Bolivia

Seven years ago I came down to Bolivia to climb two mountains. After completing the first mountain (Illimani - 2nd tallest), I was pretty destroyed, distraught, and depressed. I opted not to go for the second mountain (Sajama - tallest) and instead flew home, with my dream of Everest on hold, if not extinguished. 

Now I have returned solely for the purpose of climbing that missed peak. It is the highest in Ecuador, and due to unforeseen circumstances on this trip, the highest I will have ever climbed thus far. Seven years is a long time to think about redeeming yourself on something that maybe you should have done the first time if you had just been stronger, tougher, more focused.

Like everything on this trip, the plans changed quickly. Upon arriving in La Paz, I was told by my guide that instead of driving to the park and climbing to base camp on the first day we would instead drive to the park and stay in a "hostel." Then we would climb directly to the high camp the next day. This would mean one less night in a tent and instead sleeping in the bed. However, it would make the climb longer on the first & last day, which considering we go for the summit at midnight is essentially the same day. I was cold all day and the ride took 8 hours to get there. I was not pleased and when we found our hostel, I learned it was just an adobe hut that had a toilet but no running water so I had to flush it by dumping a bucket of water in it. It did have electricity and there was a weak cell phone signal if I stood outside. Chilled to the bone I went to bed under four blankets with everything warm that I brought. 

Sajama morning, afternoon and night 

Morning was not much better. 6:00 a.m. breakfast and pile into the car to head to the start of the climb. It was cold but like all climbs it warmed up in time. We hiked from the road out to the base camp and then up the ridge. It was easy walking and did not take all that long. However, once we started up the Northwest Ridge, things got more difficult. It was all volcanic ash and scree and for every step I took I lost at least 50% of the distance sliding downwards. This was energy draining and frustrating. However, the climb that was supposed to take 7 hours was done in under 5. The problem for me was that we had porters and had not seen them the whole day. This meant that my climbing gear and warm clothes and the tents and food were with the porters hours behind us. I laid on a rocky plateau for 4 hours waiting for the porters to arrive, tired from the hike, wind, and sun. Our guide had to hike back down and help them. It would be after 5:00 p.m. before our tents were set up. We'd climbed 1000m to high camp (5650m) and still had more scree and scrambling before the snow ridge. The climb began after midnight.

Dinner (and the next day's lunch) of champions 

High camp looking up 100m to the summit 

This mountain is best viewed in about five parts. 

Part 1: The Scree

Even though most of the way up the mountain to this point had been scree, after a short rest at high camp we are greeted with another patch of disgusting, slippery, ash. For 1 hour we worked our way up this scree field, in huge mountain boots, sliding all over the place. The beginning of a climb is always tiring and you need to establish a rhythm by putting your head down and just moving up the mountain. This was impossible here. 

Part 2: The Gully

After 1 hour, we hit crampon point and put on the crampons to climb a steep snow gully. Normally this would present no problem but the ice on this mountain was pretty crusty. We roped up for about two and a half pitches and made it to the top. It would be the best part of the climb up. 

Part 3: The Ridge Traverse

At the top of the gully the snow stopped and rock resumed. Unfortunately, we were in our big mountain boots and crampons at this point so, while a little bit of scrambling over rock walls can be fun on a climb, it was torture at this point. The crampons made eerie scraping noises as we worked our way across rock, up cracks, and around boulders. 

Part 4: Penitentes 

Spanish for "huge pain in my ass," the next part of the climb were the dreaded penitentes. These are knee, often hip, sometimes even shoulder-high pinnacles of ice that have formed from the wind and the melt on the ridge. They're incredibly difficult to climb through, and my guide kept hacking the tops off these as we went. At first, I thought this was to make it easier for me to go through when I was following, then I thought it would be easier for us to climb down by having a clear route. At last, I decided that he wasn't doing this for any logistical reasons and was instead pounding the crap out of the mountain out of pure frustration. 

The dreaded penitentes 

Part 5: The Dome

The last part of the climb is the prominent snow dome that can be seen from all sides of the mountain. This should be an easy portion of the climb, but the ice was particularly bad making for slippery a sand and descent. 

Sajama is known for three things: the wind, the penitentes, and the scree. While the latter two were prominent, thankfully, the wind was down for the first part of our climb. It was an incredibly frustrating first hour up through the screen, constantly slipping off the trail, sliding backwards, and just not having any purchase in our footholds. It was incredibly draining to start a climb this way. My hands were cold immediately and I was concerned that this was the mark of more bad things to come. However, my guide swapped me gloves and using the mittens he provided and a hand warmer, my fingers soon came back to functionality and stayed that way for most of the climb. 

Climbing up the gully and traversing the rock ridge went fine early in the climb although not easy. When we hit the penitentes, our patience was minimal. This section of the climb is incredibly hard to navigate because you can't just keep moving forward. Each step requires careful foot placement and a lot of navigating around the obstacles. Not only was it challenging on the surface, but to this point we had seemingly gained very little elevation. My watch was showing that we were moving at just over 100m per hour, which is incredibly slow. I was willing to give up some pace for the technical difficulty, but this was ridiculous. 

The penitentes are supposed to end by 6,300m, but by 6100m we were out of the danger. Later, I would find that this was because my watch was not reading accurately. However, at the time, we still had quite a ways to go and I was growing increasingly tired of the pace my guide was setting. He was stopping often, which left me getting colder and colder. My mantra was to just put my head down and plow forward. The wind had now picked up and chilled me to the bone. Just as I was about to lose all of my patience, we hit a huge crevasse. The guy suggested we go sit in the bottom of it to get out of the wind and think about what to do. It was obvious his hands were freezing so I offered him a hand warmer. We started up the crevasse again and decided to work our way around it, safely passing. From here we continued up the dome, albeit much slower than I would have preferred. 

After trudging forward for a while, the slope lessened, and we were on the top of the mountain. At first I did not believe it. My watch was reading at only about 6,300m. All of the peaks around us looked just as high, if not higher. But as the sun began to rise, it became obvious we were on the summit; there just was nowhere else to go. It was very flat (they have even played a soccer match up here) and there was nothing reachable within miles, reinforcing that we were in fact on top of mountain. After taking the summit photo, we warmed up a little bit with the dawn, and then started back down. It would be one of the worst climbing experiences of my life. I have been very cold, I have been in bad wind, and I've been very tired. However, none of those factors were an issue this time. 

Summit 6,542 m (21,463 ft)

The mountain casts its shadow just after sunrise on our way down.

The route down was just a frustrating mess. Starting with the dome, the hard ice made down climbing particularly dangerous. We had to go much slower than I would have liked in order to not risk a slip and fall. After a long slog down one step at a time, we reached the dreaded penitentes. Navigating through these going down was 100 times worse than it was going up. Every foot placement had to be carefully calculated as the ice formations would crumble the slightest step. The height of the ice pinnacles made stepping down over them particularly challenging. If the ice broke or you slipped, you got an icicle the size of a toddler up your butt. This went on for far longer than I would ever wish upon anyone. When the awful section was over, we had some dangerous down climbing on rocks. Again, with crampons on, this was much harder than it should have been. All necessary rock technique was called upon to skirt this section of the ridge. Nearly exhausted, we hit the ice gully, and again, what should have been a simple down climb was far more challenging than expected. We alternated belays, not wanting to risk a fall so close to the end. What could have been 5 minutes of down climbing or 15 minutes of rappels was more like 30 to 45 minutes. Finally, we took off the crampons, but the work was not done. I still had to navigate the scree field and this became the crux of the climb. In all of my heavy gear I was sweating, tired, and frustrated with this peak, but it would not let me go. I hiked down with rocks sliding out from underneath me and I fell numerous times, covering my sweaty body and gear with silt and dust. After climbing all night, it is quite debilitating to fall on your ass repeatedly. 

We finally made camp and I had a few choice words for this mountain. We packed hastily, and thankfully the porters were there to take my bag down. However, it may have skipped my mind (or likely been blocked out) that we now had a huge down climb in the scree field. Again I fell repeatedly as any given step could send hundreds of pounds of rock sliding, not just a foot or two, but tumbling down the mountain. Not only is this incredibly frustrating and energy zapping, but it's very dangerous too. Huge rocks can tumble hundreds of feet and take out anyone that was hiking ahead of me. Rocks, dust, and dirt all seeped into my shoes leading to more discomfort than had already accumulated. The scree section lasted for long enough to drive me absolutely crazy. As the sun beat down, we struggled further and further away from the mountain eventually reaching the flats again. However, we still had several miles to hike out and although the trail was much better, it was hot and it was a long climb and I was very exhausted by the time we hit the road. I had been on the move for 14 hours and was quite ready to be finished. The climb had been about 900m elevation gain to the summit, and then about 2,500m down to the road.

View from near base camp (which we didn't use). High camp is on the ridge to the left.

Whenever you're on a mountain you're probably alone somewhat, no matter who else is around. It's just an isolating thing to be in such a huge space with so few people, sometimes confined to your tent alone or walking solitary along the trail. I was flabbergasted that on the country's tallest peak we were the only ones there. There was not another team going up or coming down. Only when we came down from on high past the base came did we see people heading up. I felt sorry for them, knowing what lie ahead. 

I was pretty exhausted, dehydrated, and disappointed. I'd been climbing for half a day (essentially all night) with nothing but a mad packing job at high camp as respite. A quick trip to the hot springs post-climb was probably the highlight of this endeavor. This may be the highest mountain in Bolivia, but that's all it has going for it. I would definitely recommend skipping it as there are far better climbs out there. However, at the end of the day, I summited, knocked off a peak that had sent me home earlier 7 years ago, and I'd also reached my highest altitude yet.

Hot springs post climb with Sajama in the background.

My last meal in the mountains: alpaca

Mountains - Part 2: Illimani (Bolivia)

This post is the second in a two-part series where I recap climbs from the past that were never posted.  This installment is going back 1 year ago to 2017 when I ventured alone to Bolivia to scale Mt. Illimani and Sajama, the two highest peaks in Bolivia.  They are posted in the present so they do not get buried under previous posts. Much of the language comes from my journal at the moment.

June, 2017
This trip started in the worst way possible. We didn't get the house we made an offer on. Then I dropped my phone, cracking it.  We drove to the airport and got stuck in 1.5 hours of traffic, only to find my flight delayed, then delayed again so that I would miss my connection.  I flew to Miami on a later flight and missed departing to Bolivia by 15 minutes.  I was put up in a terrible airport hotel for 24 hours until the next plane left.  Little did I know that check-out was at 11am, so by the time I got there and laid down, I had to leave and park my butt in the airport for most of the day.

Upon arriving in La Paz, I made my way to my hotel, albeit a day later than planned.  Thankfully, they amended the reservation and didn't charge me for it, which was nice, and warranted since the room didn't have hot water, an English-speaking television channel, or decent wifi, but they did have an ok breakfast. The elevation of La Paz is around 3,500m, which meant I had to arrive several days before my climb to acclimate. On my second day, I wandered the streets up to the highest ridge around town, and scrambled over crags, nearly falling to my death on the rocky outcroppings before heading back down, avoiding hordes of stray dogs.

The next day I walked about 3 miles to the minibus station and figured out how to get on the right bus that took me to La Cumbre, a high point about 15 miles from the city.  The elevation there is 4,400m so it was a good chance to acclimate some more.  The bus was crammed with people, babies, and supplies, we headed up, stopping for food for most just outside the city. 30 min later we arrived and I was dropped at the side of the road with odd stares. I hiked up for about 5 min but the wind was hammering and the temps far colder than I anticipated so I basically sat huddled for an hour before deciding to go back down.  I had a hard time hitching a ride back but a guy finally stopped and took me to town, for a fee, of course.

I walked 5k back to town and stopped in Wild Rover, this "Irish" hostel where I was to stay the days after my climb. It was gross: a bunch of 20-somethings all drinking and trying to hook up. At 1:20pm. On a Monday. They had no rooms for earlier than my date but I stayed for lunch anyway, getting through a BBQ burger and a salad as I hadn't had vegetables in three days.  Tomorrow, we go up.

June 27
With the anticipation finally over, I packed up my gear and met my guide. We threw my bags into the car and piled in with a driver and headed out of tow.  Long, winding roads took us up and out, some of them dirt, some of them paved, all of them with dangerous curves that every driver felt entitled to hug as tight as possible.  I remain entirely convinced the greater danger in climbing mountains is the trip there and back. It took several hours, all of it with Illimani in the distance, to reach the massif itself.  Luckily, there was new road put in due to some filming and research in the area.  Otherwise, the climb would have taken an extra day and a hike of about 4 hours from the road.

Instead, we pushed on, crossing not-so-small streams and weaving through some hefty rocks.  We bottomed out many times, scraping the car all over the so-called road.  But eventually we made it up to the fast plain that is base camp, just at the foot of the mountain peak itself.  There is not a prettier sight in the country, I am sure.

Base Camp 4,400m

Our driver dropped our gear and took off down the mountain with a promise to return several days later. After unpacking the loot and setting up the tent, there really wasn't much to do but drink tea and stare at the mountain.  I took a wander down the road and headed up a valley lined by rock walls.  There were llamas everywhere and waterfalls coming off the mountain.  I went up for quite a while, scaling some rock walls and hiking far, hoping to push acclimatization.

View of base camp from higher up

Looking back down on my hike

Temps dropped rapidly as dusk drew closer, and after glancing at the lights of La Paz and El Alto in the distance, I retired for some rest, of which I could get little of in a tent.  My borrowed sleeping pad had a hole in it so I felt every rock of the plain.  We woke early and tried to get warm as the sun was still working its way up.  Breakfast and a late start with a full pack up the trail. My guide and I shouldered decent-sized packs, but a porter grabbed the bulk of our load.  I cannot believe how much weight I still had and it was a good thing I could carry some. These guys show up from miles down the valley, come up in sandals, shoulder huge weight, and still beat most people up the mountain.  A ranger showed up at the last second and collected the climbing fee, which was about $3.

Our route traveled up and right across the mountain. The going was easy at first but became more and more steep as the day went on and the heat increased. More rests were needed as we inched our way up the difficult and sandy single track toward the high camp.  Moments of doubt began to creep in as the mountain loomed high above us; I looked back down and was amazed at how far we had come, but looking up, there was much more to scale.  Since we didn't have our tents in our bag, there was no sense in going higher without the porter.  We paused just shy of the high camp and rested until the porter arrived.  Other than being hungry and thirsty, I was feeling alright and not effected by the altitude. Usually, within 2 min of stopping, I had my breath and was itching to go. The stopping and waiting was the most frustrating. My endurance is good but my patience is not.  I just want to plow on and get it done.  This, however, is not a hurry-up sport.

High camp was a sketchy place.  Not bigger than about 30-40 feet wide and long, it was perched on the ridge just at the snowline. We were at 5500m (18,200ft), the Nido de Condor "Condor's Nest" and it was a precarious situation.  My tent was on a shelf not wide enough to hold it, and ropes were strung to keep it tied down.  A strong gust of wind looked to pull it down the huge gully to my left, with me wrapped inside. The entire place smelled of fecal matter and urine as there were no other options for doing your business. I had a pounding headache that abated after some hydration, Tylenol, and rest. Our time here was brief; we would make dinner and try and sleep, but we were leaving at midnight.

I, of course, could not sleep.  My Swiss cheese Thermarest was worthless and I felt every one of the rocks. My rest on the tundra last night was a gift compared to this place. My head is pounding and I have a 12-14 hour trip ahead of me when today's 3.5-hour trip was enough to put me in this state.  I think about the mountains as Cheryl Strayed said in "Wild", you may come to find yourself, and find meaning, but what you find, at least initially, is nothing but suffering. The summit may be bliss, but the journey is ripe with discomfort.  If it wasn't the rocks beneath me keeping me awake, it was the flapping of a tent-like kids' with a parachute in gym class - that sealed the deal. I stayed warm with two hot water bottles tucked in my bag, but no rest for me, again. At 1am the alarm went off and I pulled on whatever clothes I was not already wearing. Getting plastic boots on in a tent is a chore.  I choked down "breakfast" which was basically chocolate and tea.  Crampons, helmet, and 2:05am - we were off.

The route starts from high camp by hugging a rocky ridge. It didn't seem like it at the time, but this was some of the most difficult footing, as I would see coming down in the light. Instantly I was too hot and stopped to pull off my Goretex jacket, which was under my impressive down jacket. I ate some Gu and drank water but Andreas kept chirping about the power of cocoa leaves and how they make you strong and help stomach issues and headaches.  I took a couple of rounds just to appease him. I don't buy it, and it feels like you are chewing a handful of leaves you have raked in Fall time only you have to hold them in your lip, like dip. It tastes like sucking on an unused tea bag.

On we slogged making switchbacks across the mountain face, though it was hard to gauge distance when only 3 feet in front of me was illuminated. But it was probably best, because as I would later find out, the route is surrounded by cliffs and crevasses, and it was terrifying. After about 2 hours we were going well but my new crampon popped off. This was not a problem as it was not too steep, but elsewhere this could be an issue. Then it came off again!  Andreas helped me get it on, which was nice, but I felt like a bit of a wad. Would you believe it? My other crampon came off. I don't know if I was having a boot or crampon issue but it wasn't good.  Andreas checked his watch and it was 5:00am. He said we would be on the summit in 1 hour. This was good news but since the sun rises at 6:30, it would be hard to get a good summit picture.  My mistake, like in an ultra, was taking this opinion as fact. Spurred on by the finish, I felt good, yet after an hour I could now see the peaks across from me, and they were higher yet - a problem since I was on the tallest peak around.  My hopes sank, the headache peaked, and my stomach went south. I couldn't go 5-10 min without needing a rest. "30 min" Andreas would say, and then 15 min later, "30 min."  I started to bonk hard; his concern started to rise. We rounded a corner and popped out onto the summit ridge. "30 minutes," Andreas said. I sat in the snow.  "Todas bien?" he asked. No, I said, feeling poor.  I considered turning around at this point. The summit was only halfway (and since we had to go to base camp, not even halfway). I decided to press on.  We arched around the dome in a cloud, with a swirling wind obscuring the view.  Eventually, it relented and we stood, unceremoniously, on the unassuming summit, 6438m (21122ft). Andreas hugged me and I posed for a picture.  We left quickly with me in the lead and on belay.  However, the wind obscured the view, and not wanting to walk into a crevasse, I sat in the snow while Andreas wandered around for 10 minutes looking for the route.

I felt good heading down for an hour or so. My battery died so I took no pictures of the amazing ice walls.  I grew tired and started tripping on my own leg often and would sit in the snow to recover. We could see high camp but it never seemed to come.  The last hour was painful and riddled with stops. I crawled in and the waiting porters laughed at me while I stripped off each piece of clothing an chucked it aside.  Sweaty and exhausted, it was 9:45am. It took 5:35 to get up and 2:05 to get down to high camp but I swore it was twice that.  We were hustled out of there within a half hour for the long, dusty descent to base camp.  The craggy rocks and precarious footing were made all the more tenuous by wasted legs.  The extra weight on my back made cutting switchbacks difficult. I was roasting from wearing my fleece and Goretex pants still.  We were down in about 2 hours but it was a tortuous route that felt like it took all day.

We drove downhill on twisting, rocky roads for about 4 hours.  I faded in and out as it was too bumpy to drink.  We had to switch cars once and then drove around downtown for about 40 min. I thought they couldn't find my hotel but the cab was restricted from certain roads (traffic control rules). We ended up at the company headquarters and switched cabs again. 25 minutes later I was at my hotel and on the phone with Expedia for the next 2 hours.  On the Illimani, I had made the decision to leave Bolivia without climbing the second mountain, Sajama. Each call would drop; I would call back and repeat my story to a new representative. They would ask me for a number to call back, just in case, and I would repeatedly tell them I was in Bolivia. They called my mom (the number on my account) many times. $725 later I got a new flight, 3 days on. I just wanted to go home. The summit was bittersweet; I made it but felt disappointed with the adventure.