Since
1998
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AS SEEN IN VERTICAL JONES MAGAZINE... verticaljones.com Lima, Huamashraju, and the Peruvian Experience By Jim Stanley The plane landed at 11:30 p.m., ending a 12 hour flight from my Michigan home to the frantic bustle of Lima, Peru's capital city. I followed the other passengers to the first customs station, and any illusions I once had of my two years of high school Spanish getting me by were immediately shattered. At the booth, I approached the customs woman and nervously tried to tell her that I had only personal possessions and mountain climbing gear. Clearly, she was not a climber or she would have recognized the international hand gestures I was using to simulate swinging ice tools. A confused expression and a dismissive wave led me toward the exit. When getting off the plane, a Peruvian living in the U.S. had warned me about getting into strange taxis. And now, held back by a gated fence, hundreds of people were waiting in the parking lot, most waving signs of some sort. Taxi drivers, friends, relatives, loved ones, rapists, serial killers -- all trying to get the attention of the newly-arrived gringos. I was relieved to hear my friend Shaun Parent shout my name as I dragged my luggage to the gate. Always a pal, Shaun tried to get through the gate to help, but as he approached, a security guard grabbed his arm and called him “gringo mierrda” (shitty gringo). Now, Shaun has never been one to turn the other cheek. Besides, he’d been hit over the head with beer bottles not once, but twice, at a bar in Huaraz a few weeks earlier, which made him a bit jumpy. So Shaun just did what came naturally and slapped him a good one upside the head. Leaving the stunned guard at the entrance, Shaun and his friend, Coco, grabbed my stuff and we quickly took off for Coco’s car. When we had reached the exit of the parking lot, the guards threw barriers in front of us and proceeded to shout back and forth with Coco. I understood nothing of their machinegun Spanish. Shaun translated the situation to me -- off the plane 15 minutes and already in trouble. Visions of decrepit, third-world prisons began to dance before my eyes. Coco made a phone call to his brother-in-law (the local police chief) and a few hours later, we were turned loose onto the streets of Lima. Coco dropped us off at our hotel and Shaun and I went out on the town. We turned in at 6:30 a.m., Lima time. I had been up for 24 hours.
After a couple hours of sleep, Coco picked us up again and we took a grand tour of the city. As Coco turned down another old street, he explained that most Americans (North Americans, that is) never leave the “Gringo Trail,” a mapped-out segment of the country that goes from the airport to the South American Explorer’s Club, and then up to Cusco and Machu Picchu. Between Shaun, Coco, and the locals, I would wander far from the so-called Gringo Trail. After the tour, we stopped at a big, open-air market with all sorts of meats, vegetables, and various merchandise. For lunch, Coco took us to a typical, though upscale, Peruvian restaurant, and I ate raw fish marinated in leche tigre, a mixture of lemon juice with onions and other vegetables. That night, a bus from Lima took us into the mountains toward Huaraz. I was expecting some sort of rusting old school bus crammed with more livestock than people, but was surprised to see a modern, diesel Greyhound-type bus with televisions and a meal service. We arrived at Huaraz in the evening, and after a thorough tour of the Huaraz bars, we got some much needed sleep. Sometimes called a Spanish-speaking Chamonix, Huaraz is a town located between the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Negra mountain chains. The location is beautiful and attracts tourists from Lima and around the world. After a day of exploring Huaraz and a hike up a small mountain near the city, Shaun and I decided to plan our climbing strategy. We both wanted to do a big peak and hopefully gain a first ascent. We also needed to find adequate ice to test the prototype ice tools I was designing. We plotted our route over unrolled maps, up through a pastoral region and deep into the Peruvian mountains, and after careful consideration, narrowed our choices down to two peaks in the Cordillera Blanca range: Cashan (18,750 feet) and Huamashraju (18,000 feet), both of which were substantial ascents accessible from the same basecamp. Content with our plan, we decided to gain the basecamp and make the final decision as to which mountain we would ascend from there. Early the next morning, the taxi (a station wagon with the token fuzzy seat and dashboard covers) drove Shaun, his friends Vincente and Carlos, and me through town and up a rough dirt road to Vincente's village. The overloaded Toyota protested the punishing drive by dragging various parts of its aging underbelly along the ground and slipping its clutch most of the way up the mountain. Speaking a mixture of Spanish and native Quechwa, Vincente and his father loaded up some burros and horses in the village and we were off. We followed a river valley upstream from the village and toward our basecamp. The valley was a beautiful area of farm and pasture. The stream running through the valley started as glacial meltwater high in the mountains, flowing down through the pasturelands. The farmers we saw along the way were mostly squatters surviving on subsistence farming at its most basic level. Having no tractors or other modern machinery, they plowed the land with oxen. In one field, a group of farmers stood together, separating handfuls of wheat by throwing it into the air and letting the wind catch the grains. Eventually, we came upon an impasse in the trail. A fence made of piled rocks extended across the entire valley. The only way by was through a locked gate. The horses would have to be sent back. At the far side of the fence, a tiny village of small huts, constructed of piled rocks and thatched roofs, sat peacefully in the late afternoon half-light. We carried our cargo over the stone fence and made camp there.
Looking straight down the valley, there was a spectacular view of the 21,000-foot Juanstan. Juanstan is a huge mountain, not merely tall, but incredibly wide. Its upper glaciers are so big that when they migrate down, they extend the snowline to a much lower altitude than any of the surrounding peaks. To the left of Juanstan is Huamashraju and to the right, Cashan. Shaun and I spent the next couple days climbing and hiking in the valley, searching for access to Huamashraju and Cashan. Beyond the exploratory effort, these days helped me to acclimatize and become familiar with the region. After mapping out a good approach and a feasible route, we decided to attempt Huamashraju. We would start at night and climb it in one big push from basecamp. That afternoon, we organized our gear and prepared for the ascent. I would use two of the ice tools I had designed (SOP Mantas) and Shaun would use one of my tools and one of his own.
At midnight, Shaun woke me and we began the climb. As we climbed up the side of the valley, Shaun said he spotted a cow. Cow, my ass! That thing had balls! And it was obviously not happy about our trespass. I picked up a few rocks and moved warily past. The full moon glazed the sky with its pale light, and the valley walls slowly steepened into a third class scramble over rocks both large and small. About an hour before dawn, we were approaching the snowline and decided to sleep awhile and let the sunlight guide us to the snow and ice. But as I tried to sleep, my body quickly became very cold. Restlessly, I pulled out an emergency space blanket but found that it did little good since most of my heat was being lost through the bone-chilling rock beneath me. Recognizing my full-body shudders as the early warning signs of hypothermia, I pulled out the stove to heat up some Gatorade. Soon, my body was warmed again. As the sun began to rise, we trekked our way toward the snowline. Finally on the snow, we each tied in to an end of the rope, strapped on our crampons, and pulled out the ice tools. Shaun ascended first. As the rope came taut, I began to climb. The tool swung and the sharp pick bit deeply into the hard snow. We began the climb, alternating styles as the steepness or terrain required. Low angles allowed a relaxed French technique with the feet and minimal tool use. The steeper terrain required front pointing and the use of both tools. Every placement was solid and I moved with smooth, rhythmic confidence.
Using an SOP Manta to fix Shaun's crampon.
As we ascended, I tried to stay conscience of any signs of altitude sickness. Since I had been at altitude for less than a week, even light effort demanded fast, deep breathing. Initially, I tied my figure-eight wrong, but was sharp enough to catch the mistake. I knew I would have to be extra cautious. The pounding in my head caused my eyes to blur for a moment with each heartbeat. This didn't slow me down, but it was fairly disconcerting. The climb went well for the next couple hundred feet as we followed a rock band to avoid avalanche danger. The crux came near the top of this band and consisted of a traverse across a nearly vertical section of soft snow. Shaun set up a snow stake belay next to the rock band and started off. He traversed about 35 feet and placed a snow stake of marginal worth. From there, he went up and left, then back right above to the belay. Had he fallen and the snow stake failed, he would have taken a nasty swing into the wall. I started out cautiously and eventually neared the stake where the snow got very soft and steep. My ice tools had almost no holding power and I teetered on marginal foot placements. Lacking secure tool placements, my careful balance was the only thing that kept me from falling backwards. I easily plucked the snow stake from the powder and secured it to my backpack. Since Shaun had angled back to the right, I also ran the risk of a hard swing into the rock. We decided that I should traverse back right and come straight up, but the traverse back was more difficult than the traverse over. I moved very slowly and carefully until finally making my way to genuine water ice. The pick struck the ice solidly, sinking deep and hard. Damn, that felt good. I moved up to join Shaun at the belay and catch my breath. We didn’t have much time to waste since the equatorial sun would soon hit the slope and potentially turn the snow to slush. The snow above was soft and deep, and Shaun quickly sank in up to his waist. He looked more like a snowplow than a climber as he trudged through it. Even though we were almost able to spit to the top, it seemed like we might not make it. Briefly, we considered a retreat, but then decided to go for it. Shaun plowed on and eventually angled up and left, finding harder snow and the end of the rope. Now it was my turn to plow. The pitch was frustrating, and demanded me to pick up each foot to about knee height, step and then slide back down, gaining mere inches with each effort. Step, slide, gasp, repeat. I angled more sharply to the left than Shaun and gained the harder snow sooner. From the belay, a short section of rock led to the summit. We completed our route and stood on top of Huamashraju a good hour before noon. My first peak in Peru had never been done before, and the fact that I used tools of my own design made it even better. We took pictures and patted ourselves on the back, then started down feeling happy, proud, and exhausted. At the lake, we cooked some dehydrated food and replenished our water supply. It had taken 11 hours to go up, but only four hours down. Funny thing, gravity. Over freshly killed and cooked chicken and warm cervezas, we decided to name it the Can-Am Route. Not a bad first climb in Peru.
Me on the summit with Mantas.
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Ordering Manta Ice Tools Helios Ice Axes Ti TENT PEGS Ti SCREW CLEANERS Motorcycle Gear Motorcycle Tours Send mail to Jim Stanley with
questions or comments about this web site. 303-719-3870
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JUMP! White man, Jump! Jumping a crevasse solo, unroped on Pisco. Just before
dawn.
Heading in with the
burros. Juanstan in the background.
Shaun (right) and me
in basecamp.
Carlos, me (cooking),
and some local kids in basecamp.
Shaun on lead.
Shaun on the summit with Mantas.
Me after
soloing Pisco, Manta straight shaft tool in hand. Huandoy in background.
OLD
FART. I climbed this 17,000 ft peak (forget the name) on my 30th
birthday. Just after the picture, I cried at the top of my lungs, "Father
Time, I piss on thee from on high!" I flipped him off with the free hand. 
The Huandoy
massif, as seen from near high camp on Pisco. Near the center is an avalanche.
I heard about 20 slides on this ice field from high camp. Narraswan had wanted to
climb Huandoy via a route at the right edge of the picture. I'm glad I decided to
solo Pisco instead!
Making friends in the jungle. He was
fun to play with, but the next day, I had flea bites all over both arms!