Cordillera Blanca, June 2023

For my notes on Huaráz logistics, see here.

Give me rock any day over snow. But somehow I found myself doing 3 glaciated climbs in the Cordillera Blanca last month. It was all due to what happened on the Owen-Spalding route on the Grand Teton last Aug. I had run out of steam after an approach with a 6k ft vertical gain. The bonk hit me quickly and it hit me hard. I sat down at the Upper Saddle and started crying out of frustration. I looked at the 3 rock pitches above me, knowing I could do them in approach shoes any other day. But up there at ~13,000 ft, I was light-headed and woozy. If we continued up, I’d be a liability to my partner Carlo (fellow HMC’er), even on 5.4 terrain. We turned around, and I resolved to work on my endurance in the mountains. I had no chance of doing the remote alpine rock routes that were my long-term goals if I used up all my gas on the approach.

After returning to Cambridge last fall, we learned that Carlo would be spending the spring of 2023 in Peru for work. We envisioned spending June 2023 based in Huaráz, the central hub for trekking and mountaineering in the Cordillera Blanca. We’d work remotely during the weekdays and climb peaks on the weekends. Carlo suggested starting with a couple smaller mountains and then going for a 6000m+ peak, ideally Huascarán, a hulk of a mountain and the highest in Peru. Huascarán felt like a stretch goal. It’d really force me to train my endurance. I’d also have to brush up on glacier skills. The last (and highest) mountain I’d done was Rainier, back in 2017.

I got serious about training for mountaineering starting in Jan 2023. Per my friend Susan’s suggestion, I started PT to prehab my lower body muscles, especially the little ones around the knees, for all the pounding that comes with going up and down with a heavy pack. In the Uphill Athlete forum for female athletes, I asked about my loss of appetite and always being tired, and got advice to come up with a meal plan and stick to it, instead of deciding in the moment what and how much to eat. When my friend Jenny sent me a link to a supplements company, featuring an ad with a climber who said “I ate these protein powders and I now climb 5.12,” I said "GIVE THEM ALL TO ME.” I brought my iPad to the gym and spent the requisite 2.5 hours on the treadmill or Stairmaster, instead of doing shorter workouts to save time. I'd watch the documentary 14 Peaks and think, I’m glad I’m putting money in the bank now so I don’t end up as slow as they’re in the Himalayas. I did the Harvard stadium with my friend Michelle, eventually graduating to spending 3 hours there to do 2 laps of the stadium with a 12 lb weight vest.

I realized that training for mountaineering was about enduring the distance, the time, the weight, and the cumulative tedium. In February, I could barely link two split squat jumps together. Right before Peru, I did 7 sets of 10 with 15 sec rest no problem. I felt so strong and would brag to Carlo about my quads of steel and then 36 hours later, the soreness would set in and sitting down on the toilet would be a humbling experience.

Huaráz
Upon arriving in Huaráz at the beginning of June, we learned that a guide had just died on Huascarán while trying to open the mountain for the season. It was sad and spooky.

For our first acclimatization hike, we did a loop hike with a high point of 4800m that included the famous Laguna 69. This was already higher than where we’d stopped on the Grand Teton at 4023m. We’d only been in Huaráz for less than 48 hours and weren’t acclimated. I huffed and puffed, taking one step every 5 seconds towards the high point. All of a sudden, I understood keenly why those climbers in Everest movies look so slow. It was painful, but I stuck it out and then we ran down the rest of the hike. I could tell that I was physically much stronger than last summer. It felt like a redemption of the attempt on the Grand.

Huaráz is a delightful city. It reminded me of Qingdao, the Chinese city that I grew up in. The city is quiet under the heat of the sun, but after dark, everybody comes out and strolls the sidewalks downtown, eating street food and browsing the carts and stands. I used to do that with my parents in Qingdao. We’d buy chuan’r and examine a tarp laid out with shoe insoles. Did any of us need another pair of insoles? Probably not, but it was fun to look.

Ishinca SW Ridge (5530m/18143ft, Easy Snow)
After a week of living and working in Huaráz, our first mountaineering objective was Nevado Ishinca in the Quebrada Ishinca (Ishinca Valley). We hired a muleteer and her donkey to carry our bags for the 14km approach to base camp. We then did another few hours of hiking on our own to high camp. We forgot to bring a water filter and fouled all our containers getting dirty water from nearby camp and resorted to storing boiled water in the used freeze-dried meal bags. Indian korma water doesn’t sound appetizing but I was really not interested in getting headaches from the altitude. I’d never been so well hydrated out in the backcountry.

Caption: The valley ends at a cirque surrounded by Urus, Tocllaraju, Ishinca, and Ranrapalca. Ishinca Base Camp, which includes the mountain hut Refugio Ishinca as well as the grassy campsites next to it. Most people go into Ishinca Valley for a whole week, alternating between summit attempts and rest days at the Refugio.

We left high camp at 5:15am and lost a little bit of time navigating the moraine to get onto the glacier. As the slower climber, I led. Carlo worried that we weren’t going to make the summit by the turnaround time of 10am. At one point, as I fumbled with my kit, he remarked that it looked like I’d never been on a glacier before. Hey watch your snark dude! And by the way, every time I watch you place trad gear I’m like uh, is this your first trad lead? We always have to get used to climbing with each other again at the start of every season.

Fueled by “I’ll show him” indignity and a full bladder, I continued to lead. We topped out at 10:10am! We would’ve made it at 10am except we had to wait for one part to rappel down the steep wall to the summit before we could go up.



Huarapasca South Route (5420m/17782 ft, AI3)
On the second weekend, we did Huarapasca, a one-day climb of a glacier with a very short approach. We expected the initial glacier section to be a steep snow wall that we’d simul-climb. Once on the mountain, we realized that this was proper alpine ice, albeit buried beneath a few inches of compacted snow.

Ishinca had lured me into a false sense of security. I thought all tropical glaciers would feel, well, tropical. But it was cold and windy on Huarapasca. I was momentarily grateful that I’d grudgingly gone with Carlo on those winter climbs on Mt. Washington. I remained calm as the screaming barfies threatened and receded.

Although we were among the first that day to start climbing, other parties arrived shortly after. They all appeared to be guided, and the guides did not wait to start leading. At certain moments, there were 3-4 other parties at the same height or slightly above us with just a few feet between us laterally, with more below us. There was so much continuously falling ice that I gave up on looking up to check on Carlo’s progress. One client next to me grunted hard everytime he hacked at the ice, and he screamed when he fell and the rope came taut. 5-6 parties worth of shouting in Spanish and English echoed off the rocks surrounding us. I felt like a helpless soldier caught up in the storming of Normandy.

After I reached the top of the first pitch, Carlo asked if I wanted to take over and lead. I was like hell no. Just get me out of this cluster****. Carlo led another 2 pitches and then we did the few snow slopes up to the summit. The rest of the ascent and descent was fairly non-eventful.

Tocllaraju Northwest Ridge (6034m/19791ft, Steep Snow, AI3-4)
After two weeks in Huaráz, Huascarán still hadn’t been opened. (A week later, after a massive serac collapse, the local government and the guides decided in conjunction to close the mountain.) We decided to do Tocllaraju (6025m) in the Quebrada Ishinca as our big climb. One guide called it a good transition peak for those looking to get into 6000m peaks. He mentioned that there is a real difference between the 5000m mountains and the 6000m mountains. I remember wondering what that really meant.

In our third week, we hiked back into Quebrada Ishinca with a donkey and muleteer. We camped next to the Refugio Ishinca; what a beautiful campsite! The next morning, we went up to Tocllaraju high camp. We woke up at 11:30pm, had some cold mushroom risotto (“Disgusting at first and then it’s ok!” is Carlo’s review), and left high camp at 1am.

I felt good. 1 tab of Diamox and ibuprofen each had taken away my headache from the night before. About two hours into the climb, the wind on the glacier really got to me. I thought I’d warm up but eventually gave in and took the time to take off my harness and put on my hardshell pants.

There are three sections on the route that are steep enough to be pitched out. Pitch 1 was a steep snow climb up that traverses left over a giant crevasse. Carlo went first, with me belaying. We could see a huge ledge carved out of the snow halfway up. He got there and fiddled around and then yelled down that it’s not really a good place for a picket. He kept going and topped out up, slightly out of my view but within earshot and thankfully at an existing belay station (cord attached to a buried picket, which Carlo backed up). He belayed me up. The steps, while steep, were really punched in and felt secure, but like on Huarapasca, I was out of my comfort zone and appreciated the extra security afforded by the belay.

The second steep section was another unprotectable pitch that Carlo soloed and belayed me up. Around 9am, Carlo mentioned that we were a bit behind schedule. The summit mushroom, which included pitch 3, looked like it was just three short snow slopes above us. I thought we’d be able to make it to the top by 10am, our turnaround time. But I hadn't realized how slow I'd gotten till Carlo pointed it out. Earlier, I could French step at a slow but consistent pace at which I felt I could go on forever. Now, I was taking 10 slow steps and still needed to stop to catch my breath. Every time we took an official break, I flopped onto the snow. Carlo got my snacks and water for me. At some point, he handed me a cup of warm water. I was so out of it that I hadn’t even noticed that he was melting snow in the JetBoil next to me. (This is the discrepancy in our fitness. He had the mental capacity and physical dexterity to melt freakin’ snow for his partner, while my cognitive engine focused on keeping my mouth open and willing more air to get into my lungs.)

I knew that if I stuck it out, I'd summit, but it wouldn't be in good style. It’d simply be a test of my pain tolerance. At 5900m, I’d answered my question, which was that I’d come a long way from bonking on the Grand Teton last summer, but Tocllaraju was out of my pay grade that day.

–
In retrospect, we may not have been acclimated enough. The other parties we encountered were spending roughly a whole week camped out at Ishinca base camp (4350 m), alternating attempts at successively higher peaks with rest days at base camp. By the time those climbers attempted Tocllaraju, they’d have spent nearly a full, continuous week above 4000m. Due to our decision to combine remote working with mountaineering, we’d had a vastly different schedule, where we went back to Huaráz (~3000m) for up to five days between each climb. For the Tocllaraju climb, our schedule had us going from 3000m to 6000m in just over 48 hours. I now see how aggressive that is compared to the acclimatization rule of thumb of doing no more than 300m gain per day. We should have spent at least one more day hanging out at Ishinca base camp before going to high camp. Looking forward, I also want to increase my anaerobic capacity. This season, I’d spent nearly 95% of my training in zone two to build my aerobic capacity. On the mountain, I realized that despite our best efforts to do the “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” thing, sometimes I would need to “sprint,” even if for short periods. And I needed to get mentally and physically comfortable with that pain.
–

We turned back at the base of the summit mushroom, 100 m short of the summit. I thought I might quickly regain my energy on the descent and regret not having gone for the summit. But I didn’t have to worry about that. Even rappelling took energy that I almost didn’t have. It was now 2pm and roasting on the glacier. I hadn’t peed since 3am. The inconvenience of peeing had also kept me from drinking, so I was in the doubly-bad situation of being dehydrated AND uncomfortably full of pee. Taking off my harness to pee felt like I was asking too much of my mind and body. I finally committed, took off my black hardshell pants, peed, and stripped off a couple top layers. Whew, much better.

I kept thinking the next slope would be that last ramp off the glacier to high camp. During that slog, I thought to myself, I hate mountaineering. I f*cking hate this slush. It’s always the same heinous deal, freezing cold on the way up, and then boiling hot during the listless shuffle down. A montage of this unholy combination from past climbs on Baker, Rainier, Eldorado unspooled in my mind. What Carlo said was true! It was like I’d never been on a glacier before. If I had, I’d never do it again.

Once we got to high camp, I fumbled off all my gear and clothing and fell into the tent. I told Carlo I hate snow but the current conditions would be perfect for a sno-cone and then fell asleep.

I napped for 30 minutes and popped up like the Energizer bunny. That second wind got me through breaking down high camp, a two hour hike back to base camp, and setting up camp all over again in the bucolic, grassy, dung-filled field next to Refugio Ishinca.

The next morning is my favorite morning of the entire trip. There’s nothing quite like an untroubled mind not quaking in fear of an impending climb. My only duties were to drink and eat and maybe massage my calves. Even the cows in the valley looked more relaxed. I ate an entire breakfast skillet with pork sausage that Carlo the militant vegan bought me in a moment of romantic weakness. For lunch, I started with a half a plate of fries in the Refugio (for those herby, air-fried fries alone, I award the establishment one Michelin star *). By the time the caldo de gallina arrived, I was already pretty full. But I figured my body would burn it all up, since we were hiking out the remaining 14km right after lunch. I forced down the caldo.

At the beginning of the trip, we’d talked about hiking out without a donkey or taking a bus to Huaraz instead of a taxi. At the end of the trip, we were like, give us ALL the luxuries, the donkey AND the taxi!

That’s how I found myself struggling to keep up with Carlo, the muleteer, and his horse that carried our bags, while holding my stomach full of soup, fries, and breakfast skillet as we hiked out of the valley. At one of the most scenic locations of the hike, in front of a cow and her calf, I vomited up all the caldo de gallina.