Loaf (V6) proj. - Yeah right! I'll be back to get this one. Stellar!
Creeping Jew (V0+) - Almost without hands
Interceptor (V0)
Orbiter (V3) proj. - fun traverse, pumped out at last move everytime.
Little Bighorn (V0) - ehhh.
Fish Bait (V1)
The Boxer Problem (v2) - Fun
Ribticckler (V0)
SNL (V4) proj. - Maybe never...
Scuttlebutt (V0)
Gunsmoke (V3) proj. - spent three days on this super classic traverse, almost had it
Pinhead (V1) - Sent this problem while inebriated on whisky in the dark. Don't remember how I got down but the name is fitting...
Many other various VB's, V0's

We did a few routes as well!
Mental Physics (5.7) - Awesome, long, in the rain!
Sail Away (5.8) - Just fricken fun! rap. in dark

Canadian Rockies Climbing

2005-11-27T01:10:00.000-05:00

The Mountians around Banff, Alberta at dusk...

The Stunning Kidd Peak with Kidd Falls center. We were intending to climb Kidd Falls in this amazing setting but opted for a shorter approach on a "road-side" pillar. Good thing, as a couple hours later the lower half of Kidd Falls fell off in the afternoon sunshine. It is hard to climb ice that is not frozen...

This is what we climb instead...

We had intended to climb Polar Circus. A classic 1000meter ice climb in the Ice Fields Parkway of Alberta. We awoke at 4:30am, drove for two+ hours, missed the climb in the dark, and hiked the approach to discover that a week of warm temperatures had melted out the lower half of the climb... ggrrrr!

So, we went mixed climbing again back in Haffner...

Me working Half a Gronk at Haffner Creek....d

Bill on Californication...

Me again moving to the pillar...
This is Bill on his redpoint attempt of Swank...

Why is this guy smileing so much?

Me on Swank....

Canada is a beautiful place with friendly people... We had a great time even though the ice was not in shape, thanks to the abundant mixed climbing! Cheers!

2005-10-22T22:46:00.000-05:00

Here is my Anti-Scifi character... WTF, does not even look evil!

SEWS

2005-09-20T21:48:00.000-05:00

Last weekend Nate Tack and I climbed the Direct East Buttress of South Early Winter Spire (III+, 5.10, A0) in the North Cascades. We began our climb at 3:30 am in the Fairhaven bus station and proceaded to the Horseshoe Cafe for some breakfast. By 7am we were at the Washington Pass turn-off and ascended the scree to the base of the route by 9am.

The route ascendes a line up the middle of the grey face on the left spire and descendes the opposite side down the South Arete.

Me Leading pitch 3

Nate leading pitch 4

The Hanging Belay

Nate on the Summit Traverse

Me on the summit pyramid

This was a stellar climb in an stunning setting in the middle of the High Cascades. The views are amazing and the climbing interesting. We had purfect weather, which made for a great outing. Thanks to Nate for his bold leads on pitch 7 which was the crux of the route. A perfect day in the Mountains.

2005-09-11T10:58:00.000-05:00

I have been a transient for over three months until just this week. I finally landed in my new home in Bellingham, WA where I will be working toward a master in Geology. Now I am feeling out the town, finding the cool bars and cheeps eateries.

It is time to park the aging old Toyota. Now over 150, thousand miles that is, and showing signs of old age. My trusted truck has taken me far though. We have traveled over 4,500 miles in three weeks. We drove across half of the country from the desert to the ocean. We drove from cactus to ferns and an to an entirely new mountain range to explore. The glaciated Cascade Mountains and adjoining costal ranges of British Columbia are stunning and invite me to their summits from my apartment window. I have been taking it easy. After our failure in Yosemite I spent a week in Portland, drinking beer on Captain Nates sail boat, "Luciele".

This is one view at night.

Portland is a Beautiful city and treated my nicely. Thank you Nate and Bill for the crash space. Next I spent some time getting acquanted with my new range. I met Nate and Sue in the Stuart range for some high angle fun.

Our chosen route and it was cold. booo hoo it's the end of summer

Nate and Sue coming up!

Sue rapping the ridge with Nate looking down from way up top.

Yosemite

2005-08-24T18:29:00.000-05:00

My friend and long time climbing partner Bill Amos and I recently took a road trip to Yosemite. Yosemite is a world famous desination for big wall climbing inparticular and all climbing in general. On the way we stopped in the bay area to visit friends and relatives. Thanks to Frank and Diana for puting us up and Jan Goethels and Jeff Moore (the gimp) for having me for dinner in Berkeley. We arrived in "the valley" the next morning after getting up very early and driving in half hours shifts because that is the longest time either of us could stay awake before our eyes would slam shut from sleepyness. We got to the Valley and after waiting in line for almost two hours for a site in camp 4, we were told we could only stay in the vally for 7 day. We had planned on two weeks. Although, in the end it worked out since Bill is an unemployed teacher and had to return to Portland to find a job.

So, after hauling over 100 pounds of gear and water the the base of the Washington Column, we set off up the 1,500 foot wall.

here is Bill leading

Here is me leading

here is where we stopped, Still a long way to go!

Here was the View form the portaledge of Half Dome, Best Bivy yet!

To make a long story short, we did not make it to the top of the wall due to inexperience but will return sometime more prepared.

New Direction!

2005-08-24T18:27:00.000-05:00

Diarios de Alpanismo has now got a rebirth and will be the blog of all my recent travels.

Parting Shot!

2005-06-28T21:31:00.000-05:00

I am here at the Lima Airport for my final few hours in Peru (at least for now). What a great time I had traveling through the Andies. Over four weeks of travel, More than three of which I was either trekking or climbing in the mountains... 100 km plus of hiking and a new personal altitude record of 18,547 feet. Way shy of my goal but it will have to do for now. Just a great time in the Mountains and some awesome mountains at that. I will try to come back. Which is not hard since it is so cheap to travel here. I will leave you all with one of my favorite experiences of the trip. In Peru, on of the national delicacies is Cuy. a.k.a. guiney pig. Yes, thats right, those small fury rodents sometimes used as pets. Well here they eat them. And after ordering one I can´t for the life of me fiqure out why... from my tenative poking at the beast I could barely find a bite of meat. Even more repulsive is the fact that it is served with all bones and organs still attached. Notice the teeth in the center of the picture. You can´t see it but pieces of inner guts and hair also cover the thing as its served. Needless to say this was the last time I ever ordered Cuy! Hope you all enjoyed the blog.... Audios!

Bad Gringo

2005-06-28T21:20:00.000-05:00

Im a bad gringo... While walking to the bus station for my all day ride to Lima I encountered an old begger. She asked for money and I politely refused. At this time the lady excliamed "Malo Gringo"! Also at this time a Peruvian woman was passing by and heard the exchange. She promptly told the old begger off in spanish. Something I wanted to do but lacked the vocabulary. After getting over the initial shock and subsequent anger of the insult, the kind Peruvian woman and I smiled at eachother and both had a good laugh...

Expedition to Champara!

2005-06-27T10:47:00.000-05:00

Champara is a lonely, isolated peak on the very northern edge of the Cordillera Blanca. When researching this peak we discovered that no one had any information on this area of the range. One guide told us that it has not been climbed in 15 years. We could not even find a picture of this mountain which lies in one of the most photographed ranges in the world. Without delay we baught fifty pounds of food and extra gear for six days in the range. The Idea was to find the town nearest to the peak, aquire some burrows to haul our gear and attempt a to climb Champara!

(View of the West Ridge, BH)

Mirra Santa

Mirra Santa is a small subsistance pueblo, positioned high on a mountianside. To get there required a full day of collectivo and taxi travel through valley farm lands and a treturous gorge carved through granite allong a river and up the steep slopes of a mountainside to finally arrive in this farming village. The drive through the canyon was stunning as we pasted waterfalls and went through 34 tunnels cut into the cliffside.

Our blind taxi driver would give a curtesy honk at each tunnel and without slowing speed into the one lane passage. At the police checkpoints he would quickly retrieve his glasses from the glove compartment. Apperently his permit required their usage.

Once we arrived in Mirra Santa, we were greeted with much interest and attention. It became evident that this village does not have foriegn visitors and when talking to the local residents we also discovered they had never heard of anyone climbing Champara. We were quickly surrounded by both children and adults who simply stared at us while we completed the very interesting tasks of setting up a tent and cooking pasta.

All this undivided attention was very strange, I now feel sorry for zoo animals. Finally someone had the idea to sing the crowd some songs. We began our set with the only song we all know. Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice was performed with Pedro laying down the beat while Nacho rapped the vocals and I added synthisizer effects to round off the tune. The number was recieved with absolute silence (chirp.....chirp......chirp). We decided to follow up with the classics Row Row Row Your Boat, done in a round, and twinkle twinkle little star. Again absolute silence. We asked the locals to sing us a song in spanish and the young women obliged with a couple love songs. To be honest thier singing abilities were not much better than ours but at least we still aplauded.

We had hired porters to carry our extra gear into the valley since we discovered that burrows could only carry loads halfway in due to the rugged nature of the glacial carved valley. Halfway through the first day we discovered why when we left the burrows and bagan to traverse the cliff faces on the sides of the valley. We fallowed an irrigation canal somehow carved into the side of the cliffs for part of the way and finally as the sun was setting made it to a prestine dark blue glacial lake where we camped.

The next day our porters led us 2,000 feet up the cliffs on the otherside of the valley in order to pass the mile long lake that we camped at to gain a high camp for our attempt on Champara.
We all thought this was unnessesary and cursed the porters for this six mile strenuous detour around the mountain.

(This is a veiw of the awsome valley and cascades)

That evening we finally arrived at our high camp beyound two more stunning glacial lakes and a series of steep cascades to our camp at 14,700. We had hiked for 8 hours and over 7 miles and were only 2.5 miles as the crow flies from our previous camp. We also still had over 4,000 feet of climbing to reach the summit.

(This is a view of the North Face of Champara from high camp)

One of our porters was utterly incomprehendable to any of us. He mearly mumbled as we all stood there jawdroped trying to understand his rantings. Maybe if he removed the large dip of coca leaves in his cheek we could of had a chance. Also, this porter had quite a cocaine habit... at every stop he would load up his cheek from his vial. The porters left us the next day even though we had hired them for more. We suspected they were either out of food or coke. one of the two.

The next day we attemted to climb Champara by hiking 1,000 feet up the valley into an awesome impassable cirrue valley. There were a couple possible routes up the peak from this side (east side) but they all required technical rock climbing to a steep cravased glacier. Two team members had no rock climbing experience and we had no rock gear for pro. By this time also the sun was on the east face and had begun to send ice blocks and rocks down the face. We watched a couple avalanches peel of the serracs above us and I knew we were not able to go any further safely. Pedro on the other hand had other ideas. He went up to a serrac fall allone and disapeared behind the glacier. An hour and a half later we got worried he had fallen in a crevasse and Nacho and I set off to find him. Shortly after he showed up on the other side and we all headed down to camp disapointed but happy to see such an amazing and beautiful place.

(This is the cirrque valley. Oh the weater also was lousy, the only time the whole trip)

The next day we had to start our three day trek out of the valley. Since we were all dreading the long and steep detour around the lake we decided to find another way around that would be eisier. We discovered that the lake was gaurded on the sides be vertical cliff faces, hence the need to go up and over. On one side the cliff face seemed passible if we could set up a zipp-line to pass our gear and ourselves along the cliffside to a lowerangle slope on the other side. To rig a zip line someone had to swim the icey glacial water to the other side to attach a rope. Since I was the only one with any rope rigging experience I was nominated by default to take the swim. To have back up I recruited Pepe to swim with me. We swam the 150 foot rope lenght and set up the line. It soon became appearent the the line was to low and any wieght whould dip our gear in the water. Also we had another 150 feet more to go so we would have to do it all over to make the other side. Shivering, Pepe and i decided to abbort this illfated plan and we all had the misserable hike up and around the cliffs with our huge packs. We had pics of this but Pedro lost his camera... so, sorry no swimming shot, bummer!

One more day of hard hiking took us through the valley floor, around even more cliff face and up the otherside and down again to reach Mirra Santa exhausted, sore and pining pizza and beer. The fallowing day we made it back to Huaraz and propley chowed the pizza and beer (at two different places) and had a night out at the discos.

(Here is us hiking out)

The last two days we have been chowing the cheap food and delicious helado and pastries. The gang left for the coast last night so I had to say goodbye to my adveturous buds. Tomorrow I leave for Lima where I will end my trip.

Ishinca Valley

2005-06-16T17:29:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday night we returned from the Ishinca Valley to Huaraz... But first how about a picture! ;) This is the veiw from the hostal of the massive Huascaran. The highest peak in Peru.

After one night in Huaraz the gang of gringos named "the naughty boys" flagged a colectivo for Ishinca. From left the right the banditos are (Mario, Nacho, Pedro, Pepe).

Once in the amazing Ishinca Valley we set up a base camp (14,600 feet) for our climbs to the four peaks that surround the valley. Tocllaraju captured my imagination the most and I decided I must try it.

First... The entire gang attempted Urus (17,789 feet) to aclimatize.

Pepe had a bit of Altitude sickness and was forced down but the rest of us made it. Here is me posing at the summit curtesy Pedro.

The next day Pedro and I set out for an attempt at Tocllaraju (19,550 feet). We acsended to high camp at 16,924 feet in time to catch the sunset on Toclla.

That night the temp dropped below -5 F as we cacooned in out down bags. Pedro shivered all night in his summer bag and I battled a headache. We finally rose at 2 am and began the climb up the gracier. About three hours of climbing around crevasses brought us to the upper bergshrund (18,547 feet) where we encountered a 150 foot pitch of 70 degree snow and ice. This is not usually a problem with a couple tools, a long rope and some pickets. Not expecting this problem we only had a long axe each and a glacier rope, no pro. Our options were to acsend the shrund with no pro and risk a fall into a bottomless crevass or abort the climb. We decided the later was more agreable and descended 4,000 feet to base camp completely exhausted. At base camp we called a "board meeting" to decide what to do about a food shortage and the fact that Ishinca was still unclimbed by the members of our group. We all voted for an atempt of Ishinca knowing that we would have no food and must also hike the 12km out of the valley to catch a taxi in the late afternoon back to Huaraz. This was risky as the colectivos only arrive in the mornings to drop people off and would likely not be in the small pastoral village to recieve us. Here is our last dinner in the awsome Ishinca Valley. Mmmm.....

We began our attempt of Ishinca (18,180 feet) at 2:20 am. Me at the ice bridge again courtesy Pedro.

The final 100 feet was the cruz of the peak with a mandatory 50 degree ramp to the summit(pedro).

Everyone was feeling great and at 8:05 we all toped out on Ishinca with a huge grin on all our faces. The Wisconsin boys completed their usual summit ritual of stripping to the nude and posing for the wind. Since I would like to keep this blog G rated for the fam. I will omit this photo.

One last shot looking north.

The hike out was miserable. Dehydration, Hunger, and over 50 lbs. packs transformed us to zombies as stumbled dizzily toward civilization. Once we finally arrived in the small village of Collon, Pedro out officail interpreter and master negotiator set out to score us a ride to Huaraz. He succefully bargined a ride for us with a lady using all tactics including flattery, trickery and finally an apeal for a student discount won her over. Although none of us are currently students. While we waited the local women staged a soccer game while some children placed marbles in the dirt. The men slowly showed up and began to play there trupets, tubas and bass drums randomly. This all made for a strange experience in our condition. We finally arrived in Huaraz to and proptly celebrate with beer and pizza! esta bien...

I am off to climb in a remote part of the park for a week so expect more pics then.
Audios!

Huaraz

2005-06-08T21:20:00.001-05:00

Huaraz is really stunning. The Cordillera Blanca towers 12,000 feet over the surrounding valley with the massive Neviado Huasceran anchoring the range at its center. To the north and south, jagged peaks extend like a spine covered with flutings, glaciers and shear rock faces. I arrived in Huaraz after an 8 hour all night bus ride from Lima. Of course I got a seat behind one with a box underneath it, therefore no leg room. Despite the vast distances that separate people and cultures the world is actually rather small. On the bus ride I met a dude what was, until recently, living and working at the lab in Los Alamos, NM. He was coming to Huaraz to meet some college friends and do some climbing and treking. We all agreed to hike the Ishinca Valley and atempt Urus, Ishinca and perhaps Tocllaraju over the next several days. I am excited to get in the mountains. After a day in Lima, my lungs need some pure mountain air to recouperate from the extensive air pollution. I can say that after hours of riding around white-nuckled in a taxi that I would be happy to never leave the Lima airport again. I had to leave my friend Austin in Lima, but I am fortunate to continue on in Peru and see some more of the Andies. Gracias Austin! para viahar in Cusco y lima.

Ceviche

2005-06-06T18:50:00.000-05:00

Ceviche is a national dish which consists of raw seafood bits marrinated in a spicey lime juice. This is our last meal in Cusco... A local American that now lives and works in Peru and Brazil as a peraglider showed us this off the beaten path resteraunt with the best ceviche. Austin had a flight with Richard earlier in the day. They had hoped to make it all the way to Cusco and land in the Ruins (which was about 40km away) but the absence of strong thermas allowed only a circular flight down the valley. We have been told that Lima has the best ceviche in the world. Tomorrow we are leaveing for Lima and may test this claim. At this time Austin will return to the US, and I hope to meet some climbers in Huaraz to do some routes.
I may miss the lazy days here in Cusco, but I am excited to see the Cordillera Blanca on Wendsday and get some air under my feet. I hope to be on a peak by Saturday. Between now an then I will travel to Huaraz, aquire some food, gear, and fuel and hike to Base camp in the range.

Inca Trail

2005-06-04T15:19:00.000-05:00

There are thousands of trails used by the anchient Inca people that extend over the entire Andian mountain range of South America. We hiked a 47km portion of one that starts in the sacred valley and ends in Machupichu. The trek was part of a 4 day tour which is now required to trek this part of the Inca trail. The trek began early tueday morning when a bus picked us up at our hostal. Four hours later we were at the trailhead and began the trek. Willbert, our guide gave us a lecture on the various plants along the trail along with some hallusinogenic species. These were used to ¨communicate with the gods¨. I was disapointed to learn that this experience was not included as part of the tour I got. The tour we were on consisted of 17 porters, a cook, an assistant guide and Wilbert, also 15 other American, British and Irish trekkers.

The trek went like this: the porters would run ahead of the group, set up the tent, cook food, take down everything and do it again for 3 days (the forth was in Machupichu where we ate inflated tourist food). They did this all in sandles mostly and with 50lbs loads. That was quite awsome. So, we had all the meals prepared and coca tea served in the mornings. It was weird to have people wait on you like that.

The trail was very cool! We hiked over three mountain passes, one over 13,000 ft.

and past numerous inca ruins and archeological sites. It seemed we were always stopping to rest and getting the word on the places from Willbert who was very knowledgable and a funny guy.

Was the Trek challenging? For some it was hard. One group member was from sea level with bad knees and a crippling fear of heights. He said it was one of the most challenging trips he was on. I would say it was a walk through the Andies, which can be very steep but since the porters carried all our stuff it was not any more challenging than and easy peak in Colorado. Did I mention that they sell water, gatorade, snikers bars and even beer along the trail!

There are many high glaciated peaks that appear at times. here is one nearest to Machupichu.

So, Finally at the end of the third day we arrived in Winya Wayna and since we were a group of Americans, British and Irish hikers we finished off a table full of beer bottles. The group was cool and everyone had a good and memorable experience.

For the finally of the trek, we got up at 4am to hike the 2 miles to the gates at machupichu. We arrive and the mithical city was covered by a cloud. Not to worry ten minutes later the cloud cleared and it looked someting like this.

We got a guided tour from Wilbert and later James form England and I climbed the steep stairs to the top of Whuaynupichu (the mountian behind Machupichu in the photo) This was my favorite place, mainly because of the over one thousand feet of exposure. These people built a city at the very top of this cliff. They must have been expert riggers or many died because the terraces and buildings were built to the very edge to of the rock.

Austin and I are now hanging in Cusco for a few days. We may go to Pisac in the sacred valley tomorrow and see what else is going on. Probably eat a lot of food and have a few beers aswell.

Chiao!

Cusco

2005-05-30T17:15:00.000-05:00

Cusco is awesome. we arrived yesterday after over 24 hours of travel. I finished one novel and 1 hour of sleep. As we flew over the Andies yesterday morning I could hardly stay awake but I was amazed with these mounains. They are very remote, unihabited for the most part, also very dry. Just snow capped peaks and dry barren terrain. I can not wait to see the cordillera next week. We leave for a 4 day trek on the Inca Trail to Machu Pichu tomorrow. This is also very exciting. Cusco is busy and there are many people and resturants everywhere, but apart form eating food I find there is not much else to do, im glad the food here is cheep. We spent yesterday catching up on sleep and later met some argentinians in the plaza at San Blas. San Blas is a district of Cusço on a hillside and know for its artists and good bakeries. Our hostal is located here two blocks from the main square. It is very easy to walk anywhere you would want to go. This afternoon we took a hike to an Inca ruin called sacsayhuyman(sp) on top of a hill overlooking the city. It was a short but steep hike and we got a guided tour of the place from a local pçeruvain student from the university. She was studying tourism and english. This place has much of both as there are tourists everywhere an many of them are european, british and a few americans that all speek english. From these ruins you can see the surounding mountains, which are composed of huge antiform and synform strata and also devoid of vegitation so you can see all of the structure. It´s stunning! The Inca ruins are very impressive also by the way. tonight we will likely check out some of the numerous pubs and night spots. The beer here is also quite cheep, about 1.50 USD for a peruvian brew called Cusqueno. It tastes something like bud but maybe a little better. The weather here is very mild and pleasent with temps in the 70 during the day and 40 at night. also, Austin has been measuring the cloud temps, which come in at about 2 dergree F. for those who know what that means. Austin has downloaded some of his pics to his website found at www.mostlyweather.com. Check them out if you are curious. I will write again in 4 days and tell ya´ll about Machu Pichu. Chiao!

LIMA!

2005-05-28T23:41:00.000-05:00

LIMA 2341 (11:41 CDT)

WE HAVE ARRIVED IN LIMA WITH NO PROBLEMS OR HASSLES AT ALL... MC DONALDS AND DUNCUN DOUGHNUTS ARE ALL OVER. IF I DID NOT KNOW TO BE IN LIMA I WOULD ASSUME THAT WE TOOK OFF AND FLEW IN CIRCLES FOR THE PAST SIX HOURS TO LAND IN THE US. OF COURSE, TOP PRIORITY IS TO CHECK THE EMAIL. IF ANY ONE HAS ANY QUESTIONS OR NEED TO KNOW INFO, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EMAIL. LOOK FOR UPDATE AT 0700 CDT IN CUZCO....

Countdown!

2005-05-19T17:22:00.000-05:00

Soon I will be departing for Peru!