Hi Spers,

I was suppose to climb in Peru this summer but my plans are for summer 2011.

I wanted to know which routes you did or which mountain you climb. There is a trip report on Yanapaccha and it's very nice. I wish there was more story like it to read!

I also need to stay aware of what is still climbable ... (ferrari route- Quitaraju north face- Arteson S-E face...) in order to prepare for next season.

Thanks guys

I put up a report on Chopi:

http://www.summitpost.org/trip-report/6 ... -2010.html

but I only made it to high camp...such a bummer. I'm not doing technical climbs yet, but I would like to read about some of those from the Blanca this year too!

thanks Albanberg!

This remind me how the blanca is so beautiful! How was your Huayhuash trek? There is some really technical peak out there! Was it very remote and not much crowd I think?

-Stboo-

Stboo wrote:thanks Albanberg!

This remind me how the blanca is so beautiful! How was your Huayhuash trek? There is some really technical peak out there! Was it very remote and not much crowd I think?

-Stboo-

Hi Stboo, yeah the trek was ok. Yes the mountains there are steep and technical! The start of the trek was very dry and a slog, but when we got to the lakes/mountains it was much better. At the lakes it was a bit crowded but not too bad and getting to the lakes and leaving the lakes it was not crowded at all. We only went for 4 nights, though so it was very short.

We did Pisco end of July. Not really technical but a wonderful peak with incredible views!!

We did Urus Este, Yanapaccha, Tocllaraju, and attempted Alpamayo/Quitaraju in June/July.

Urus was quite nice, done in a day out of Ishinca Base Camp. It was in good condition despite some loose power snow due to stormy weather. Started at 630 a.m. and back by 4 p.m.

Yanapaccha was very cool. It had the most incredible summit of my climbing career. You could sit there amongst the towering peaks of the north CB and watch the clouds billow up and roll in off the amazon. Spectacular. We took a bus on the road over the mountains and got off at the highest switchback before the road crossed the path, just as done in the other trip report on SP. We pretty much agreed with everything they did, except we didn't bother with the summit cornice figuring it was too dangerous and too time consuming to try. Up at 130, summit by 8, back to high camp by 2. Just missed the last bus coming down off the pass and had to hitchhike back to Huaraz in the back of a big farm truck that had been stalled out at the pass for a few hours. That was a great climb and a fun ride back, descending down into the valley while the sun set on the Huscaran group.

Tocllaraju was the high point of the trip, figuratively and literally. Despite terrible storminess and strong parties getting stormed off the ridge, we ascended to the camp just below the glacier in heavy fog and occaisional snow squals. Upon waking at 1 a.m., it was completely clear. We hit the overhanging ice traverse above the glacier by 7:30 or so and were on the NW ridge 2 pitches later. It was pretty late and sun baked the snow into slush and they going was tough the last 300 meters. Wicked crevasses just before the last 70 meter pitch (65 degree snow) getting up to the summit ridge. Summit by 1, rappelled off the NW ridge by 230 as the clouds came down. We got somewhat lost in a whiteout snow storm returning across the glacier, but got back to high camp by 430 and were back at the refugio by 7 p.m.

Alpamayo. The ferrari route is still out due to the overhanging summit crevasse, so the french direct must be climbed. We trekked all the way in and made it to the foot of the glacier when my partner became quite ill and we had to retreat. The route was apparently in good condition when we were there but I never got to see it as we turned around before crossing the col. Spent a few days in base camp while my partner shat and was generally miserable before attempting the trek out in one push aided by caffine pills. The arriero never showed, despite paying him, and but we were able to recruit the base camp shop owner to take some of our stuff down on his burros. Our aspirante from the casa de guias who arranged logistics for us proceeded to extort $70 out of us.

A good trip, but now I have to go back to do alpamayo.

As far as the other peaks you mention - Quitaraju is a long face and you will need to abandon some 8 or so pickets to rappel it. We bought somewhat sketchy picket/fluke (estacas) things in Huaraz which we abandoned here and there without worrying about it too much. You can get them for as little as $3 each. It takes a full day and you probably need 3 days minimum at 5500m (high and cold!) to do both Alpamayo and Quitaraju. That's a long time to spend that high. Bring lots of food and tons of fuel. Artsonraju - beautiful mountain, glaciers have heavily retreated and after that serac collapse, one of the majors routes (forget which one) hasn't and might never recover. Hope this helps.

I've been meaning to take a stab at a trip report, as well as create a few new peak pages for us - in all my spare time - oof! When california's climbing season winds down a bit i'll get to work. we had a terrific 33-day trip, managed to summit six of our eight attempted peaks (party of three, unguided): summits on Chopicalqui, Tocllaraju, Rima-Rima, Andavite, Urus and Maparaju; failure on San Juan and Artesonraju, and had plenty of salivating over other targets in the range

Me and a friend spent 17 days in Huaraz in august. After some acclimatizing (hiking up to Laguna Churup and Quebrada Ishinca) we climbed Yanapaccha. It took us two days with the drive in and out. It was a quite straightforward climb with some scrambling up the moraine in the dark (easy to loose your track here), glacier slogging (huge crevasses) and a few steep snow steps higher up (50 - 60 degrees). We did not climb the true summit because we did not feel it worth risking a fall and descended by downclimbing.
We then moved on to Alpamayo/Quitaraju. Hiked to BC in one long day. Continued to moraine camp and then to High Camp. Getting to HC was quite a climb with our 20k backpacks. Skipped Alpamayo, because there were like 10 people going to climb the french direct the next day. Left for Quitaraju at 1 o clock following good tracks. It was really cold and tracks stopped below the bergshrund. Unfortunately we did not find a snow bridge to cross the shrund. It looked to me like the bridge had collapsed and I climbed around for 40 minutes without finding a climbable way to get over it. So we decided to turn back to camp. Unfortunately I developed strong headaches in the tent, so we waited until sunrise and left as fast as possible. Descended from the col rappelling and downclimbing and luckily I felt good again in the BC.
My last days I spent rock climbing & bouldering (Hatun Machay is great!).

will be back as soon as possible!

Nice job guys, I really like to read your stories! This is great. It looks hard to climb Alpamayo-Quitaraju on the same trip. Seems like 5500m is tough for our human body ...

Hey Gdrayna, I think you talked about Artesonraju South-east face. I heard that a huge avalanche killed one third of the route...

Will it be still climbable or mixed climbed?? Does 2010 season saw someone on summit by this fabulous route?

Thanks for your post I really like to read and learned from your stories

We only had a little less than a two week time frame, so it was a quickie. Arrived in Huaraz with the night bus on Friday morning and started our 3 day acclimating trek the next day. Then one rest day and 4 days to climb Pisco. Except for the plane ride there, everything was pretty uneventful. Could not have wished for better weather and conditions. We started at 2am to do Pisco and there was nearly a full moon and no wind; the white peaks were lit up and it was truly surreal.

Pics from the Quilcayhuanca Valley trek
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e378/luciano136/Other%20-%20Hikes-Mountains/Peru%20-%20Quilcayhuanca%20Valley%20-%20Jul24-Jul26%202010/?albumview=slideshow

Pics from the Pisco climb
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e378/luciano136/Other%20-%20Hikes-Mountains/Peru%20-%20Nevado%20Pisco%20-%20Jul%2028th-Jul%2031st%202010/?albumview=slideshow