The Andes part two - THE MOUNTAIN

Whoever wrote Marvin Gaye´s motown classic "ain´t no mountain high enough" clearly hadn´t attempted to climb one. For us, Mt Vallunaraju in the Peruvian Andes, at 5686 metres, certainly fit the bill. It´s by no means among the tallest among the imposing Cordillera Blanca mountain range in central Peru, and is rated one of the easier technical climbs - important, we thought as we had never really done anything at high altitude before, let alone scale a summit.

Mt Vallunaraju - 5686m

Before the mission, we did a day of ice climbing instruction at the base of a beautiful sparkly blue glacier not far from the mountain´s base camp. The idea is to scale a vertical wall of solid ice using only crampons - large metal spikes that attach to the bottom of your shoe - and small pick axes. The guide made it look pretty straight forward - smash your pick axe into the ice wall and then kick at it with the crampons, and keep your feet at 90 degrees to the wall so they lock in and hold your weight. Catch up with your feet and then stretch the pick axe up to a new spot. Repeat until you have climbed to the top of the 20 metre wall.

Sounds easy in theory, doesn´t it? But in truth, I absolutely sucked on my first attempt. I couldn´t get my crampons to lock into the wall, and my heels rose up, making me slip down the wall. At one point I was hanging on with one pick axe (ok and a harness rope just in case) scrambling to find my footing. I ended up getting the crampons tangled in the legs of my pants, tearing them to shreads.

I persevered, and after donning a second pair of socks (as my rented snow boots were too big), I was able to lock my feet into the ice better and start developing a rhythm. I still slipped around a bit but was able to make it to the top of the wall without too much trouble. Predictably, Adam fared considerably better on his first attempt - after all, he was able to observe and learn from my mistakes (!) He still found it tough going though, and his feet slipped around a few times before he was able to get to the top of the wall.

We spent the night in a tent in base camp, that was haphazardly thrown up by one of the boobs from the tour company who had neglected to select flat ground or peg out the tent cover so the inside wall didn´t get wet. The first part of the ascent was a winding track up an extremely steep rocky wall - there was no time to warm up, as the steep gradient started straight away. After scrambling over big boulders and walking up slippery dusty paths with our packs on for the first hour, the ascent became more gentle, and it was easygoing until we reached the high camp, a rocky outcrop sandwiched between a handful of imposing peaks.

High camp - 5100m

The high camp offered beautiful views of the surrounding mountains, farmlands and the town of Huaraz, where we had based ourselves. It was lovely sitting around relaxing in the sun, before it disappeared behind the mountain range and the temperature plummeted immediately. At 6pm it became uncomfortable to sit around outdoors, even with all of our warmest clothes on, so we retired to our tent.

The early bedtime was necessary at any rate, as the wake up call for the summit climb was an ungodly 1am! I don´t think I have ever attempted to get up that early (under normal circumstances I would just not go to bed), but we needed to get in a few hours of shut-eye to have energy for the ascent. We drank coca tea (sadly just the teabag form) and set out just after 2am. To walk up to the snowy part of the mountain involved scrambling over more smooth boulders - made more difficult by our cumbersome snow boots.

View of the summit from below

At the start of the glacier we donned crampons and ice picks. The first section was like a wall - luckily this time I was able to get the equipment to stick into the ice properly. After this we crunched steadily uphill through the ice. Some sections were so steep we had to lean on our pick axes and walk sideways, which made my legs and feet ache. And there was the ever present high altitude. With each step the air thinned gradually more, making it harder to keep our breathing in a smooth rhythm and not hyperventilate.

It was pitch black so we could only see a few metres in front of us - this was probably a good thing so I wasn´t able to see how far we had to keep climbing! Adam and I were both roped to the guide, in case one of us was to fall. Eventually we passed a large crevass and the gradient flattened out slightly. We were directly below the summit (actually there is a second, smaller summit tacked onto the side of the mountain so we were below that as well), which was barely visible in the continuing blackness.


The summit!

Up here it had snowed recently, and we frequently found ourselves knee-deep in fresh powder, so I tried to stick to the path worn by others to make it easier! Adam found this bit particularly energy draining, as he fell deeper into the snow than the rest of us did. At this point we had to slow down, as we were trying to time our arrival at the summit exactly for sunrise. If we arrived too early it would be too cold to wait up there until the sun appeared.



The final ascent involved an almost vertical climb up a snow and ice wall, which I thought was nearly the end and threw all my energy at. I then baulked at the steep path to the summit - stairs had been carved into the ice, and there was quite a bit to walk up after that. I took to the stairs sideways and almost bent over, leaning on my pick axe as I gasped desperately for air. I was then able to walk straight on, but it was still very steep. There was the odd tug on the rope from Adam behind me indicating that he needed a few seconds to catch his breath. Finally the path levelled out and we trudged the final 20 metres to the summit!

As we caught our breath, we saw a soft pink glow outling the surrounding peaks, and we were able to see virtually the entire mountain range in one glimpse. After a view minutes the sun poked its way through one of the summits to the east of us, casting the other mountains in an intense pink sheen. The sad part was that it was difficult to enjoy the beauty of the moment, and the joy of completing the ascent because it was just too damn windy and cold and we were so exhausted that even taking photos was an effort!



One of the many treacherous crevasses

 The biting wind wasn´t much of an inducement to hang around, so we began our descent. It was quite awkward and slow going at first down the summit section and snow wall, but as it became less steep we were able to speed things up a bit. At this point we were able to see all of the cool features - crevasses, icicles and the ice cave below the summit that we had been unable to see in the darkness on the way up.

All up, it took us about 3.5 hours from the start of the glacier to reach the summit, and just over an hour to descend! We then returned to high camp, chilled and exhausted, and crammed ourselves with high energy snacks. After we had packed up, we had to haul full packs with all the camping and cooking equipment down a steep, rocky and slippery path (I stacked it on my butt at least three times) to the base camp where we took a taxi back to Huaraz.

Vallunaraju (on right) among the other peaks