Up and Over 6000m

With a return to La Paz required must too my distain I decided to make the most of a bad situation and headed there with the intention of ticking the one box that remained in Bolivia, Huayna Potosi. Marketed as the easiest 6000m climb in the world due to the base camp being at 4700m, leaving a total climb of less than 1400m. Despite this the people I know that have done it all have said it was difficult and most have shed tears either along the way or at the top. The easiest climb to 6000m it may be but it is still a climb over 6000m an incredible opportunity and challenge without question.

The three day trek involves firstly taking a bus out to the Cordillera Real of Bolivia arriving at the base camp, a nice little Refugio with a solid kitchen and a large open area for people to sleep. First on the men u so to speak was a solid lunch before we loaded up our ice gear and headed off for the glacier to practice techniques for walking, climbing and rescuing on the glaciers. We did this for about three hours which is absolutely great fun and culminated in them setting up a few practice climbing walls for us. The first two were relatively easy with gradients of about 75-80 degrees which we all managed to negotiate reasonably easily. The last however was in the 95-100 degrees range and proved quite difficult especially when we started from the opposing rock face and had to turn around – fun but ultimately destined for failure. People fought with it for different periods of time but the ending was always the same with everyone stuck in what became the iconic pose for the day, dangling from your harness with one hammer still in the ice and a resigned look on your face. As a final insult after acknowledging failure you can’t just be lowered using the harness you have to climb back up and remove your ice axe before once again switching to the other face and crawling up to the starting position – this is incredibly depressing. After we had all tried and failed the guides all took the opportunity to show off and get themselves up the face, but we had achieved what we had set out to do and had some good practice with the equipment.

We returned to the lower refugio a little tired but encouraged by the day. Tonight the aim was to get some sleep because first thing tomorrow we would have a short 2-3 hour hike to the upper refugio at 5130m where we would get ourselves set for the big final day. Needless to say nobody really slept all that well that night but we all managed to get up at the respectable time of 7:30am and after packing we headed for the high camp. A few people struggled a bit with the terrain and the altitude but I was quite happy that it didn’t seem to bother me too much and I completed the stroll with my hiking partner Barnie from Germany in 2 hours safe and sound. The trek was easy enough although one small section of switchbacks reminded me and Mark of Choquequirao however thankfully these weren’t as long and we decided to power through them. When we arrived we setup our gear headed down for some lunch and then to bed to try ad catch an afternoon nap as we would be up at midnight for an early start. Thankfully I managed to catch an hour or so of sleep before we got up had a bit of dinner. The camp itself seemed to be set in the clouds as the wind would blow them across such that one moment you would see everything and then fixe minutes later you could see nothing – really eerie and cool. After dinner a couple of us took a few moments to reflect on what lay ahead and to prepare ourselves mentally (invaluable in my opinion and I think other wished they had done the same) after this we headed to bed at 7pm to try and get some sleep.

Needless to say no more sleep was had and we got up surprising fresh but weary at midnight for light breakfast and to organize our gear ready for the huge climb ahead. All the groups were to meet at the 5500m mark to assess how people were going and to sort out if any swaps were needed with partners. We left at about 2am from the glacier all kitted up and ready to go and moved smoothly up the mountain taking breaks when we needed to but without any real difficulty. The mountain boots we were using were absolutely hell on the feet but despite two giant blisters on my feet nothing was stopping me from getting to the top. Slowly we continued on breaking every now and again we gradually ate into the long steady climb before finally about 5:30am we reached the ice wall where the walking stopped and the climbing began. This is the only really technical bit of the climb and the 30m up you go cuts into the height quite quickly but requires confidence in your crampons and your ability to anchor and pull yourself up using your ice axe. Technical but achievable (to be honest about 10 times harder going down!) and as we got over the top I swore as the steep tiny goat track to the top was revealed, one last challenge before reaching the might summit. We then slowly worked our way to the summit and took in the incredible 360 degree views and also the ridiculous -25 degree wind chill. Our timing couldn’t have been better as we arrived at sunrise, ~6:15am, and we were all hoping the sun would come out and warm things up. Anybody that makes it up here takes but a very few photos at the top, not because the views aren’t amazing but because your hands literally go numb with only your inner gloves on and after a couple of minutes of taking photos I didn’t feel my hands for another half an hour. However the views from the top make everything worthwhile and as Barnie and I indulged a moment for a triumphant embrace we marveled at how we could see the entire Cordillera Real, two other glaciers in Bolivia that are slightly higher as well as across Lake Titicaca. After about 10 minutes at the top we were all ice blocks and we decided to begin the descent to warm up, mostly by getting out of the wind!

The descent down was actually probably more difficult and dangerous than the way up with the sun coming out and melting a lot of the snow leaving you to carefully walk across the ice. This and lack of a lure of the top to keep you going made it a slow climb back and it still took us about 3 hours to get back to base camp, compared to just over 4 to go up. We finally arrived back at the top camp and had a little bit of lunch before packing our stuff and heading for the lower camp which was our final bit of effort for the day which was good considering lack of sleep was starting to catch up with all of us. As a final parting gift the mountain wind brought rain and hail just as we arrived at the lower camp forcing us to unpack our equipment and return to La Paz in terrible weather, not ideal but we made it. In total we had 11 in our group with 8 of these making it to the top – not a bad effort considering two people were very sick. One guy was desperately unlucky not to make the top after switching partners at the 5500m and his partner being unwilling to go past 5900m and him being left with no choice despite wanting to continue. All in all an incredibly challenging and thoroughly rewarding trek but not something to be taken lightly. The next step, I’m not sure stay in La Paz until the weekend and head towards Arequipa I think gradually heading northwards with hopefully no more visits back to La Paz!