NEWS

November 02, 2008.

“Winter” (rainy weather) is hitting the Ecuadorian Andes during the last few days. The weather is commonly unstable here in the Sierra, but we’re used to the changeable skies, and often say that they are so unpredictable as the Ecuadorian men (& women)!

CAYAMBE CLIMB

At the end of October the team of Sun and Snow Expeditions had a few climbing plans: Our Austrian friend Romy, two German friends Bernd and Angela and our new American friend Dorothy joined all together to climb to the coldest summit on the whole Equatorial line – the Cayambe volcano (5790m). Edgar, Segundo, Boris and Ekaty represented the Sun & Snow team. All together we were quite an international team – English, Spanish and German were spoken in the Ruales-Oleas-Berge hut at dinner time, whilst we were planning our departure times to the summit. Finally, 3 rope-teams decided to go: Romy & Segundo, Boris & Dorothy, Edgar & Ekaty.

We left the refuge relatively late, at 03:15am. The first hour was spent to climb the steep rocky hill, just in front of the refuge. After that, we arrived to the glacier, where we’ve noticed that the snow conditions were quite good, in spite of the warm air temperatures.

The normal route on the Cayambe doesn’t represent technical difficulties, but the many crevasses on the even glacier, sometimes hidden underneath the fresh snow, make the climbers to concentrate on finding the safest way.

Thanks to the good hard snow we developed a continuously fast rhythm, and reached the altitude of 5700m in just 2 and half hours. Just there we’ve found ourselves with a huge crevasse that has opened just below the summit showing 90º 20-meter wall with hanging seracs just in front of us. We continued to the base of the wall to find out if climbing directly though the wall was possible. Then we saw to the right, a narrow and apparently unstable snow bridge. It was necessary to use snow pickets and keep the rope tense to cross the unstable area, and so the two of our rope teams have reached the summit at 07:30am. It was a clear sunny morning; all surrounding volcanoes were visible: Cotacachi, Imbabura, Mojanda, Saraurcu, Chiles, Cotopaxi and Antizana.

The way down took us just one hour and half; we hurried up to avoid walking on soft, sticky snow melted by the sun. In the refuge we met Boris and Dorothy, who have turned back from the half way; and Bernd and Angela, who have prepared us a hearty breakfast.

Already in the Cayambe village, the clouds suddenly covered the sun and fifteen minutes later rain shower fallen down! It has rained all the way back to Quito, and kept raining next days in the afternoons.

COTOPAXI CLIMB

Two days later Romy and Segundo decided to climb Cotopaxi (5897m). Romy’s dream was to take a look at the Cotopaxi’s crater: because of the foggy weather she didn’t see anything from the summit, when she climbed it first time in August. So they drove south towards the CotopaxiNational Park, accompanied by sunny weather. In the night, during the climb, they realized that snow depth was increasing with the altitude. At 5200m there was already 40cm of loose sugar snow. Opening the path through this kind of snow requires a big deal of physical power.

After testing the snow for avalanche risk, Segundo and Romy turned back, taking the right decision to not disturb the existent slab on the “heart-breaker” slope.

Aug.31-Sep.01.2008

MOUNT TOCLLARAJU DIRECT WEST FACE CLIMB (PERU)

TRIP REPORT BY ERIC ALBINO AND OCTAVIO SALAZAR

We’re two young guys full of mountaineering spirit, and we’re glad to share with you our adventure on the Direct West route of the mountTocllaraju. Octavio Salazar Obregon, 21 years old and Eric Albino Lliuya, 24 years old, both from Huaraz, Peru, aspirants to official mountain guides and currently attending our studies at Centro de Estudios de Alta Montaña – our school of mountain guides.

An adventure in the mountains of Cordillera Blanca:

We’re two boys who are still learning and acquiring experience to be able to lead people and take care of human lives in the mountains. Why the idea to climb the Tocllaraju? It occurred while we were watching some pictures from our Photo album of Cordillera Blanca and we’ve decided ourselves for Tocllaraju. Our idea was to choose a route which doesn’t represent obvious dangers and risks, such as avalanches o rock falls, although nothing is safe in the mountains and one never knows when and where the things happen!

The next expedition in our list is to the South face of Ranrapalca Mountain (6162 m/ 20211 ft), which is a pretty nice wall, where we’d like to test ourselves. But given that the climate conditions are very important in this kind of climbs, because all of our mountains are technically challenging and indeed have a big deal of risk, we’ll leave it until the weather allows us our next adventure. In the future we’re planning to organise more technical climbs and expeditions to the mountains of Cordillera Blanca, Huayhuash and outside of Peru: in Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. Our goal is to get more experience on big walls, and this time we were quite successful and happy with our climb, because we’ve had a great adventure and finally could step on the summit of our dreams – Tocllaraju!

Brief introduction to the climate in the Andes.

The tropical character of the Peruvian Andes, resulting from its location close to the Equator, explains the existence, along the year, of two well marked climate seasons: dry and wet, each with drastic differences and just short intermediate periods. Because of its location in the Southern hemisphere, Peruvian winter occurs when Europe and Northern America are in summer.

May to September

This is the only period when climbing in the mountains is recommended. This is the dry season that coincides with winter and presents, because of the close location to Equator, between 30 and 50 minutes of daylight less every day. On the heights over 4500m/14760ft frosts are common. July is the best month, because in August strong northern winds begin to blow.

September to December

Season suitable for climbing to some lower mountains and for trekking. Corresponds to the spring in the Southern hemisphere. Rains, result from clouds formed during the mornings, are more and more common, with strong sudden rain showers especially in the afternoon. Electric storms are also possible, but the skies get clear soon and the nights are clear and starry.

Tour Schedule: August 31, 2008.

Our adventure has started from our beautiful and noble hometown of Huaraz, situated on 3100 m / 10168 ft of altitude. We’ve left in the morning, exactly at 9:30am, and drove by our private transport towards the tiny village of Pashpa on 3650m/ 11972 ft where our donkey guide is waiting for us. It took to our taxi around 1 hour to get us there, and from here the adventure starts! At 10:50am we’ve started our hike towards the Ishinka valley in the heart of the Cordillera Blanca. At 13:10 we were already in the Ishinca base camp situated on 4350m/ 14268 ft.

After arriving at 13:10pm to the Ishinca Base Camp, we’ve taken some time to relax, to rest and eat something. After all, we were not going too fast, because it wasn’t a competition and we didn’t look for a record : - ). At 14:00pm we’ve continued our hike towards the high camp of the Mount Tocllaraju.

We’ve reached the High Camp of Tocllaraju at 16:30 after having ported all our technical climbing and camping equipment and food supplies. The altitude here is 5250m / 17220ft. In the afternoon we've checked the route that we were planning to climb next day very early in the morning.

September 01, 2008:

We woke up early in the morning, at 03:30am, prepared a light breakfast and got ready all our climbing equipment. At 4:30am we left the tent and headed directly to the West wall of the mountain. It was already 06:00am, when we started to climb our first section of 60 meters of rope. The weather was almost perfect and the ice conditions at this stage were optimal. The slopes were not steeper than 60 degrees, and the snow was pretty compacted. After 4 sections of 60 meters we’ve found ourselves on a section of hard ice, which required from our side more concentration and attention to the security. So, we’ve enjoyed this first part of the climb very much! Three ropes more on this kind of ice and the terrain has changed again: now, along the two next ropes, the snow was pretty loose and the slopes steeper, up to 80 degrees. We also turned a bit to the right to avoid some seracs and cornices on the way. The most technical terrain included the three last ropes almost close to the summit.

After all, we’ve spent 8 hours climbing on the wall; we felt us relaxed and confident with the terrain and ourselves and especially enjoyed those more challenging sections with steeper slopes, like those before the summit. We used two 60m ropes, 9 ice screws, 2 snow pickets and much enthusiasm! Already on the top, around 14:00pm, we gave each other a hug and took as much pictures as possible : - ) Now our way back was waiting for us; given that the normal route of Tocllaraju is not a technical climb we took this way to get back to the camp. After packing all our equipment in our rucksacks we returned to Huaraz the same afternoon – to be honest we were very tired, but it was worthwhile! Our expedition required only two days and one night. (Wrote by Eric Albino & Octavio Salazar, All Rights Reserved CEAM 2008).

CREDITS:

We are very grateful with our parents for their help, support, comprehension and aims, also we want to thank the Agency & Tour Operator of Juventino Albino “Peru Expeditions/ South America Climbing” ( www.southamericaclimbing.com ). Also many thanks to Eloy Salazar, mountain guide, for his support and to Alex – our express taxi driver for his valuable help. We also say “thank you” to all our friends around the world for giving us their support and aims. To Sun and Snow Expeditions (http://andeanchallenge.com/en/news.php) for the edition of texts. And especially to our beloved PERUVIAN MOUNTAINS...

jun.29.08

conditions on chimborazo

Taking advantage of the weather break that was hitting Ecuador in the last weeks, we headed south to the province of Chimborazo in order to climb Ecuador’s highest mountain.

Along with other several teams, Sun & Snow Expeditions led by Edgar left the Whymper refuge by midnight, and started climbing up towards the summit. Snow and ice conditions were perfect and compacted up to 5.900 m (19,352 ft). But the last couple of hundreds meters conditions worsened considerably up high, with wind speeds of70-80 km/h (45 m/h) and a wind chill of- 15 ºC. (5 ºF). Snow softened at that altitude as well, and being the first and only team getting to the highest point of the mountain, seeking for the summit was hard to accomplish.

The team of Sun & Snow stood up on top of Chimborazo - the Whymper summit - after 7 hours of constant climbing. Few minutes at the summit and we headed back down to the refuge in less than 3 hours. A great weekend spent high on the Andes!

jun.18.08

antizana west face direct route

Ekaty and I were planning to go climbing the normal route of Antisana on full moon of June, which was on the 18th, the previous days the weather was wonderful, but 2 days before the climb the weather was awful, so we decided to quit the ascent…. The previous afternoon (June 17th,) the weather improved a lot and the colours were just amazing. We could see most of Quito’s surrounding mountains including Antisana, Cotopaxi between others peaks, so we wondered, if it could be the right time to make an attempt to that mountain.

But at night we finally decided to go there and give it a try. We made a phone call to the responsible to give out the permissions in order to get in the Antisana Reserve. Normally permission could be obtained several days in advance of the climb, but luckily we got an affirmative answer the very same night. We were really exited!!

So, on June, 18th the weather in the morning was just perfect. We start packing our climbing gear, food, and camping equipment; got the permit and drove east towards the 4th Ecuadorian highest peak.

Around 10h00 in the morning we started driving east from Quito to towards the Antisana Reserve. Once there, the weather got cloudy, but we kept driving until we got to the place where the car will be left (4.435m, /14. 5468 ft.). From this point we took all the stuff what it should be needed for the climb. We started ascending with our heavy backpacks 35kg-40kg towards the base camp (4.750m./15. 580ft). Heavy snow began to fall few minutes before we arrived to this place, so we hurried up a bit, and we set up immediately our tent, and put everything inside.

The snow fall lasted few hours, but the weather improved by late afternoon. It was time to talk about the route, about the equipment, and to plan the way how our climb will be done. So we decided to climb THE DIRECT WEST FACE route instead of the normal one, because of the great alpine features that this route involves. We were up to it!

We woke up at 02h30; ate a light breakfast, got ready with the necessary climbing stuff to make the route, and start moving up at around 03h00. The weather wasn’t nice, but anyway, we kept going up. So we wanded the route in case the weather could get worst. This route was very interesting, which involved crevasses to cross, some seracs to surround, and beautiful ice sections of 60º of slope.

Everything was going great until day light came in and we could see a big wall with a huge cornice hanging from it. It wasn’t until we got closer to that ice wall that we realized it was 12-15m /39.36-49.2 ft high, just below the main summit (5. 858m./18. 891ft). We searched for a good place to go through, but with got no success at it. We chose to turn back to BC and then to Quito.

(Trip report by Edgar Parra)