Lost and alone at 14,000 ft

So it wasn´t quite that dramatic, and i was only lost for 60 minutes, but if you figure that each second one thought goes rushing through your head about being lost, spending the night out alone or never getting back then there were 3,600 thoughts to process before i found myself back striaght again. It weighs heavier than you can imagine.

I was in the Cordillera Negro, based out of Huaraz Peru but spending a night and 2 days at a mountain hut where some of Peru´s best sport climbing exists. i had met an Aussie chick at my hostal and couldn´t convince her to go trekking with me but she convinced me to join her at this climbing place. Without a good shoulder though i was stuck wandering the hills while she climbed with another random British girl and two german brothers. The place was gorgeous. The hut sits at 14,000 ft, the surrounding hills touch almost 16. This range sits west of and parallels the Cordillera Blanca (white mountains) which with more than 200 peaks over 20,000ft stand as the tallest range outside of the Himilayas and are also the reason i am in this region.

I had just finished up a 41 hour traveling stint with 33 of those 41 hours being spent on busses from Ecuador. I needed a good stretch of the legs and also needed some time to aclimatize before heading off to higher altitudes.
The Cordillera Negro (black mountains) aren´t high enough to catch much precip (hence their name) they do however, catch huge cloud banks that stretch out 200km to the ocean and peel up over their flanks. Its the wet season here, and as such the mornings are generally clear and then storms and clouds roll in each afternoon. This scenary is what i call Copy and Paste. There is nothing distinct, take a plot 10ft by 10ft or even 100ft by 100ft and copy it, now paste it all around you and you have the Cordillera Negro. Not a place to get caught out when the clouds roll in - and that is exactly what happened to me. I spent the first day with a half loaded pack, "training" if you will for multiday trips to come. I climbed the local highest peak, walked ridges for hours and generally explored. It was great. The night brought the most spectacular sunset i have ever seen (pics below) and in the morning i decided to ditch the weight, carry a light day bag and head off for a 6 to 7 hour roundtrip overland push to a much taller mtn in the distance...the climbing guides where surprised, slightly impressed, and encouraging, but also a bit weary and worried. They warned me of the fog, of others getting caught out for nights lost.
I crossed 3 valleys and made it to the base just in time for clouds to cover the peak, they often blow over and it was still early so i sat and waited...no luck though and no point in cilmbing this thing (which had many cliffed out sections) if i couldn´t see a thing. So i hoofed it up the next nearest peak that was still clear of clouds with intentions of ridge walking back to the hut. I dropped my hat somewhere along the way up which forced me back down off the ridge on a wild goose chase but somhow i managed to find it (luckily). I crossed one valley heading home, set out for the ridge again and then finally the clouds dropped, and they dropped quickly. I was in them with no visibility and I followed the ridge but at some point needed to drop off and countour around the side of the last valley to find the hut...i had 10 or 20 feet of visibility and the only thing i had to go on now was my mental map.
I find the psychology of being lost quite interesting. First comes the realization that your lost and from here you have two instant choices - panic or think. Although a sense of panic definitely crept up i first took stock (i.e. what do i have on me, whats my situation, where do i think i am?) I had a first aid kit, lighter, head lamp, water purifier, and enough peanut butter to survive the night, also a gortex jacket. It was only 1pm, thats 6 hours before sunset, 5 hours to wander and 1 hour of light to collect dry cow patties for an evening fire if it came to that...So i´d survive a night, mildly uncomfortable if it didn´t rain and miserable and hypothermic if it did, but i´d survive. I drew out my mental map on the ground, where i thought i was, how many more valleys to go, where i thought certain landscape features lay. I then made my move. I contoured for 30 minutes through nothingness, the landscape didn´t change, the aspect i was on felt constant, i hadn´t passd anything i could see or recognize...then i came across a big drainage - this was not on my mental map, fuck! - When you cant see anything and you dont know where you are and you´re only guiding yourself by a mental map and you come across a landsape feature that fits no where within the larger context of your understanding of the environment you in, well, thats when you really feel fucked. Your mental map is useless now, you no longer know where to place yourself, you are truelly lost.
I had a fail safe, a road that i knew existed some ways away. If i never went down and always walked with uphill to my right i could eventually cross this road which i could then take back to the hut (all this of course in theory as i stood alone, trapped in a pea soup bubble).
i crossed the drainage, found a 2nd one, also not on my mental map...little did i know that while countouring for 30 minutes instead of staying at the same elevation i had actually dropped 600 vertical feet. I had crossed these exact drainages earlier in the day, but so high up that they hadn´t formed yet. I was now much lower and the little canyons they had carved were completely foreign to me.
I got lucky. In the morning, on the hike out i had taken a picture behind me, of my route home, just in case i got clouded in. It ended up being my saving grace. I wandered for some time further until finally i came across rocks, large ones, identifiable ones...i pulled out my camera flipped through the picture and was able to vaguely guess at the area i was at...i guessed right, and keeping the rocks to my left and climbing uphill i eventually found my way back...what a relief.
The moment didn´t last long and i was never truely in serious danger (other than maybe spending a nasty night out) but it gave me a true humbling to the dangers of fog and clouds in this region...it remained my enemy during my last trek and will continue to remain my most feared enemy as adventures have unfold in the larger Cordillera Blanca mountains as i trek solo in these big mountain storms...

In the end the two days at the hut was spectacular... I got acclimated, met some great people, got my legs strong and experienced a place with 10,000 years of history, saw the life of traditional Peruvians and finally got myself into the mtns!

3 am boarder crossing into Peru! Giddy Up. You can get up to a 90 day toursit visa. The boarder agent asked how long i was staying - i said only 4 weeks or so. He then decided i only needed a 45 day visa. I asked if i could have 90 just in case. The number of days are hand written in your passport and apparently crossing them out is a big no no, so instead he just stuck a 1 next to the 45, giving me 145 days in Peru, in case i decide to stay here for the next 5 months!!!

The nothingness that is the northern Peru Coast. Sand wind and heat are all this land knows.

The hut (Refugio) with the "Rock Forest" in the background. Endless routes up sticky limstone. I wish i had a shoulder or two

The Rock Forest Proper

A general idea of the copy and paste landscape

Day 1 hiking the local mtn

And walking the ridges

Looking out to the Peruvian coast 200 km away

10,000 y.o. rock carvings in a cave in the Rock Forest...this was an enchanted place

Let the sunset begin...Amazing glowing rocks in the Rock Forest

Two 80 y.o. traditional Peruvians live here with 300 sheep, 30 cows and a couple of dogs.

The sunset lasted for 40 minutes and changed every 2.

The last sight of the sun from 14,000 ft as it sets over a cloud bank that streches to the ocean

Fire

Day 2 starting out beautiful

A Peruvian Cayote carrying a pup

Tons of ruins in this area, most around 1,000 years old...its hard to really make them out in the picture but the piles of rock, thats them.

Waiting, hoping, at the base of the mountain for the clouds to blow over. There is actually a very large mountain in the center of this picture...i swear.

What it finally came to. The fog that swarmed me and that i still fear.
I actually lost my hat a second time this day and was so distraught that after finding the hut and having a cup of tea i ventured back out (marking my way) and came across it 20 minutes out!!!
Paralyzing!

The picture that saved me...on the walk out i had contoured high up on the right of the picture, on the way back i found myself on the far left in the bottom of the drainage.

The making of San Pedro, a 2 day affair and an epic journey in and of itself, i did not partake, but maybe in the future.