I set off for my first true trek of this trip. Solo of course, it turns out im here in the off season - or more appropriate, the rainy season. Each day the mornings in town start with sun and by 11 its cloudy and by 2 its raining. In the mountains the storms back up against the 20,000 ft peaks and above 16,000ft precip falls as snow with rain at all elevations below.
It is a delicate balance to adventure alone into these mountains. There are a lot of factors to take into account. I am crossing passes at 17,000 feet where air is thin and footsteps are heavy. Being alone i have to carry everything, being winter in the mtns everything i carry has to be warm and strong - or in otherwords heavy. I am set up for winter, i have a 4 season tent, a cold weather bag, many layers, a puffy, full gortex and equipment for snow. My tent stows with its footprint and rainfly already attached - critcal as each afternoon i set up shop in the rain. Days begin with semi-alpine starts...i wake 1 hour before first light (3:45am) take an hour to eat, strech, and break camp...i walk by the weather, camping at the base of passes in the afternoons and only making the push up and over in the early morning before clouds roll in. This land is carved by glaciers and as such the valley walls are near vertical in most places. Passes generally only have 1 safe route and are cliffed out otherwise - what this means is i HAVE to cross passes in good weather. I start walking early and end by 2 or 3 pm when the storms begin to build strength. I cook from within my tent, dry things with the only warmth there is (body heat) and fall asleep by 7:30 or 8. The high altitude means cooking takes longer, meaning i have to carry more fuel, meaning my pack weighs even more. At between 55 and 70 lbs depending on how long i´m out for, i bruise under its weight on uphills and my knees feel like they shatter on downhills. I figure i burn 3 to 4 thousand calories a day, but i can only carry about 2,500/day due to weight and bulk. I also always carry extra days of food in case a large storm comes in and pins me down for days. Dont get me wrong though...im actually in heaven and i cant tell you how amazing this place is...maybe the pictures will help!?!?!
I got lucky and after 7 days of storms my first time in the mountains saw a relatively calm 2 day patch with clear (instead of cloudy) mornings and rain starting late (5 instead of 12, 1 or 2).
Times and days given for walking these trails are based off of the soft and slow (no offense to any of you out there). Most people come here and hire mules to carry their packs, walk for only 4 hours a day and labor for hours at 2000 ft passes. I walk fast, and when you´re up and walking at 4:45am you can get some serious hours in before noon. This first trek was listed as a 4 day, i did it without much hassel in 2, although i did "run" up the pass as i was being chased by fog and didn´t want to get trapped (when i say run though i mean my heart and body thought i was running, my feet however didn´t move more than a slow tromp due to the weight of my pack and the 17,000 feet of elevation) - you cant move fast in this thin air, your speed is actually dictated completely by heart rate and you find something that seems maintainable, although it is always exhausting...but again, this isn´t torture... i am in fact like a pig in shit up here...its so wonderful!
Let the pictures show:
Huaraz Peru from the roof of my Hostel
Where Parades happen everyday and everyone seems to despise them!
The local laundry room, toilet, dump and whitewater park
Just the tip!
The morning i pushed off for my first trek, and also the first day i had been able to see the mtns. They are....
Huge!!!
This is a Combi - like a taxi van, its how you get everywhere. They like to fill them up beyond capacity. This is smaller than a 12 passenger van, maybe 2/3rds the size. When i got in I was number 13, we picked up an old man with 3 huge sacs (14), a little girl dragging a puppy and a school bag (15), 2 other older women (16 and 17) and now that all seats were filled and beyond i swore we were done. it became comical when we then pulled over and loaded up 3 more, making it 20 in this tiny van - and much to my amusement after 10 minutes i looked outside at the passing shawdow of our van and noticed someone sitting on the room. They all laughed when i took this picture. I laughed in return!
Somehow managed to make friends with some of the van riders on the way up...they wanted my picture, i wanted theres. It worked out well!
And so it begins...into the mtns. Up one valley, over a pass, out another.
This is a Combi - like a taxi van, its how you get everywhere. They like to fill them up beyond capacity. This is smaller than a 12 passenger van, maybe 2/3rds the size. When i got in I was number 13, we picked up an old man with 3 huge sacs (14), a little girl dragging a puppy and a school bag (15), 2 other older women (16 and 17) and now that all seats were filled and beyond i swore we were done. it became comical when we then pulled over and loaded up 3 more, making it 20 in this tiny van - and much to my amusement after 10 minutes i looked outside at the passing shawdow of our van and noticed someone sitting on the room. They all laughed when i took this picture. I laughed in return!
Somehow managed to make friends with some of the van riders on the way up...they wanted my picture, i wanted theres. It worked out well!
And so it begins...into the mtns. Up one valley, over a pass, out another.
Lots of new snow!
My route is the one near number 3 on the left
Little Peruvian family at the mouth of the valley
Beautiful glacial carved valleys and easy walking to start (15,000 ft)
Sooo many waterfalls...hard to see them here but i must have passed 30 or 40 all falling thousands of feet to the valley floor
Steeeeeep!
There´s always a big mtn at the end of a valley!
Everything is wet and green (and muddy) this time of the year
My route took me up and to the left. I camped the night up in a basin near where that glacier in the center (that flows to the left) intercepts the green ridgeline.
Starting the climb up and looking back from where i came
Wet!
A scale of things...i think if you click this it gets bigger. You may be able to see my time. In the center of the picture is a whie streak (a cascade), my tent is directly to the left of that in the lighter green patch. this place was HUUUGE
I got lucky with the weather and had an hour to explore and take photos once i set up camp. 30 seconds after i took this picture i took the next one.
And the clouds never broke..by morning there was 2 inches of snow where i stood. I moved down hill quickly and got back to my tent before another "lost in the fog" adventure started.
About 1/3rd of the pass waiting to be climbed the next day...it was once false summit after another
Years ago during an earthquak a huge hunk of the glacier at the end of this lake broke off, created a tidal wave that broke through the moraine and flashed a all of rock, ice, water and mud downstream killing something like 20,000 people in the Huaraz...now they have a dam and control the water level.
What a green!
Paradise?
Beautiful morning weather!
I accidentily slept in til 5:30 and pushed off just before 7. By 8:30 i looked back and saw the fog in the bottom right of the picture moving up valley very very quickly...i still had a long way to to top of the pass and the fog was moving much quicker than i was...i this is when i began to run.
In 15 minutes it moved more than a kilometer up valley and more than a thousand feet up vertically...i was still running. I got lucky though and after reaching the spot i hand spent the night it lulled and never went further
Some dont make it
Another 30 minutes to the pass...stoked!
There she is...way up there
The first view into the next valley
and up the next valley
2,500 feet down and 15k`s out (i hope you´re all appreciating how i´m jumping back and forth with my units)
Looking back from where i came
1 pm and the storms begin this daily barage on the mountains...i luckily was out before they rolled in.
I leave tomorrow morning for a 6 day...i hope to do it in 4. We´ll see.
1 comment:
yes! looks like your having fun dude! awesome shit. it is pissing rain here in nz..just made it to the south island. pray for sun. happy new years and a belated xmas bro
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