just got back from 3 more days of climbing. did rimasrimas and urco. both 5200m. i took the customary cab ride out of town and walked up. i left at 5am and got to 5000m around noon. i was going slow as i was carrying 40lbs. tent,foood etc and i also brought crampons and 2 ice tools as i was gooing to check out a ridge line on ranrapalca. after slogging up steep slopes for hours i pitched my tent ate and went to sleep.i woke up about six and looked at the route i was going to take up rimarimas,its a steep rock scramble with some vertical steps if you like .there is no marked trail until you get to the ridge connecting to the summit.(cairns here?)i woke up the next day early and everything was nice and frozen. i took just a camera and set out.i backtracked a couple times when lines did not look like they would fly. i got to the severely exposed ridge in about 1hr and followed it to the summit cone. cool line . after some interesting moves i got to the summit.i backtracked and was down in 3hrs total. nice before breakfast line. i ate and went back to sleep for 1hr. i then packed up evrything and moved my camp below urco which is next to rimas. i had to traverse 500m of wet snow/rock slopes to get there.3 hrs later i camped.ate and slept again 1hr. i woke up at 3.30 and decided to summit urco before evening. again about 2hrs up snow/rock slopes. i gained another exposed ridge of large blocks to connect to the summit cone. some vertical rock sections and i was there.i downclimbed some other way to reduce the vertical stuff.i ended up on these 6inches traverses that went for 50m.about 50 m up too.. had to backtrack a couple times ,and traverse a 40% snow/rock slope to get back to my "shelf'. made it back just as nite was falling. this morning i woke at 6 and decided to go back up to take pics and movie of that ridge on ranrapalca. i had to climb back to 5200m but the view was worth it!! sunny periods are short and rare so i was real happy to be able to film the ridge. good thing i went 'cause my approach line to the ridge does not go. i have to be on a shelf much lower..cool pics to follow..got back to camp about noon and decided to go back to huaraz. i figured 2hours to get down to the road and 2 more to the taxi stand. i followed cairns down for a while then went too far left and ended up staring at a 100m cliff! daing! i had to climb back up (w/40lbs) to access another shelf to connect back to the shelf i was originally on ..hard! i had to do that twice to get on a tongue of grass that looked like it went to the valley floor.i ended up climbing this 5.5 wet rock slab about 100m up at one point.great to sort out those live/die things...i finally got to the top of that ridge and got to the grass slope i was eyeing. i was hoping for the best. i did not see much cow crap which is not a good sign.i later found out why when i was downclimbing, with both ice tools down this waterfall! i used trees,rock,mud,moss, but there is no way i was going back up.!!!! when i got to the valley floor it started to rain pretty hard for 1hr of the walk out..got drenched but fire was burning fine, no suffering, just joy.
