La Paz is impressively situated. Not only does the city of El Alto sit on the rim of its bowl but it also has many impressive mountain peaks with their year-round 'white-ponchos' surrounding it. The most impressive of these is the highest peak in the Cordillera Real of Illimani (Golden Eagle) to the south at 6438ms but to the north lies Huyana Potosi at 6088ms. This is supposed to be the 'easiest' 6000m peak in the world to climb and having only biked through the Andes I thought I should make an effort to get more intimate with at least one peak where the bike can't go.
My first mistake was to misinterpret the sales slogan 'easiest 6000m peak in the world to climb'. I assumed it would be 'easy' and so I never gave it a great deal of thought. If other gringos were climbing it then I didn't expect to have too much difficulty. My second mistake was to fly from the Jungle town of Rurrenbaque at 250ms, arrive in La Paz at 3600ms 45 minutes later and then attempt to crest 6088ms 48 hours later. This is definitely not the recommended way to do things but I didn't really fancy hanging about in La Paz too long as I know it well now. Despite spending 5 weeks at altitude and having no acclimatisation issues whatsoever, I was feeling the effects of altitude having been close to sea-level. It was a little frustrating. Any acclimatisation quickly evaporates after only three or four days at lower elevations. I confirmed this when I got back to La Paz as I was finding myself having to take very deep breaths at reasonably regular intervals to top-up whatever oxygen was already in the body. La Paz had previously been lower than the 4000m Alti-plano I was biking across so I was never breathless when I first arrived.
The option was to do the ascent of Huyana Potosi over three days or two. If I chose the three day option the first day would allow me to practice ice-climbing and to acclimatise at base-camp of 4700ms. However, I controversially chose the two day option of going straight up to high-camp. It is only a few weeks until I leave this continent and so the extra day could come in handy at some point. This decision was regrettable as I could have used the extra day on the mountain to acclimatise and also, there was a really nice bunch of mostly English lads doing the three day trek with whom it would have been nice to share the mountain.
We left La Paz a lot later than I expected arriving at base-camp at 4700ms about lunch-time. After some cold pasta I made my way up to high-camp at 5130ms. This was mostly a scramble over lots of rocks displaced from the glacier and was not much of an ordeal. It was only made slightly uncomfortable by the fact that we were carrying our own packs with all our climbing gear in them. It was only at base-camp that it dawned on me that I was really doing a 24 hour trek as opposed to a two-day trek. This is because we climb the mountain in the darkness of night leaving high-camp at 1.30am. This is standard practice as it is easier to trek on hard-packed snow at night than mushy snow when the sun is out. Thus, the itinerary was as follows: depart La Paz at 11.30am, leave base-camp at 2.30pm, arrive at high-camp at 5pm, have dinner and go to 'bed' at 6.30pm, get up at 12.30am to have some breakfast, leave high-camp for the summit at 1.30am and hopefully arrive at the peak between 6 and 7am.
The refuge at high-camp had mats that we could rest on in our sleeping bags prior to getting up to prepare for the ascent. Naturally at 5130ms it is cold although the room did start to heat up nicely with all the bodies. The problem was all the bodies however, there wasn't enough oxygen to go around the room so sleep was a little restless not helped by the restlessness of people in general. Just before 11pm people started to stir as they would be making their way up the mountain earlier than I would be. I didn't need to get up until 12.30am so all in all I would pretty much be hitting the peak on very little sleep due to all the commotion. Once I got up I had a cup of mate de coca, a piece of cake and a banana for breakfast. This was about all I could stomach at this hour and altitude but I had made sure to eat and drink well before I joined the trip so I wasn't too worried about that side of things. After a short scramble over rocks I was at the foot of the ice and snow and so it was here that I would put on crampons for the first time in my life. These clamp to your snow boots and are obviously necessary equipment to climb on ice or snow. The boots are a cross between snowboarding and ski boots and are a little uncomfortable and heavy; not fun if you have to wear them for approximately nine hours. Once roped into my guide/amigo with Julian from France we made our way up the mountain. We were the last people to leave the refuge and so it was a cool sight stepping onto the mountain illuminated only by a quarter-moon, the stars and then the head-lights of people further up on the powder. It was probably a good thing that I could not see more than a few metres in front of me as it was a trickier climb that I expected. It was only coming down the mountain in daylight that I would see the crevasses, steep ramps and how long an ascent it actually was. The plan was simply to walk as slowly as possible saving as much energy as possible at the bottom for the harder bits towards the top. At this stage it felt like going for a cycle with Carbo, you don't break a sweat and it feels like you can put your feet up. However, Julian was having a harder time of things being a smoker and not being an active person. I didn't mind too much as long as he was going to make it. In the end I would be grateful for Julian's stops because as soon as we got to 5700ms I was not having the best of times myself. The altitude was starting to hit me and as is normally the case for me when I'm not acclimatised I started to get drowsy. I could easily have laid down for a kip and such was the impulse to sleep that I almost didn't care if I got to the top or not. While I'm sure the lack of sleep and the early morning rise didn't help, the whole thing had stopped being fun. I was climbing the mountain virtually asleep at this stage with nothing at all going through my mind but for some random thoughts of family. For some reason we had become the picture-perfect smiling family on a packet of biscuits and this bizarre image would not escape me. While we had overtaken a few groups we were not going to make the summit for the actual sun-rise, instead I would see the sun pop up from the bottom of the final face. When I say face, it is not exactly a vertical face, rather a pretty steep ramp that you need to ice-axe your way up.
Being a racer I am pretty experienced at blocking out pain signals but they still come. I knew that I was always going to get to the top but it just got to the point that I didn't care any more, I just wanted to cut the rope, go for a sleep and finish the mountain later at a more reasonable hour. I was just shocked that Julian was still on the rope in front of me; he had 'bonked' hours ago. Even when you see the actual summit for the first time, which is the last vertical 30ms, you know that it's still going to take some effort to get there and so the excitement is muted.
However, I did get there ... eventually, and the views were absolutely amazing. It was really the first time I had properly looked around. This is partly due to the fact that apart from the bright-lights of La Paz and the night-sky there had been nothing to see, and partly because I was practically asleep climbing the final vertical 400ms. On the one side was Lake Titicaca (the largest lake in South America), the other side was Mount Illimani sitting imperiously above La Paz and on another a sea of clouds floating over the Bolivian Jungle. It was pretty impressive stuff to say the least but the problem with climbing a mountain is that you have to get back down it. Thus, as nice as it was at the top it was not quite perfect as it would be another two hours before I could do the thing I most wanted to do; sleep. Unfortunately for me my climbing partner Julian was shot and so it would be a three hour trek as opposed to the usual two down the mountain. The patience of our guide was amazing but it was a little frustrating to be roped in and constantly feel the tug of Julian behind me as his body struggled to keep up. In the end I was able to smother the tiredness induced frustration as he was presenting me with an extra hour to enjoy the beautiful scenery. We were so high up that we were walking higher than air-planes were flying.
Once at the bottom I escaped the weight of my snow-boots and managed to take in what I had just achieved. Unfortunately, we were so slow down the mountain that I didn't get my chance to sleep. There was only time for a quick bowl of soup before I would have to scramble back down to base-camp. But this was not before receiving the congratulations of the nice English lads I had left at base-camp the previous day. They would attempt the summit that night so they were full of questions. I probably scared the life out of them but the truth is that it was just the altitude that knocked me out. If I had been properly acclimatised the whole thing might have been much more manageable. The actual ascent would not be that difficult if 1000ms lower because it is not technical. While being the 'easiest 6000m peak' in the world to climb it isn't exactly easy as normally other peaks are difficult to access and so there is a natural acclimatisation period built into the time it takes a trek to get there. The lack of sleep took more out of me physically than the actual ascent but it still required twelve and a half hours of hiking up and down the mountain within 24 hours. Indeed, I probably should have given the whole thing a bit more thought but it's a nice achievement nonetheless. For certain the views were worth it and it was definitely good fun up until 5700ms.
There are some photos in the gallery to give you the idea.
Marco