Trip Report — Cordillera Blanca Part 3 (Alpamayo and Quitaraju attempts)
Logistics and planning
After our successful Artesonraju expedition, Andreas, Matt and I agreed that we would tackle Alpamayo and Quitaraju next. Alpamayo (5,947m) needs no introduction and suffice to say that it was crowned as the “world’s most beautiful mountain” in 1977 and has become an increasingly crowded route since. Quitaraju (6,036m or 19,820 ft.) sits opposite Alpamayo, and its North Face is a beautiful ramp that leads to a very famous ridge. Both mountains share the same high camp, so if you can it makes sense to attempt both given that, well, you are already up there.
Ordinarily, the approach to high camp takes four days: two days to base camp from the Santa Cruz trailhead, another day to Morraine camp, and finally high camp. A four-day approach has its benefits (shorter days, easier on the body after base camp where you don’t have donkeys), but it also extends the trip and, in my mind, increases fatigue and mental exhaustion. After some brief discussion, we settled on having one rest day after Artesonraju and then going up to high camp in three days instead of the usual four. We would then spend two or three days at high camp and would attempt both peaks, being flexible to avoid the crowds at Alpamayo (we had heard reports of days in which up to 40 people are trying to summit via a single couloir and you have ice, carabiners and whatnot falling on you. Not my style, thanksverymuch). Personally, I would have preferred another rest day, but, given some team schedule considerations, I agreed it made sense to go on one rest day, and, if necessary, take one high up the mountain.
We spent our rest day as we usually did, which is not quite resting. Instead, we bought food, reupped on pickets, and attempted to hire a couple of donkeys to get our gear to base camp. Unfortunately, some well-intentioned person had introduced the arrieros of the Santa Cruz Valley to the concept of cartelization and monopsony, so they refused to negotiate rates in advance. Instead, you had to show up to the trailhead and, quite literally, go from there.
Approach
We set off on the right foot and had a hilarious three-hour ride in an unofficial taxi with the owner of a local transportation company. A couple of times Matt, who sat in the front, had to point at approaching traffic, which made sense considering our driver only wore his glasses whenever he saw a police officer nearby. As usual, he kept the windows wide open while driving in incredibly dusty roads, which led all of us to wear either bandanas or buffs to try to avoid the dust with varying degrees of success. In any event, we made it to Santa Cruz trailhead around 9:30am. We had high hopes of meeting some trekking groups as, for reasons that I do not understand, the Santa Cruz trek is quite popular with hikers. I mean, I guess there are a couple of mountains you can see, and there’s a stream flowing next to the trail, but that’s pretty much it.
Now onto the negotiation with the burro cartel. As of a couple of years ago, all the arrieros in the valley formed an association, and since then you negotiate directly with its president, who then assigns you an arriero. Obviously, this prevents you from shopping around, and, more importantly, completely kills your negotiating leverage, as you are already at the trailhead, with all of your gear, and a schedule to keep to. Rather than pointlessly charge up the haggling hill, we surrendered unconditionally and accepted terms from our clearly superior counterpart. After a very long hour, our assigned arriero came back with three donkeys — at least one of which we did not need. Onwards…
The trailhead starts at 2,900 meters and goes up a steep hill before making a turn to the proper Santa Cruz Valley. We decided to enjoy ourselves and get into the trekker mode, which Andreas brilliantly captured by jumping in front of a river (a climber’s view of what a trekker does, clearly). A couple of ours later, we made it to Yamacorral, the campsite halfway up base camp. You could conceivably make it to base camp on a single day, but that would mean ~25km of hiking and 1,500m of vertical gain. Hard but doable. Understandably, the arrieros do not like to put their donkeys through that type of workout, and thus we stopped at Yamacorral. We shared the site with a couple of other climbing parties, which didn’t worry us, as we knew we would gain a day on them by pushing all the way up to morraine camp the next day.
After a very civilized 8am start, we set off for base camp. Having not felt particularly great the day before (I blame it on some bad pizza in Huaraz), I was happy to see my energy coming back. Andreas and I set off at a brisk pace, and Matt caught up with us at the first break, where he mentioned he wasn’t feeling too well. We slowed down for the second half of the trail, and proceeded to slog it all the way to the detour towards base camp. I will say that I found the trail unremarkable, but for some excellent views of Taillaraju and Artesonraju. Otherwise it was a boring slog over relatively flat terrain until we hit the switchbacks that would get us to base camp. We made it in 3.5 hours, right on time for lunch, which consisted of a decadent combination of chicken noodle soup and avocado, salami and cheddar cheese sandwiches.
Since we did not have porters, from Base Camp onwards we would have to carry everything ourselves. We spent some time trimming unnecessary gear (bye bye inflatable pillow!) and packing food, fuel, and equipment for the hike up to Morraine camp. While short (~600 meters of vertical gain over 2km), this is steep and, well, a morraine. Off we went, and at least I was slightly jealous of all the guided parties and their porter teams taking gear up the mountain. I guess it’s more poetic when you do everything yourself. The trail itself is very easy to follow, and the one thing I’d highlight is that you should keep left at the very obvious fork about 40% of the way up. IF you go right you’ll still get to camp, but the left trail is easier to climb and follow. Morraine camp itself is at ~4,900m, which is just about the same altitude as Artesonraju’s high camp, and ~2,000m higher than our starting point.
After a mediocre night’s sleep driven by our tent’s inclination and the cold front from the previous evening we set off to walk the short distance to the glacier and make our way to high camp. Matt was not feeling well again, so Andreas and I took the bulk of the common gear (with Andreas, as always, pulling way more than his weight in this situation). You should not underestimate the glacier. We had the benefit of following very well-defined tracks, but otherwise I can see it can provide some interesting navigational challenges. I led the way, and while we stopped a few times to help Matt catch his breath, we did fine otherwise.
The real challenge starts once you get close to the right of the rock buttress which signals the beginning of the climb to the Alpamayo-Quitaraju col. While in previous years this has supposedly been a relatively straightforward snow climb, this year we had to negotiate a meaningful amount of steep ice. Following an easy first ice step (~15–20 feet), which we soloed, you then have to climb three longer steps (~30–50 feet) to get to the col. A guided group was setting up a fixed line, so we just used their anchors for our belays, but otherwise we would have had to break out the screws and pickets. Andreas, as usual, led the technical sections, and Matt and I followed behind.
High camp this year was located right below the col (as opposed to ~100 meters below closer to the Alpamayo bergschrund), which made our lives a lot easier. We found two spots in the corner and, without the benefit of porters and shovels, aimed to build two relatively flat platforms with relatively little success. At 5,400 meters (~17,800 ft.) It was the highest any of us had camped, and I found it tough. In addition to the obvious altitude effects on your body (breathing, slowness), everything about the camp is brutal. Melting snow takes forever (especially since we did not bring white gas stoves to save on weight), the temperatures fluctuate between 80–85 degrees during the day to 15–20 degrees at night (Fahrenheit), and the sun just burns you. And this is where you are supposedly resting and getting ready for your big summit day.
Following our Artesonraju experience, we made the rounds with the guides to understand everyone’s plans and realized that ~20 people would be climbing Alpamayo the next day, not including the four guides who would be setting up a fixed line to the summit. That pretty much meant we wouldn’t climb Alpamayo, so the question became whether we could climb Quitaraju. Having only brought four pickets, we were hesitant to embark on an eight-pitch route without knowing whether we could rely on ice or previous anchors for the descent. Fortunately, we found out a very thoughtful guide, Marco, and his not-very-thoughtful client would be going up Quitaraju the next day. Perfect. We would be attempting the north face — a beautiful, 8-pitch ramp of 50–60 degree neve that would lead us to the summit ridge.
Quitaraju attempt
While keen to attempt Quitaraju, I was not feeling in shape to do so. I think the combination of the shorter approach (three days instead of four), the heavy carry from morraine camp to high camp, and the lack of a proper recovery at high camp took a meaningful toll on me. However, in spite of not feeling well, I rallied in the morning, and we were on our way just shy of 2am.
We went down from high camp and crossed the glacier briskly. There were clear tracks, but even without them navigation here seems straightforward once you circumvent the moulin following the lower high camp. Afterwards, you start gaining elevation on increasingly vertical terrain until reaching the bergschrund, which we did right around 3:30am or so. Unfortunately, the place we thought we could cross at was not passable, so we had to undertake a bit of exploration. More worringly to me, the places we were now thinking of crossing at were right under a pretty clear avalanche slab. I figured we could first find a crossing, and then figure out what to do and whether to keep charging. Andreas and I found a promising spot further to the right, and he set off to figure out whether we could cross there. After realizing the spot wouldn’t work, he finally found a workable, if painful path nearby. It consisted of climbing ~25–30 feet of 60–70 degree ice to a snow bench. From there, you would get on a seemingly solid snow bridge to climb another 30–40 feet of ice before getting on the proper north face of the mountain.
After Andreas, Marco, and Marco’s client had crossed, I started to go up. I made it past the first ice step, but then found myself hanging on the rope after the snow bridge collapsed right under me before I got onto the second ice step. Suddenly, I’m dangling my feet and trying to get my tools onto the ice. I thought I had hurt my knee, which thankfully wasn’t the case. It took me a few minutes, but I was able to climb out of the crevasse and onto the face. Once we were all on the face, we agreed to stay right of the slab (and of Marco and his party) and attempt a direct ascent onto the ridge. We were in business.
We simul-climbed the entirety of the face, which consisted of excellent neve with occasional patches of ice. We were having a blast climbing, and, other than the awfully cold temperatures, everything was working out to plan. I still didn’t feel well but managed to keep up with the the team. However, right around 6 or 7am my mouth started bleeding. Thinking at first it was coming from my lungs, I got very concerned until quickly realizing that the cold had just chapped my lips. I went into full-blown cold-fighting mode, getting my puffy on as well as couple of additional layers.
Eventually, the neve gave way to brittle and unstable ice, and we realized our best bet was to cross onto the northeast face and see if we could get up the remaining pitch onto the ridge. Alas, this face receives sun from very early in the morning, and by the time we got there, the climbing was quite sketchy. Our tools were getting no purchase, and whenever you stepped higher you had to double-check to make sure the snow would hold. Obviously, pickets in these conditions are pretty close to useless, so you can’t really protect the climb. While we thought we could make it to the summit (we were only 50–60 vertical meters away from it), we just didn’t know how we would get down. And, as it happens often in this game called alpinism, we turned around. The descent was thankfully straightforward, as we shared pickets with Marco and his client, and we also found pickets left by a previous team. We were off the mountain around 10am, and we were back at camp around 12:30pm or so.
Having come so close to the summit, it would seem easy to second-guess our choices or feel disappointed about the outcome. Not the case. As I see it, our main goal is, first and foremost, to come back alive. Secondly, for me Quitaraju was all gut. Don’t get me wrong, climbing Artesonraju was very difficult, but I felt in great shape going into the climb. Here, I did not and thus had to draw on all my willpower and willingness and ability to push through the pain to get it done. Knowing I can do that is, in a way, a bigger reward than actually getting to the summit. Of all the things we did in Peru, I consider the Quitaraju attempt to be the most successful one.
Alpamayo non-attempt
At camp, we discussed going up Alpamayo the next morning. Given the fixed line was already in place, the climb would be meaningfully easier than the usual alpine style approach. Following our Quitaraju attempt I was spent. Physically, sure, but also emotionally. I couldn’t get any sleep in the afternoon, and the evening was no better. My fingers and toes were still hurting a bit, and I had to get out in the middle of the night to reinforce the tent after the wind started picking up. So, when our 12:30am alarm went off, I decided to sit the attempt out. I was really bummed about it, and for a few days second-guessed myself on whether I had made the right call. I believe I did, though. Fixed line or not, Alpamayo is a serious mountain at a serious altitude. I didn’t feel I could contribute to the team or have the stamina necessary to reach the summit. There will be another time.
Matt and Andreas did go for it and summited at sunrise. I was thrilled for them and congratulated them upon their return to camp. We decided to get out as soon as possible, and we were on the way right around 10am. Andreas and Matt were total champions in helping me with packing, as I was not feeling well. I really appreciated it at the time and still do. We got to Base Camp on time for lunch and decided to continue the journey to Yamacorral. If the hike was a slog on the way in, it was even more of a slog on the way out. We hit a lucky break at Yamacorral, though, as a trekking party offered us space in their transfer to Huaraz the next morning. After a few beers, we were happy to be sleeping at a normal altitude again (3,700 meters) following three nights at 4,900 meters or higher and eating non-freeze-dried food again.
Epilogue
Following our return to Huaraz (and our usual shenanigans of massive drinks and dinner at Trivio), I decided to accelerate my departure and leave for NYC a few days early. Not only did I want to get back to the city more quickly (the pangs of being away from the people you love), but also I had already done what I wanted to do in Peru. I came in thinking it’d be a dream to attempt three specific mountains (Artesonraju, Alpamayo, and Quitaraju), and I got to summit one of them and almost summit another. I also met some remarkable folks. Andreas and Matt first and foremost; some incredible Peruvian guides who were generous with their beta and, occasionally, their pickets (Marco, Elder, Francisco), the hilarious and upbeat manager of our logistics agency, and the list goes on. I’m probably not coming back next year, but we did discuss coming back in 2018 to tackle more interesting and challenging objectives. Who knows where I’ll be in 2018, but, at this point, the Blanca is as good a guess as anywhere else.
