Hey all,
New to the forum, but love the site. I have a fairly modest alpine climbing background and want to start doing more independent climbs. All of my alpine climbing has been in the Andes, starting with Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, the illinizas in Ecuador and later to Vallunaraju and Chopicalqui in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru. Chopi was the first more technical climb I'd done and was definitely the direction I'd like to go eventually.
Anyways, all of those climbs were done with climbing guides until this past summer when I took a friend who had never climbed before up Cotopaxi by ourselves. I felt fine about this because it was a very straight-forward walk and a well traveled route.
This coming summer, I'm going to be in a similar situation, traveling with a friend who has never done any alpine climbing before, and I was hoping to do something similar, but this time we'll be in Southern Peru and Bolivia. Ideally, I'm looking for a mountain where we can just rent gear and the route is fairly well traveled, so we will be able to follow a fairly clear line. This may be asking a lot, but if there are any mountains that have "refugios" on the glacier line (similar to Cotopaxi), so that we didn't have to bring tent/stove, that would be even better.
Does anyone know of a Cotopaxi-like mountain in Bolivia (or Southern Peru)? I've heard Huayna Potosi might work, but would like to hear from some people who've been there and could speak to how well traveled it is, how easy it is logistically, etc.
Finally, if anyone is going to be in Bolivia/Southern Peru in June 2012 and wants to climb something a bit more technical/bigger (ancohuma, illampu, illamini, sajama), let me know!
Thanks
OPM