Nevado Ishinca

After a few days rest and relaxation in the cafes of Huaraz, Tom, Julie, Kimberley and I decided to form a group to learn some mountaineering skills and (hopefully) climb a mountain. After doing a bit of research we decided on Nevado Ishinca, on the basis that there was lots of snow, a glacier, it wasnt overly technical and we could do lots of climbing skills in a reasonably safe environment. Our guide was called Lucio, one of only 50 odd mountaineering guides in peru. He looked older than his 26 years, and had started his training at 15, paid for by an Italian missionary benefactor who had taken a liking to him. Our plan was to go to the base camp of Ishinca on day one, and then up to the moraine camp just below the start of the glacier and learn mountain skills for days 2 and 3, then go for the summit very early hours of day 4.

Day 1. We had about a 4 to 5 hour walk up to the base camp. Part of it through a magical wood of trees with their red tissue paper bark and a crystal clear strem. The base camp was set in a wide valley amidst the snow topped mountains of Urus and Tocllraju. There was quite a large refugio with dorm rooms, proper toilets and even a shower. But this was not for us, we were camping!
Day 2. I only went to the toilet briefly after breakfast and when I came back there was a new plan on the table. Tom and Kimberley were the ring leaders. The new plan was to head up to the moraine camp and go for the summit of Ishinca that night, returning to the lower base camp to sleep the rest of the day and then heading up to conquor Tocllraju at a wapping 6000 plus meters that night. I was slightly stunned but thought, why not....atleast do Ishnca and then see how we were all feeling. I had to admit I had my doubts that I would be capable of doing 2 summits in 36 hours. So with the new plan, we set off to the moraine camp, about an hours walk from the glacier. There was a very basic refugio where we were going to stay. Just bunk beds and a kitchen table.

That afternoon we set about organising all our gear, going through rescue procedures and then learning lots of differnet types of knots. We were all tucked up in our bunk beds by 9pm as we had a 2am wake up call. At 4950m none of us got much sleep. I could just hear my heatr beating 20 to the dozen and everytime I turned over it just thumped even faster. Even after nearly a month in the mountains it wasnt getting any easier! At 2 we got up, had a quick breakfast then donned out many layers of clothing, crampons, ice axes, harnesses, headtorches and helmets and set off. At that time in the morning the grey dusty ground of the moraine wall was frozen solid. The quartz in the rocks shone like silver and white glitter in the light of our head torches. There was a light covering of fresh snow glistening and tiny little white flowers adding to the magical moonlight walk to the glacier.

 

Clearly delighted to be walking up a mountain at dawn!

It was seriously hard work. We were all attched to each other by the rope and a complex series of knots, so that if one of us fell into a cravasse we wouldnt drag the others in. We set off at  a slow steady pace, zig zagging up the mountain. No one spoke, there was too little oxygen. It was really hard going, but in some ways meditative, just concentrating on breathing and placing one foot in front of the other repeatedly.  As dawn broke over the mountains we go the most fantastic views of the Cordillera Blanca. We finally reached near the summit at about 8am only to find the usual ice bridge broken and a 15m vertical ice wall with a top overhang in our way instead. Not deterred in the the slightest, Lucio produced a pair of technical ice axes and proceeded like spiderman to climb the wall. He made it look so easy!!! He fixed a top rope, threw down the ice axes and got us all having a go at ice climbing. It was thrilling!

Finally we had all made it to the summit. The views were incredible. We were sat amidst a forest of 2 foot snow "trees" covering the slope from the summit. The sun was surrounded by a completely circular rainbow or arco iris and all around us were other snow capped mountains and deep blue lagoons. We were all elated but completly shattered and had already decided that attempting a second peak that evening was a stupidly impossible idea. We arrived back at the lower base camp about 10hours after we had originally set off, all of us physically and mentally exhausted. After a bite to eat we all collapsed into our tents for the rest of the afternoon.

By the next morning we had all made a full recovery and spent the day learning rapelling and self rescue techniques whilst hanging from large boulders, before heading back to the road head to catch the bus back to Huaraz. We all agreed that if we had another couple of day we would have attempted the second summit. Rainy season was drawing in and bringing with it wet weather every afternoon with snow on the high ground, which means increased avalanche risk and Tom
ánd I both had flights booked to other destinations. His back to London and mine....North...to the Amazon Jungle.