23rd
July - SUMMIT
SUCCESS - 'We´ve
just arrived back from a very cold and snowy Illimani. The day we
arrived at Illimani Base Camp the clouds had grown dark and menacing
with the tops hidden from view. At 6.30pm that night the wind really
picked up threatening to blow down many of the tents at base camp,
it started to snow, which was a big surprise to all. The weather
didn´t relent until around 6.30am the following morning when
we awoke to a white vista across the base camp plain. We soon discovered
that the 40 or so climbers at high camp had all abandoned their
summit attempt and were heading down.
At 9am we were reunited with Cath who had had to stay behind in
La Paz to sort out her passport. She´d travelled through the
early hours and trekked into BC in super quick time in order to
have a crack at Illimani, a long journey with another long trek
to go to high camp, this was going to be a hard task. Soon after
we set off for High Camp and en route passed many a demoralised
climber coming down saying how bad it had been and that it needed
several days for the snow to clear before there would be any chance
of success.
The weather for the day looked good even though a bit cold, and
the wind last night was very strong, so could the snow have had
chance to stick? The drifts looked big but the exposed areas looked
scoured. We crossed our fingers that the weather would hold and
made our way to High Camp.
When we arrived at High Camp it was obvious that nobody had even
attempted to head up for the summit day, no footprints above the
camp at all. We ended the day with a fantastic sunset and the distant
lights of La Paz slowly coming to life. We agreed an early start
should we find the going hard work.
It was a cold morning and trying to get people moving at 3am is
not the easiest of tasks. Apart from the AP team there were only
two other climbers who would be going for the summit this morning. Cath
decided that she was happy enough in her warm sleeping bag and decided
that she wasn´t going to make her attempt on Illimani, the
long day before and a fitfull nights sleep had not made things easy.
Eventually the rest of the team were ready and we headed out at
3.45am, Cecilio our local guide led the way into the darkness, as
suspected the route was a mixture of hard compacted snow in the
exposed areas and soft wind slab in the sheltered areas. We made
good progress until we hit our first set of crevasses, crossing
the crevasses proved to be realtively easy work, but the headwall
behind was something else. With a lot of digging to find decent
ice for anchors and forging trenches we were able to make
slow progess up and across the headwall onto the plateau. The final
30 metres required good swimming skills through the powder rather
than climbing technique.
Once up on the plateau things became a lot easier and we soon worked
our way upwards towards the summit ridge. Eventually after zig zagging
our way up a broad ridge we came out on to the final approach to
the summit. The wind was bitterly cold, relentless all the
way until the last 300m it slowly fell away as did the land beneath
us. After six and three quater hours Jon and myself finally reached
the summit of Illimani, David and Cecilio about 15 minutes
behind.
Well done to all the team it´s been a fantastic trip especially
bagging the extra peak of Illusionata.'
Regards,
Stu.
19th
July - The
team are now back from Huyana Potosi having reached the summit at
10.00am Bolivian time.
17th
July - We´re
back in La Paz for one night before heading out for Huyana Potosi.
We spotted an icefall over to the left side of the snout of the
glacier, so the first rest day the clients wanted to have a play
at ice climbing so we set up a bottom rope and practised our skills.
After myself, Cath & Jon climbed Pequeno Alpamayo we had the
second rest day, which allowed myself and Cecillio to go and have
a look at Illusion. We chose a route up to the glacier of Illusionata,
from there to the glacier of Illusion is a short awkward rocky section
that needs to be protected with a rope in ascent and descent. The
glacier is straight forward and similar in difficulty to the steepest
bit of Pequeno Alpamayo after that there is a short rock step to
overcome and then the final easy snow slope to the top.
After a discussion, David decided he would be more comfortable climbing
Illusionata with Cecilio with its short ice pitch followed by a
really nice rocky ridge to an impressivley overhanging summit cairn.
We kept the team together up to the Illusionata glacier then went
our seperate ways. We kept in touch by radio and both summitted
at the same time at 11am.
The
team are all well and very pleased with their achievements so far.
Stu
14th
July - Cath,
Jon & Stu all climbed Tarija & Pequeno Alpamayo yesterday.
David & Cecilio turned around just before the summit of Tarija.
Today was a rest day but Stu and Cecilio went for a little jaunt
up Illusion to recee the route for the following day. Neither of
them are competative but 2.75 hours from Base Camp at around AD+
is pretty good going. Cecilio also knocked off Illusionata while
checking out the ice pitch. Tomorrow Stu and David will attempt
Illusionata and Cathy & Jon will head fro Illusion with Cecilio
10th
July - "We
arrived at Base Camp yesterday after a 3 hour bimble from Tuni.
The views are spectacular. You can get a phone signal just
10 mins out of base camp if you are on the right network. Unfortunately
I'm not, but the local guide is. So we managed to contact Alex at
4pm yesterday to see how Shaun was doing. All the team were sad
to hear he won't be re-joining us, but glad that he's ok and in
good hands.
Base camp has flushing toilets !!!!! What more can we ask
for other than the weather staying calm.
Food is good and Anna the cook is making sure everyone is eating
well.
Cecilio the local guide is a nice bloke and we are getting on swimmingly.
We climbed much disputed first peak today. Our itinerary and most
other companies has this as Point Austria at a height of 5100m.
Well I can confirm that this is rubbish. Even the local guides call
it Point Austria. Using the good old GPS and a rather good map of
Cecilio's, the peak we climbed doesn't have a name, but relating
it to one of the guide books it's called Mirador and is 5328m according
to the map and 5359m according to the GPS. So that's answered that
long unanswered question. Point Austria is miles away!
Tomorrow we headout onto the glacier to climb Pyramid Blanca, we'll
climb as a 2 and a 3. I think I've drawn the short straw as Cecilio
is using his own 30m rope, while I have to lug the 60m! although
I'm a firm believer in sharing the burden.
The team are doing really well, good steady pace today got us to
the top of Mirador in 3 hours. I took the laptop with me to see
how it fared at 5300m and it seemed to be fine. I've taken lots
of pics of the area so plenty to show back home.
Toodle pip for now,
Stu."
9th
July - Stu emailed to say Shaun had been suffering
from a headache which hadn't cleared overnight and he has sent him
back to La Paz to see a Doctor. He has since been diagnosed
with pneumonia and will spend a couple of days in hospital before
returning to the UK. We wish him a speedy recovery.
8th
July -
"We're
now camping at Tuni (4440m according to Stu's GPS). We are
all doing well and having a great time. Did an acclimatization
walk up to 4600m this afternoon. We've met up with our Guide,
Cicelio and at the moment our cook, Anna, is making dinner.
We
have a lie in tomorrow but suspect we will be woken up early by
the daylight and the donkeys wandering around around outside the
tents." Cath
Milne
"We
met our guide Vincent at 8am and headed down to the beach to catch
a boat to the Northern end of Isla del Sol, the boat journey took
around 2 hours and was a little chilly despite the sun beating down.
Once
ashore we visited the local museum and saw some of the artifacts
that had been retrieved from the lake. After leaving the Museum
we headed up out of the village towards some of the ancient Inca
ruins and Puma rock. We then headed South traversing the length
of the island and staying above 4000m for most of the trek, we also
decided to bag the odd peak along the way. Eventually we made our
way down to Yumani at the Southern end of the lake,passing several
weary and out of breath tourists heading up the steep steps from
the Southern jetty.
We
also took in a quick visit to an ancient Inca temple South of Yumani
before heading back to Copacabana.
Stu"
7th
July - "We're now in Copacabana.
We got some great views of Illampu, Condoriri , Huayna Potosi and
Illimani on the drive out from La Paz.
We checked in at the Hotel Utama and had lunch, really nice Trout
local from Lake Titicaca. We then had our first acclimatisation
bimble up Cerro Calvario which took us to 3966m, where we got some
spectacular views out across the lake to Isla del Sol, which is
tomorrows objective. After that we headed into town and down to
the shoreline, before back up to the cathedral, very ornate interior.
We head out around 7.30am tomorrow. We catch a boat to the south
of the island and then traverse over to the north, this get us over
the 4000m mark, lot's of sight seeing along the way. We will then
catch a boat from the north back to Copacabana.
Stu"
21st June - The group will depart the UK on the
4th July.
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