Brief update after climbing in the Ishinca Valley
We’re back in Huaraz after a 10-day trip up to the Ishinca Valley. Basically, we were able to climb two medium-sized peaks there — Ishinca, and Urus Este. Both of them were beautiful and incredibly rewarding, and while neither one was technically difficult, it gave us some some well-needed experience and let us focus on acclimitization.
We opted not to try Tocllaraju during that visit to the valley, since I was feeling pretty sub-par, both in terms of health and acclimitization. Nothing serious, but enough to keep us from wanting to bump it up a notch out of concern for safety.
Since this is our 10th anniversary, we opted to go all out, and hired a cook, Elias, for this particular trip to basecamp. He stayed with us in basecamp, and prepared all of our meals. Let me say that this was one of the best decisions that we made so far! Elias’s cooking was out of this world, and it was such a luxury to have all of your meals prepared and cleaned for you, without having to worry about getting sick because of the food or water (the cooks are very careful). We had a cook tent and dining tent (which we actually just used as a gear tent so that we could hang out with Elias). We got to try a lot of Peruvian dishes, as well as some good old standbys that taste out of this world after a hard day or two.
Speaking of luxury, we hired five burros to carry all of the loads up to basecamp and back for us. Actually, practically everyone does this, but it sure felt luxurious! Climbing in Peru is quite a switch from what we’re used to.
We found out that the 18th was Elias’s birthday, so we turned the cooking tent into la discoteca using a bunch of headlamps on blink mode, and an iPod and speakers supplied by some other Americans. Party!
Basecamp is beautiful, with all of the white mountains surrounding the moraine and meadow. There were probably 50 people there at any one time, but it didn’t feel crowded. Just about everyone that we met was friendly and incredibly helpful, since we’re mountaineering novices.
We fit in a couple days of rock climbing on a granite cliff above basecamp, and on some sweet boulders down in the valley floor. The rock in this valley is amazing, and amazingly similar to Yosemite in some locations. We saw someone on what must be a new route on a pretty impressive overhung wall on the way out.
Still no chance to offload pictures, I’ll post them along with some more details as soon as I can.
We don’t know what our plans are next, but we’ll probably head out to another peak after a day or so of replenishing and reorganizing.
By the way, we did get to go bouldering and mountain biking before leaving for Ishinca Valley. Both were outstanding. The mountain biking here is phenomenal, and getting shown thousands of vertical feet of singletrack by a local was an absolute treat. More pictures and info on the riding when I get a chance, maybe after we get back.