The first rays of the sun lighting up the subtle snow covered curves of the glacier below are an astounding sight that I thought I may only see in movies and extreme skiing videos. We get up at midnight for the ascent. “We might not go.” is the first thing I hear spoken. Someone had stepped outside and reported the… Read more »
Day two is a short day of hiking followed by a long day of eating crackers, drinking tea, and napping. I am not sure if the extra full day at altitude (5150m) helps or hurts. I feel like I have acclimatized sufficiently and don’t have any trouble here. The cabin is almost as nice as base camp and we continue… Read more »
I was determined to summit a mountain in the Andes. I stopped in La Paz with the intention of spending three days to climb Huayna Potosí (6088m), as was recommended by previous trekking companions. This time I had spent much more time at altitude and felt well prepared and acclimatized so as not to repeat the previous failure. I booked… Read more »
I had decided when I got to Huaraz that, in addition to treks around the mountains, I want to get to a summit of over 5400m. I asked around at the agencies and, after some trouble finding a group, booked a 2 day summit of Vallunaraju (5686m) with the same partner and guide that I went climbing with the day… Read more »
Retrospective For the final day of the trek we only had two hours of hiking which we could have tacked on to the end of the third day. Before we knew it we were at the checkpoint near Cajamarca, the ending point, where we waited a while for the guide. When we got to Cajamarca the van was waiting and… Read more »
The third day took us down a long and slow descent down the valley we gazed down the previous day. First came the sands, then a marsh, with the steam zigzagging the valley the whole time. For the last part the marshes gave way to waterfalls with trees overhanging. The drizzle started halfway through. It let up when we got… Read more »
In the middle of a mostly sleepless high altitude night, I was woken up by highly accented cries of “Morning!” I looked around in the dark and remembered that wakeup time was 4:45. Shortly, I crawled out of the tent and made my way to the breakfast tent. We had tea and the dry rolls with margarine and jelly. The… Read more »
I got up at 5:40 in hopes of bringing my stuff down and having a cup of tea before the driver got there at 6. He rang the bell at 5:50 and I scrambled to get out without breakfast. By the time I was out the door, he was gone. I had to have the hotel call him back, then… Read more »
Preparations I got up at twenty minutes to seven, took a shower, and packed my daypack. My daypack is currently a colorful bag from an Ecuadorian market, rather than any fancy hiking equipment. I packed it bursting with the following: Camelback + bottle with total of 2L of water Medical kit Rain jacket Extra upper layer Warm cap Sunscreen Zoom… Read more »
The Huanchaco hostel has been fun and it’s too tempting to stick around indefinitely, but the Cordilleras lay ahead. I said goodbye to the Pacific and hopped on the first of three buses required to get to Huaraz by day. I am glad I ended up on the day bus. The views along the road from Trujillo to Chimbote are… Read more »