Wila Llojeta

Overview

Wila Llojeta is a small mountain at the very end of Janko Kota Valley ("white lake" valley in Aymara). The name of the mountain means "red landslide" in Aymara.
The area is sometimes called "Negruni Moutains". It is located between the famous Condoriri group in the South and the impressive Chachacomani in the north. In the area you will find many mountains worth climbing, most of them between 5.200m and 5.600m high (f.e. Janko Uyo, 5512m). Wila Llojeta might be the easiest one of them.
Wila Llojeta has a nice glacier on the North (Altiplano) side, while on the South (Jungas) side it is rocky. The glacier, however, is melting rapidly in the last years.

Getting There

From La Paz/El Alto, you have to go direction Copacabana and then turn right into the Janko Kota Valley. Then you have to drive a dirt mining road for another two to three hours. You will pass two long lakes in the Janko Kota valley and arrive at a third lake, already 4.700 meters high.
You can start from here or drive even higher a pass on the left, around 4.900 meters high.

The road is a bit tricky, I would not recommend without 4x4 wheel or basic driving experience on dirt roads.

There's no public transport there, so you might rent a 4x4 wheel car or engage an agency in La Paz (so did we).

Red Tape

no red tape

Camping

You can camp above the last lake, around 4.700 meters. We camped lower, between the first and second lake, around 4.350 meters high. If you are not fully acclimatized, you might appreciate these 300 meters difference, also temperature is a little bit more pleasant there. At the latter place, there is some kind of basic camp ground next to a river, even including a basic toilet house. The local ask for a (very) small fee and you can even buy a fresh trout from them :)
From the camp ground, you have to drive around 45 minutes up to the starting point.

External Links

We climbed the mountain with an agency called "andeansummits".

Climb

From the upper lake, around 4700 meters high, you can either hike on an old path or drive up the left pass, around 4.900-5.000 meters high. From there you follow the ridge to the first pre-summit and the continue to the main summit. The way is straight-forward, you can't miss. If the glacier conditions are good, it is a nice hike over the glacier (grampons, ice axe, rope necessary since there are crevasses). We were not that lucky, the glacier was very dry and full of penitentes. So we followed mostly the rocky ridge above the glacier. If the glacier is not snow-covered, no rope is needed, but certainly attention in this high-alpine area.
For the way down, you can descend on the other (right) ridge. This ridge involves also some easy scrambling (UIAMG class I), but take care of lose rocks. You will reach another mining road which will lead you down to the upper lake. If you have parked your car on the pass, you might walk a bit up again.

Images

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