Ishinca Valley

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

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

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

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

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!

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!

Soon I will be departing for Peru!