wbk Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 (edited) I recently spent several weeks in the Cordillera Blanca. It was my first trip to the area and I've been reading and enthusied to go to this range for the last two years. I wasn't disappointed to say the least. I acclimatized for a week, got sick for a little while and then went back out to climb some more peaks. I have two Flickr shows on my acclimatization climb (Pisco Oeste, PD+, 5752m) and then two other easy/moderate climbs (Yanapaccha, PD+/AD-, 5460m and Urus Este, PD, 5420m): http://www.flickr.com/photos/74208816@N00/sets/72157594186341505/show/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/74208816@N00/sets/72157594193446176/show/ Scott McKenzie (UK) then joined me after my Urus climb to attempt Tocllaraju West Face Direct. We took a day rest in the Ishinca base camp and then headed out the next evening. Inshica base camp - some Basque dudes I was hanging out with We wanted to do an alpine style ascent and skip the high camp at 5100 meters and do the climb in one push from base camp. Tocllarju's West Face from Urus Este Another shot of the West Face Shot of the route line We left base campp at 6pm some day in mid July (I lost track of the days) and we moved quickly up the moraine and onto the glacier. At about 5050m ,we boiled up water, which took a hell of long time in the cold and at altitude, and ate like fiends. We took off from this stop at 10:30pm and made our way to the bergschrund which guards the face. We arrived at the face at 1am. It was about 5 days after the full moon, so we were hoping that the moon would be out by the time we got the schrund, but it hadn't. The ramp to the schrund was about 45 degrees and it took us about 45 mins to finally find a way across the schrund and onto the face. No pics for the face due to lack of light... even when the moon came out We simulclimbed the entire 500-600m face which starts at 55 degrees of the schrunds and steepens for the last 150m up to 70-75 degrees! The ice and snow were in great shape and we placed plenty of screws and the odd picket for protection up the face. I can't really begin to describe the feelings and experience I had while climbing that face, but I'll try! I had the first 'lead' after crossing the schrund. At first, climbing the face seemed really steep and focus was everything. It took a little time for Scott and me to get a rhythm going, but when we did, we moved well. This thought kept going through my mind: "This is it! This is the climb I've been waiting for and testing myself for. And here I am, leading up the first bit of the face. And this ice is friggin sweet. Turn and look at the views Ben (you could make out Ranrapalca in the distance, etc.). Shit... focus man. Put in a screw..." I was really stoked. It seems like my senses were super acute as well. I kept listening to my tools... "Oh, there's a good placement... squeek, squeek of the axe. and focusing on my crampons... "You don't have the best crampons in the world for this Ben, so focus." As we started to make good progress on the face, significant comfort set in and we moved quietly and silently for a few hundred feet. The moon appeared above us and the ice runnels were highlighted and outlined in the eerie light. The terrain felt not so steep anymore. Then the temperature dropped significantly. (It was around 2:30am I think this happened.) Scott checked his altimeter, which was strapped to his bag to get an accurate temperature reading. I believe it was -17C or some shit! Even if that was off, it was friggin cold!! Fatigue started to get at us and movement started to slow down. Altimeter readings were telling us we were at 5350 meters (almost 700 meters left). I was sure the readings were off, but it didn't help the morale either way! Maybe we weren't moving that fast, but we weren't moving that slow! My mind wandered for awhile and time past. I was back on 'lead' for awhile and was sharply alerted to the fact that it started to feel steep again. I looked down and then up and then to my right and sure enough we were past the rock band we'd studied on the face the day previous. The angle steepened significantly above that rock band. More self talk... "Sweet... we're getting high on this face now!" "Man, this is steep. I don't know if I want to climb up this!! We climbed this 70-75 degree section for awhile and finally the ambient light came. We could see the sun on the mountains around us. (We were on the West Face so no direct sun for us... both good and bad.) It started to slowly, very slowly I might add, to get warmer. And then all of sudden, we reached the ridge... Scott stoked! We collapsed... and ate. We had about 300 millimeters of water left, and it had frozen. We ate some more. It was just before 7am. The beautiful ridge. Ranrapalca The next lead was up the left side of the ridge on shitty, sugary, Cordillera Blanca snow. It wasn't too steep - 40-45 degrees, but it was right above the face. I slowly made my way up this section and after awhile cut a Tslot. Like a 10 foot T slot. I just dropped the picket in, clipped the rope and moved on. We finally made it up to some bizarre seracs that sat right on the ridge, with a crevasse between them, running parallel to the ridge. Bizarre. We looked for a way under the seracs... on either side. Nothing but super exposure and deadends. We determined that we had to climb into the crevasse and climb up the inside of the left serac! Here goes... it was vertical, but Scott clearly wasn't The ice/snow mix was shitty to say the least. It was sort of like vertical wallowing! It was an amazing place to be though. Clouds were moving in and sweeping the summit ridge with amazing speed. Climbing up towards those clouds up the serac felt like I was about to climb into the sky. On top of this, we finally spotted the summit some 50-60 meters up mellow, but wallowy terrain. This last easy section took us almost one hour to finally get to the 6032 meter summit. Scott with a classic summit shot No standing for me... too friggin tired Notes - - Normal route goes up the Northwest Ridge - West Face route is rated D+ - We took 5 pickets (left one for a rap on the way down), 10 screws, climbed on one 8.5mm 60m rope, two tools (including my classic Camp Hummingbird!), some food and water and wore every piece of clothing we had - 1632 meter total gain from base camp - Best climb of my life so far - Deproach wasn't epic, but very, very long (included a 15 km hike from base camp out to the road which we did that day) [/i] Edited July 27, 2006 by wbk Quote
catbirdseat Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 Fantastic trip report! I could feel the stoke! Quote
Alpinfox Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 wow! I would have been terrified that one of those summit snow mushrooms would collapse down the face. Thanks for posting that. Quote
olyclimber Posted July 27, 2006 Posted July 27, 2006 wow, looks aweful purty there. thanks for the story. Quote
Mr_Rogers Posted July 29, 2006 Posted July 29, 2006 Awesome photos. I did that route last summer - it's a classic. That last bit on the ridge was in different shape when we did it, but it still involved some interesting snow scrambling. Here are two of my favorite pictures from the climb. One on the face and one on the summit. For the full TR go here: http://neice.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=2&Number=9764&an=0&page=1#9764 Quote
Alpinfox Posted July 29, 2006 Posted July 29, 2006 Damn, Another nice clutch o' pics. "Artesanraju is the mountain used in the Paramount ad" That's good trivia. I always assumed it was a fictional peak loosely based on Ama Dablam. Quote
G-spotter Posted July 30, 2006 Posted July 30, 2006 It IS a fictional peak but it looks a lot like Shivling. Quote
Mr_Rogers Posted July 30, 2006 Posted July 30, 2006 The old logo was based off some artist's memories of a mountain in utah. Maybe Ben Lomond(?). The "new" logo is fictional and computer generated, according to wikipedia. I say it looks a lot like artesanraju. Quote
John Frieh Posted August 1, 2006 Posted August 1, 2006 (edited) Paramount Logo Discussion Nice TR Edited August 1, 2006 by John Frieh Quote
breechman_8000 Posted August 2, 2006 Posted August 2, 2006 Great climb! I did it about 5 years ago. Just wondering....any problem with retreating ice in Cordillera Blanca? Thank you, Juan Pablo. Quote
Jason_Martin Posted August 10, 2006 Posted August 10, 2006 I´m currently in Huaraz and I did the Normal Route on Tocllaraju yesterday. One interesting thing is that the Ishinca Valley is full of flies. A local guide told me that there were no flies until about three years ago. This is probably the result of global warming... Jason Quote
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