Touching the Sky

I will admit I thought beforehand that the chances of all four of us making it to the top were pretty slim, and considered myself at the forefront of the list of might-not-make-its. Our trip was originally just a trip to Peru, but it turned out that by the time we were all the way over at Lake Titicaca it just made more sense to fly out of La Paz. Once I knew we were flying out of La Paz, I started looking around to see if there was anything especially interesting in the area. Turns out there is a 19,975ft mountain called Huanya Potosi that is technical without being tooo technical. It was a daring adventure I couldn't turn down.

The Mountain

At the end of day four of trekking I confided to Ashley that I would be perfectly happy to skip Huayna Potosi and spend the last two days of our trip lounging on Isla del Sol. Luckily, I recovered from my apathy and had a fantastic time.

Since the mountain has crevasses (large, deep cracks in the ice you can fall in), snow bridges over said crevasses, and some fairly steep ice climbing we went with some guides through Refugio Huayna Potosi. I would highly recommend them: great guides, accommodations, everything. (Just don't expect too much from any e-mails you send them beforehand). Our group of four had two guides.

Day one involved running around La Paz picking up all the gear we needed (crampons, ice axe, plastic boots, etc), making the 1.5hour drive out to base camp, skipping a lunch of lentils, and then a three hour hike up to high camp where we would spend the night. High camp was located at about 17,500ft and had a small refugio that was basically two sleeping platforms where the four of us and 12 Italians curled up next to eachother at 7pm to try to get some shut-eye.

trail

View from the Refugio around 5pm

We were rudely (ok, they weren't rude, but it was early!) awakened at 1am, given some bread and coca tea, and pushed out the door. There we turned on our headlamps (it was pitch dark), put on our crampons, and roped up. The next 7 hours were a long trudge up the mountain. One foot in front of the other. Must-breath-must-find-oxygen. The amount of oxygen at 20,000ft is only 50% of that at sea level. There were two sections of semi-ice climbing: not vertical but definitely needed to use your ice axe to haul yourself up, and definitely didn't want to look down. Luckily it was dark, so you couldn't see how far there was to fall. :)

We arrived at the summit right in time for sunrise, and boy was it beautiful. We tried in vain to catch our breath, took a peek at La Paz in the distance, snapped a few unbecoming pictures, and headed down because it was cold.

Sunrise from the summit

La Paz in the distance (if you click, it will get bigger)

people coming up the final stretch

Summit

Summit picture Steven, Ashley, Me, Matt

Matt & I

The climb down was amazing. Despite lack of sleep, food, or oxygen, the sun had risen and we could now see what we had climbed, the surrounding mountains, and the beautiful glaciers and crevasses. Well, it was amazing until we got back to the refugio, loaded the rest of the gear into our packs (heavy!) and had to walk down the rocky part.

I'll just sum it up by saying it was definitely worth the hard work.



***The whole climb up was dark. Lots of the climb down I needed my hands so I didn't fall to my death. Hence, there are not very many pictures, and even fewer good ones. Steven took some better ones because he is much more coordinated than I am and did not need all his hands. But I don't have them. Too bad. Climb it yourself. :)