Pastoruri - Peru
10/15/05
Well, we kept on our trekking marathon. Right on the following morning after coming back from Santa Cruz we left for Pastoruri. What we really wanted to do was to summit Pisco, 5752 meters, a very popular mountain near Huaraz. Pisco is an ever snow covered mountain and it requires ice-climbing gear and ice-climbing skills which we didn't have.
To fill up that gap we rented the gear and hired a guide (from Casa de Guias) for an ice-climbing and walking on glacier class. Pastoruri was ideal because of the altitude, 5200 meters and the easy access. It is possible to drive almost all the way to the glacier where we practiced both ice-climbing and walking on glacier with crampons.
The walk from the parking to the glacier is already worth visiting Peru. We arrived there around 8 a.m. and (we left at 6 a.m. from Huaraz) and walked slowly enjoying that environment until we reached the glacier. It was a wonderful sunny day.
At the bottom of the ice, our guide quickly explained how to walk, how to keep the rope and how to use the axe. I was surprised because I thought it would be more complicated but there are no mysteries at all, it is just very tiring.
The guide, obviously, led the way up.
Within not more than half an hour it was possible to watch far away.
Click here for a panoramic
We learned the correct way to walk uphill and downhill, it is different. We also learned what to do if a friend falls, how to block and stop the slide and the most important how to identify potential crevasses.
Here we are going down.
Because the snow was little it was easy to see the crevasses, but holes like this can easily be covered with snow hiding the danger. That is when a good guide is most important.
In this class we could see something I was very curious about. How to set a rappel station on ice.
First he put the long red rope on a little peak of ice as a natural (but quite unreliable) point of safety. Then he cleaned the snow on the left until he got to the ice and screwed down the ice screw (covered on the picture). Then he repeated the same procedure with a second ice screw on the right side (still not screwed on the picture).
And that was it; using that we were belayed down back to the ground from a somewhat 12m high wall of ice.
After we were belayed down to safety our guide came down on his own, with no rope, only relaying on his crampons and ice axe. You can see on the picture the rope is not being used.
For us beginners the rope was mandatory and we did our first ascent on ice climb via top rope.
This one is Angie
It was a very cool class and we found it to be very easy to ice climb, walk with the crampons, which made us very comfortable for the next day in Pisco. Ice climbing is easier then rock climbing because it does not require much technique; as long there is ice you can move up, but it is very tiring too, because the axe has its weight and each hit on the wall demands quite a bit of energy. Anyway we loved it!
After a couple of ascents we started to walk back to the car to head back to Huaraz.
The road that crosses the park does not allow much speed, so we laid back and enjoyed the ride with magnificent sceneries.
We made a couple of short stops on the way before we got out of the park. There is this amazing plant, Puya Raimondi, which is considered to be the tallest flower spike and largest bromeliad in the world. It can grow up to 12m in height and it can live to around 80 to 100 years. Once in its lifetime, it will bloom for 3 months, after which it dies. Apparently, this plant is near extinction now, found only in Peru and Bolivia in locations above 4,000m above sea level. Such an amazing-looking plant!
The land here is loaded with minerals, there is a small pound with an absolute transparent water that allows to see through all the way to the bottom and the walls of it. The blue is amazing, it is like if a computer had put a lake with freaky colors on you screen, but this one is REAL. There are many variations of blue, the borders are redish and the green is also reflected from the bushes and as you move your stand point the colors change too, really awesome.
Another interesting stop was a water exit where gas comes out, but not like geyser, the water is not thrown in the sky but the bubbling (from gas) is constant. The color is also weird, it is red. There is even a sign saying that the water is potable and good for the health. We didn't try, but we snapped a shot.
As we moved out of the park the mountains were more and more distant.
Inside the park there are some people actually living in these huts, they take care of stock of cows.
There is so much mineral that the mountains are rainbow like.
But you don't have to be in the park to have amazing views. Arriving back in Huaraz, it is possible to see from the road part of Cordillera Blanca where Pisco is, our next climb for the following day.
Well, we kept on our trekking marathon. Right on the following morning after coming back from Santa Cruz we left for Pastoruri. What we really wanted to do was to summit Pisco, 5752 meters, a very popular mountain near Huaraz. Pisco is an ever snow covered mountain and it requires ice-climbing gear and ice-climbing skills which we didn't have.
To fill up that gap we rented the gear and hired a guide (from Casa de Guias) for an ice-climbing and walking on glacier class. Pastoruri was ideal because of the altitude, 5200 meters and the easy access. It is possible to drive almost all the way to the glacier where we practiced both ice-climbing and walking on glacier with crampons.
The walk from the parking to the glacier is already worth visiting Peru. We arrived there around 8 a.m. and (we left at 6 a.m. from Huaraz) and walked slowly enjoying that environment until we reached the glacier. It was a wonderful sunny day.
At the bottom of the ice, our guide quickly explained how to walk, how to keep the rope and how to use the axe. I was surprised because I thought it would be more complicated but there are no mysteries at all, it is just very tiring.
The guide, obviously, led the way up.
Within not more than half an hour it was possible to watch far away.
Click here for a panoramic
We learned the correct way to walk uphill and downhill, it is different. We also learned what to do if a friend falls, how to block and stop the slide and the most important how to identify potential crevasses.
Here we are going down.
Because the snow was little it was easy to see the crevasses, but holes like this can easily be covered with snow hiding the danger. That is when a good guide is most important.
In this class we could see something I was very curious about. How to set a rappel station on ice.
First he put the long red rope on a little peak of ice as a natural (but quite unreliable) point of safety. Then he cleaned the snow on the left until he got to the ice and screwed down the ice screw (covered on the picture). Then he repeated the same procedure with a second ice screw on the right side (still not screwed on the picture).
And that was it; using that we were belayed down back to the ground from a somewhat 12m high wall of ice.
After we were belayed down to safety our guide came down on his own, with no rope, only relaying on his crampons and ice axe. You can see on the picture the rope is not being used.
For us beginners the rope was mandatory and we did our first ascent on ice climb via top rope.
This one is Angie
It was a very cool class and we found it to be very easy to ice climb, walk with the crampons, which made us very comfortable for the next day in Pisco. Ice climbing is easier then rock climbing because it does not require much technique; as long there is ice you can move up, but it is very tiring too, because the axe has its weight and each hit on the wall demands quite a bit of energy. Anyway we loved it!
After a couple of ascents we started to walk back to the car to head back to Huaraz.
The road that crosses the park does not allow much speed, so we laid back and enjoyed the ride with magnificent sceneries.
We made a couple of short stops on the way before we got out of the park. There is this amazing plant, Puya Raimondi, which is considered to be the tallest flower spike and largest bromeliad in the world. It can grow up to 12m in height and it can live to around 80 to 100 years. Once in its lifetime, it will bloom for 3 months, after which it dies. Apparently, this plant is near extinction now, found only in Peru and Bolivia in locations above 4,000m above sea level. Such an amazing-looking plant!
The land here is loaded with minerals, there is a small pound with an absolute transparent water that allows to see through all the way to the bottom and the walls of it. The blue is amazing, it is like if a computer had put a lake with freaky colors on you screen, but this one is REAL. There are many variations of blue, the borders are redish and the green is also reflected from the bushes and as you move your stand point the colors change too, really awesome.
Another interesting stop was a water exit where gas comes out, but not like geyser, the water is not thrown in the sky but the bubbling (from gas) is constant. The color is also weird, it is red. There is even a sign saying that the water is potable and good for the health. We didn't try, but we snapped a shot.
As we moved out of the park the mountains were more and more distant.
Inside the park there are some people actually living in these huts, they take care of stock of cows.
There is so much mineral that the mountains are rainbow like.
But you don't have to be in the park to have amazing views. Arriving back in Huaraz, it is possible to see from the road part of Cordillera Blanca where Pisco is, our next climb for the following day.
posted by Adriano and Angie | 12:39 PM
1 Comments:
Ice climbing, looks great!
Climb a frozen waterfall (vertical), and you won't think it's easier than your average 5.9 rock climb. Much more dangerous when your halfway up, swing your ice axe and knock off a chunk of the very icefall your anchored to.
Be careful up there, summer ice is very deceiving.
In Alaska, I know someone who (unroped) fell down a crevasse, slid down a winding melt channel and was never seen again--she should have known better, she was a graduate student studying Glaciology--I guess mother nature said oops you fail.
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