joblo7 Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 at it again. i went back to yaca to do vallunaraju and maybe more. only had three days. weather looked fine so i left huaraz at 5am and took a cab out to marian. started walking. had tent and all.after 1hr on the trail i met marciano,who watches the refugio. he was coming down ,so he gave me the key.i got to the refugio after 3hours i guess.i was not feeling that great so i decided to wait for early morning start to vallu as the weather gets cloudy at noon and i wanted to be off the glacier by then.i went for a 2hr walk around the morraine later. next morning i waited till 7am for marciano to give him the key. i left.walked down the road a few hundred yds and started up the trail.after 2hrs i was at the glacier.i brought a long axe so getting on was easy as i was all the way to the right and access was 10m of ice...i wandered my way up the glacier avoiding crevasses and holes. i sort of remember the route from doing it a few years back. it is much more interesting to figure it out though.the clear skies allowed it. the hard packed glacier was a breeze..i started to get closer to the summit cones. there is 2 peaks and the route goes between them and around to the summit of one . as i got closer the clouds started to come so that made advance route finding trickier. there is a series of shelves and crevasses that you have to negotiate to get to the right level to enter between the peaks..i could not get to the final step as fog started to flow in..i continued up this progressively steeper snow/ice slope to gain what thought was the ridge connecting the 2 peaks.it got to 70% as i reached the top. at this point visibility was 10ft!! i looked over into a chasm about 500m deep.i was about 100m left of the entrance to the summit slope of the given peak.i was 300m of 70/80% knife ridge to the other.i would have to downclimb the ridge in zero visibility then what?? route find in a bowl of milk.... i waited 5 min to see if it cleared.nada..i figured since the summit is about 6hrs walk/climb from my apt i can come back...!i turned around, knowing i could count on my tracks... descent was fine, glissading the slopes,i got down inm an hour. after 10 min i looked back and the summit cone was clear!!daing..!safety sucks. i was trying to do my first up/down the effin trail without creating an ordeal and what do you effin know i lost it again! impatience i guess, and lack of fear..i always work it out any way..this time i was on about half way until i crossed at large rock pile and did not reconnect on the other side.i went down the wrong valley/couloir until i reached a cliff, about 100m from the valley floor.i was tired, dehydrated and had to turn around and reclimb about 500 vertical meters of grass/mud/rock. i had puffin,hurtin,restin and contemplatin a nite out with clothes only.. i somehow got to the top of the ridge and saw some cairns...great..i followed them to another wrong couloir but this time i am not turning around?!! it was fine until about the last 100m. it got steeper in the euchalyptus trees. it ended with a downclimb of about 20m vertical rock crack full of dirt. i used my axe to do it. i took leaps,slides,hopes and got the eff down...only 8 hrs of exercise...felt like 16. i thought that was my last climb , i'm too old for this crapola...today i feel great, i went for a nice 1hr run around huaraz in the hills and i feel fit.. whoever is in charge of my workouts knows his stuff.......i'm going back tomorrow....!! i got to bag me some andean peak... get in shape and do some real stuff.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joblo7 Posted January 7, 2008 Author Share Posted January 7, 2008 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joblo7 Posted January 7, 2008 Author Share Posted January 7, 2008 the usual summit is the one one the left, i would like to do both next time out...i got right of the bumb in the middle of them , on the ridge.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OlympicMtnBoy Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Way to get out there for another try. Keep working on that trail, it really is there. I can see how that last bit would be harder with no visibility or cattle trail. I did both peaks when I got up there, the shorter peak only added a few mins extra, but is a cooler (small pyramid like) summit than the higher one. Good luck on the next try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joblo7 Posted January 8, 2008 Author Share Posted January 8, 2008 thanks. going to yamashraju mañana .this is all great training!iwent for a nice 8 mile run yesterday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.