deathzonescience wrote:Alpamayo rapid ascent expedition is planned for mid July. This is a private expedition with myself and a very experienced Peruvian Andes climber. Thoughts please regarding limited acclimatization time and other potential pit falls of this itinerary?
1. USA - Lima
2. Lima - Huaraz
3. Huaraz to Corral Camp
4. Corral Camp to base camp
5. base camp to moraine camp
6. moraine camp to col camp
7. col camp to summit to base camp
8. base camp to Huaraz
9. Huaraz to Lima.
You can do it, but it's going to be rough - mostly just weakness and lethargy if all goes well. A few thoughts: you can skip Corral camp and make it straight from the trailhead to Base in a single long-ish day, arriving just before sundown. Or better, you could make an earlier start from trailhead, arrange to meet your guide at Corral, and gun ahead to Base, hang out, then descend back to Corral to get higher faster but then sleep lower - that would be a very long day, but do-able. It might be better to move the first night's camp as high up towards the trailsplit (where the paths diverge to Alpamayo/Taulliraju BCs) to reduce the return journey, which is actually quite a shot.
It is also easy to move from Base to Col and skip Moraine - assuming of course that you didn't need the acclimitazation
You could apply the same strategy here as well to acclimate faster: establish base, then climb to moraine or higher, then descend and sleep. That's probably teh best option to help the schedule.
A note: the headwall at the top of the path from moraine camp - col camp is as steep than anything on the actual route, so be comforted when you're on that
All in all, 11 days is doable but rough, and Alpamayo-Quitaraju col is a sh*t show - one of the very few really busy areas in the entire range. With your hard 11 days, it might be worth reconsidering objectives and then coming back when you have more time; this is an el nino year, and even a few days of bad weather could shut you down, and if it does, there's no room for a Plan B objective - not that the trip would be wasted - it's a stunning area. One of our partners in 2012 only had ten days, and we tackled 2 acclimitazation targets and Artesonraju