by Frederic Crampe, Sebastien
Galisson, Eric Wintenberger and Javier Gonzalez
The four of us had decided to go in June 2000 to
Bolivia to climb a few peaks over there. We left on June 22nd with
Eric to meet Seb, who was flying from France, in Miami before our connecting
flight to La Paz. Fred had taken off a month before with Erika to do
a bit of tourism in the country before heading off to the Cordillera Real
with us. After Fred greeted us at the airport, we stayed in La Paz for
two days for acclimatization purposes (La Paz is at 3600 m altitude), enjoying
the opportunity to visit the pre-Inca ruins of Tiwanaku, near Lake Titikaka.
Once acclimatized, we were ready to tackle our first objective in the
Condoriri group, Cabeza del Condor (5648 m).
We hired a 4-wheel-drive for the transportation between La
Paz and Tuni, a small village accessible by dirt roads and located
on the side of the lake of the same name. From there, after hiring mules
to carry our heavy gear bags, a short 3-hour hike brought us to Base Camp
(4600 m).
The Condoriri Base Camp is nicely located on the side of a
lake, and the views from there are pretty awesome.
Looking east brings views of the little-crevassed glacier
leading to the summit of Tarija, behind which lies the famous Pequeño
Alpamayo.
But the main view of course is above us, where the majestic
Cabeza del Condor (literally "the head of the condor") is surrounded
by the impressive face of Ala Izquierda ("the left wing") and Ala Derecha
and its steep gullies ("the right wing"). Underneath the central peak
a massive glacier flows down the mountain, forming huge hanging seracs.
In overall, the scenery is breathtaking, as was the view of the summits
during the approach to Base Camp. As soon as we arrived, we picked up a
campsite for our tents and undertook to build a wall to shelter the tents
from the wind.
Next day was a rest day. We were giving ourselves some time
to get acclimatized to the altitude before trying any serious climb.
So we went for a short walk to the bottom the glacier, and then we
climbed the Cerro Mirador (5000 m) above the camp.
We took the opportunity to explore the Cabeza del
Condor with the binoculars, in particular the Directissima of the South
Face that runs straight up the face. This route was our main objective
and consisted of mixed climbing with snow/ice slopes up to 70 degrees
and two 5.7 rock bands. Eric and I had put in some special training for
that by practicing rock climbing with plastic boots at Williamson Rock.
The following day we went to climb Pequeño Alpamayo.
We left early in the morning to start going up the wide glacier east
of the camp.
The slope goes gently up until below the summit
of Tarija (5300 m), which is accessible by a 40 degree slope.
Once up there, we enjoyed the beautiful view on Pequeño
Alpamayo (5370 m). We could gain access to the bottom of the summit by downclimbing
some loose rocks for a few hundred feet. We were able to admire the summit
ridge going up sinuously to the top. It looked sharp and airy.
However, our objective was to climb the southwest face, a 60
degree slope some 200 meters high. While going to the base of the
face, we noticed the snow was not icy at all, on the contrary it was
a kind of sugar-snow. I didn't feel aclimaticed and decided to wait for
the guys there. Fred led the first pitch
and passed the bergschrund in horribly deep fresh snow. Then Eric took
over the lead in the second pitch to climb on a mix of fresh and harder
snow, where it was easier to protect. After going up in a narrow gully,
Eric set up a belay station and the others joined. Seb led the last pitch
leading to the summit ridge and had to deal with a mix of icy parts and
powdery parts. He eventually reached the ridge after an acrobatic move
at the exit, where the rest had to go over a small schrund. Once on the
ridge, they stayed roped up to climb the last few meters to the top. A
few summit pictures later,
and after having enjoyed the magnificent view on
the west face of Huayna Potosi,
they headed down by the ridge line.
The next morning, instead of resting, Fred, Eric and I went
to climb an icefall we had spotted next to the glacier. After 45 minutes
of hiking, we were ready to climb the vertical ice.
Well, the conclusion was obvious: vertical ice climbing
at 5000m is much tougher than at 3000 m!. It took us the entire afternoon
to reach the top of the single pitch icefall...
And eventually, as Eric was preparing the belay
station before going down, some idiot New-Zelander sent us his girlfriend
to take care of,
arguing he had no means of going down. The inexperienced girl
was not very confident and Eric had to lower her down with me, while
her boyfriend was getting impatient. Eventually, the guy lowered himself
down on an ice piton while Eric was
freezing his balls up there ! He did not even thank us...
at least the girl was more friendly with us and thanked us before leaving.
Because of all that mess, Fred and I did not get a chance to climb the
entire pitch....
Email : namascar@hotmail.com