A quicky to Pisco

Off to Pisco

After the snow had thwarted our attempt at Chopicalqui, we had one day left. The descent from high camp went fast, and in moraine camp, my guide suggested that we had enough time to walk the Pisco refuge that same day and climb Pisco tomorrow night.

And so we continued down to Cebollapampa, where we left our porter and a lot of our gear, then almost raced up to the refuge - well, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration, but we still got up there in two hours, which, considering the altitude, I was quite happy about.

I understood that the normal departure time from the refuge was 1 am, but I convinced my guide we could start somewhat later than usual. I guess that our rapid walk to the refuge helped to persuade him, and so we started breakfast by the time that the others were putting on their boots.

We left at 2. I didn't feel as if we were fast at all, but my altimeter readings showed that we had a nice rhythm going. We already caught up with a few climbers before we got on the glacier, and passed everybody else higher up on the slopes, some from the refuge, others that had started from moraine camp. We reached the summit literally a few minutes after sunrise on a beautiful day.

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