La Esfinge

These past 5 days have been quite amazing and physically challenging.  Early Wednesday morning, we got our gear together and took a bus from Huaraz to Caraz, then all the way up a valley to Laguna Paron.  It was a long, curvy bus ride but the destination we arrived at was spectacular.  The Laguna itself sits at 4,170 meters in elevation, has a sky blue tint, and is surrounded on all sides by snow-capped mountains. 

After stretching our legs for a bit, we started off our 3-hour hike to the base camp of La Esfinge.  This is when things started to become difficult for me.  First off, base camp was at nearly 4,700 meters (15,420 ft.), which is higher than the tallest peaks in the USA.  Secondly, carrying 40 kilograms (88 lbs.) up 500 vertical meters was no easy task.  I will definitely pack less next time, for example: Dry fruits and nets instead of fresh foods, fewer changes of clothes, an to bring my water containers empty when I know there will be a fresh source at base camp.  Now, about that altitude, I had never been that high above sea level before and certainly was not acclimatized by then.  Every step seemed to take twice as much effort, and each lungful was only half as satisfying.  Also, the elevation did strange things to my head an stomach, but luckily those pains subsided after a couple days.

We reached base camp a couple hours before night fall, set up our tents, and got to cooking dinner.  Duncan, Sang, and Checho got their gear prepared for their 3-person ascent of the classic, 750-meter, 20-pitch route up the face of La Esfinge.  Their single-day ascent began the following day at 5:30 A.M., and they returned that night around 10 P.M.  There’s truly nothing like looking up at the massive skyscraper of a wall and searching it for small dots that are your friends making their way up.  Their climb was truly inspiring and something I’d love to accomplish, but I don’t deem myself physically ready nor do I have enough experience with such monumental rock faces.

Even though I didn’t make it to the top, just living at base camp was spectacular in itself.  From where we slept, we had a prime view of Huandoy (6,360 m), the second-tallest peak in the Cordilleras Blancas.  You really get the feeling that the mountains here are alive, with their tall, steep peaks slicing through the sky and forming clouds, or the consistent avalanches occurring several times a day.  The weather is very subject to change up in the mountains as well:  It can go from blistering hot sun in the day to cloudy with snow in a matter of minutes, and the nights are indeed very cold.

On Friday, two other members of our group, Mau and Diego, decided to climb La Esfinge as well, except this time they would try it in two days and sleep half way up the face on a ledge.  Taking that extra time means extra weight, and also a very cold nights sleep, however the two climbers made it half way the first day and endured the night up high on the terrace.  The following day, they had trouble finding the route, and decided to rappel down instead of staying up and testing their chances.  Sometimes you have to make hard decisions like that when you wish to accomplish such a great feat.

Sunday morning, we packed up camp and headed back down the mountain.  The hike that took me 4 hours to get up only took about 2 hours back down.  Getting back down to 4,000 meters also felt great on my lungs and body.  We waited around for a taxi for a bit, and also walked around the Laguna.  We finally found a small bus that we could cram into, had it take us down, and then we stopped off at a little restaurant for some good food and beer. 

The adventure was great, and I’ll have to return one day, but for now I plan on resting.  Tomorrow, I head to Hatun Machay for some of Peru’s best sport climbing at 4,200 meters.  I’ll let you all know how that went at the end of the week.

Chao!

P.S.

For those of you that are friends with me on Facebook, check out my page for new pictures that I posted of this past week!