WTMC Peruvian Expedition 1986

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WTMC Peruvian CORDERILLA BLANCA, PERU THE TEARS OF A Mathew Comesky (NEVADO In 1968 the club backed a very successful expedition to the Andes. The massive amount of organisation and preparation involved was mat tched only I don't remember much of how this trip by the number and quality of peaks began. It's all a daze a bone climbed. rattling, early morning taxi ride, staring up a waggling burro's behind, In late 1984, sixteen years later, the falling asleep and being force-fed idea of a small-scale climbing trip to Moro Bars and Inka Kola. If I wasn't Peru was floating around amongst some already mortally ill, I soon would be. club members. It seemed feasible although there was some doubt about The night before had been a bowelhow much climbing we would achieve as wrenching, gut-rattling reminder of we knew nothing of how we would what a pig of a place Peru could be. perform at high altitudes. Despite In the morning I must have been the our relative inexperience, both in only walking corpse in South America, travelling and high altitude climbing, and it was in that state that I we received nothing but encouragement. dragged my body up the Quebrada This boosted our confidence tenfold. Quilcayhuanca. Stuffed if I know why As it happened, our inexperience was I bothered, as the first week was overall a bonus; we could assume spent in 'self discovery' of how little, were more cautious and had a little we knew about climbing in the greater adventure. Andes. There were numerous moments of enlightenment that included realis- The organisation was not difficult. ing that you can't bivvy at 17,000 ft We took all our climbing gear with us, without a sleeping bag, four hour and apart from a lifetime supply of climbs don't need a bivvy anyway, and Moro bars, this was kept to a minimum that fried onions for breakfast will for alpine style climbing. All the cause a fallout that'll make Chernobyl food was bought locally, visas were look like the teddy bears' picnic. obtained in Wellington, and no climbing permits were required (a situation After a few too many days wallowing that has changed as of 1987). The around we got bored enough to decide total cost for each of us was approxito shape up, ship out and get serious. mately $6,000. The point is that a The second Tongue and Meat Andean similar trekking or climbing trip is expeditionary circus was going within the ability of most people in climbing! "Let's go out there and the club. fail!!" And we did. It would be impossible to even begin Nevado Chinchey was a 6222m high to describe all our experiences, but wade through knee-deep powder snow. the following will hopefully inspire We persevered with overhanging somebody to go there and discover the - schrunds, crevasses, and avalanche fun and hassles of Peru. slopes, but all to no avail. We retreated at 6000m, not overly disappointed. "Who wants to climb a silly mountain anyway, we sobbed through our clowns' tears. We rested for a day and rationalised our failure. Are there any easy peaks in the Andes? Probably not, so at 3.00 am Dave and I threw ourselves onto a face of Pucaranra (6156m). "Let's go. out there and fail!" - and everything went according to plan. Almost. Alpamayo Mathew Comesky

Expedition 1986 CLOWN A CLOWN'S REVENGE PUCARANRA 6156m) (NEVADO RANRAPALCA Mathew Comesky 6162m) Mathew There were: crampon failures (three), Comesky torch failures (how many?), and a After surviving an epic week of disgusting porridge breakfast that clowning around in a blizzard, and kept rearing its ugly head to remind days of riotous rest and repair in me that we were in Peru. We free- Huaraz, we were out for revenge. climbed onto the face. Now this was Ranrapalca was the target, and Dave tempting fate. Here we were, on a and I planned to blitz the mountain in rock band, no rope, crampons scrabblthree days. We spent an entertaining ing in the gravel and fingers pulling day buying food. With truly interout loose blocks. "Yeah, let's fail national taste we bought Polish and dehy go down in a screaming heap!" potatoes, Dutch dried veges, and Cheated, we survived, clawed our way French dehy dinners, but avoided up the ice and roped up. Innumerable tasty delights like deer hooves, dried rope lengths later, after fighting a snakes and llama ears. lead up a grotty piece of diabolical water ice, one of us (and it wasn't The next day we were away by 6.00 am, me) says, "Stuff it all, let's go rattled awake on our way to the down." The hills rang with my poetic Quebrada Ischinca in our hired truck. lyrics and with that inspiration Dave A short walk up to the "Associaticion flashed through the water ice. The de Aerrio de Ishinca" (a mud hut), climb went on. looked like being fruitless. All the burros and aerrios (drivers) were At 2.30 pm in a panting, wheezing heap, gone. "Ah, but what are all these we flopped onto the summit. "This is horses and burros - doing happily it?" What no heavenly choruses grazing in the fields?" we asked. trumpeting the joyful news to the ears of humanity across the earth? Just "Un momento, senors us. "Well, we're heroes," we agreed. Flopped-out, stuffed, burnt but happy A quarter of an hour later the price heroes. "Now how do we get down...?" had gone up, and out of nowhere a An abseil and 12 rope lengths later burro and driver appeared. Surprise, saw us at the rock bands just on dark. surprise! "Hell's teeth, I can't see a darn thing." "Try taking your sunnies By lunchtime we were at base camp off.. where the burro had dropped our packs. After a quick bite to eat we staggered We groped around in the twilight, up the side valley in an afternoon while our torches blinked on and off = hailstorm. Things did not look good mostly off = while lunging for lifefor tomorrow's climb. We spent the saving holds. Cheated, we again night in a refugicio, a stone-walled, survived the rock bands and descended thatched, dirt floored hut. Luxury! onto the col where we ate our lunch. At 8.00 pm we were finished. "We did The alarm blasted us out of bed at it - wow, we really did it!" three. We bravely poked our heads out the door, finding a perfect starry We met Ian coming up the glacier. sky. Yeeeha! Let's go! He'd seen our torches flashing out their distress, and had dragged himself out of the downy clutches of his cosy sleeping bag to investigate. A nice guy is our Ian, a 'top clown'. Eight hours, two Moro Bars, eight peanut slabs and a salami sausage later, I was a corpse again. Well, this is Peru and it isn't such a bad place after all.

A Pucahirca - CI d Sania hapamp Pisco Huandoy langanuc co h vqui Huascarar Yungay p Rio Hualcan Sema RCarhuaz OS - - Tocllaraju Chinchey Ishinca Pucaranra4 Ranrapalca 4 4 - - Y - - B P 0 A Huantsan HUARAZ f E PERU Huaraz AN N.P. Recuay Huascaran à Lima Pongos A PARQUE NACIONAL HUASCARAN Jamie Clelland

A Clowns Revenge continued . hardest; they always are. The end is tantalisingly close, the sun is After getting only slightly lost on baking you, your pack is pulling you the moraine wall, we cramponed up the down and your lungs want to burst out glacier and sat on the col watching of your chest. Suddenly you're there, the sunrise and the cloud move out of looking down on everything, no longer the valleys below us. A quick scoff faced with an icy wall inches from of peanut slabs and we were away, your face. A brief moment of triumph, foregoing roping-up to move fast the view, the tiredness, and then the amongst the icefall and seracs, all of urgent desire to get down. which were shrouded with fantastic hanging icicles and flutings. It We abseiled to the 'schrund, climbed started getting warm as we emerged down the ice-ramp and romped back to from the icefall to stare up at our the col, carefree, jumping big black objective, the east face. Real big, man-eating crevasses. The afternoon it was, and to get onto it we first storm inevitably closed in, smothering had to cross the 'schrund on a narrow us in a white-out and dropping heaps ramp of water ice. We were soon of snow. Bypassing the refugicio gasping, as we ploughed our way up the full of inhospitable Austrians, we face, through soft snow flutings over dragged ourselves down the valley hard ice. Roping-up, we belayed the through the dark and the storm, to a top third of the face, whacking in rock bivvy where we happily pigged-out ice-screws and front pointing on the on cigars and jellybeans. tips of our crampons. It felt good to be climbing on the tips of our Relaxed and inspired, we talked and tools - fast and exposed. dreamed of our next mountain while the sky cleared and the full moon lit the The last one hundred metres were the scene in electric blue. NEVADO TOCLLARAJU (6034m) Dave Humm We had been sitting in the base camp then set off and quickly encountered of the Quebrada Ishinca for three days the first of two vertical ice walls on now, watching the strong winds and the north ridge. The Canadians clouds buffet our intended peak. joined us and with a little co-opera- Lying in the sun, eating and generally tion we had two people above the slothing out, we had also observed problem. A combination of top-roping groups of climbers (mostly Canadian) and pack hauling had both parties on struggling up to Camp 1 on the col their way. hoping for a break in the weather. At this stage we were in bright sun- Our plan was to wait for a good day shine, but the wind chill factor was and then 'flash the climb' from base such that wind-suits and duvets were camp, avoiding having to shift camps still necessary. The route wound its and waste all that precious energy at way up the broad ridge, encountering altitude. slopes of various degrees of diffi- So on the morning of June 28th, the culty until we reached the summit nasty alarm clocks dragged us bitching mushroom. This was aptly named due and moaning out of the pits, and by to the second ice wall blocking the 1.50 am we were away up the moraine way to the top. We again belayed wall. The night (or morning?) was this section, which included an perfect - excellent moonlight, shootinteresting ice funnel, and eventually ing stars, and even a satellite or popped out on the summit ridge. There (we are at a latitude of about was not a cloud in sight, a complete - making the 'trog' to the Ego up contrast to the day before. A quick snowline, and eventually the col quite 'trog', somewhat slowed down by the enjoyable. effects of altitude (now just under We greeted the sleepy Canadians with a 20,000 ft) and we joined Roger Ramjet cheery good morning at about 4.30 am, and his two climbers on the summit at designed to annoy and demoralise them. about 12.30 pm. (One of their party, nicknamed Roger Lying in the sun, spotting other peaks, Ramjet by the clowns due to enthusiasm and even risking a big cornice to wave and eagerness to conquer everything, down the valley at Matt languishing in had just returned from a successful base camp, the summit was a real Everest climb). We quickly ascended delight. Time to go, however, so we some gentle slopes leading through could get down in time to dry the crevasses. By the time we stopped to gear. put some windproof gear on and Abseiling our two ice walls and then demolish some chocolate, the sun was quickly descending the snow slopes and starting to rise and illuminate the moraine walls, had us back at our tent surrounding peaks in beautiful pinks by 3 pm, only 13 hours after and leaving. reds. Winding through the film, It proved that by moving quickly and Matt told us his stomach problems lightly, and being well would acclimatised, prevent him going any further it is possible to climb 6,000m peaks and reluctantly descended. Ian and I from a low base camp.

HUASCARAN SUR (6768m) Dave Humm Now for something completely different: The route to Camp 1 the next day (at Huascaran is a large, twin peaked about 4800m) involved another hour on mountain that dominates the skyline moraine slabs before stepping onto a north of Huaraz. Although not a very horrendous broken glacier. On more aesthetically pleasing climb, it has than one occasion, stepping onto some the honour of being the largest in ice induced loud noises and shifting Peru, and the highest in the world's blocks. The clowns were a bit tropical zone at 67681 m (22205 ft). worried at this stage, and with large packs we felt more than a little While a lot of other climbs were out uncomfortable. About three hours of consideration due to unsettled later we emerged from the nightmare weather, this one was less affected, and progressed onto an easier crevasse as it is off the main range. Normally field. At this stage the heat was an easier climb, this year's route was very oppressive and we were pleased we much more demanding due to a lot of had brought about six litres of water. hanging seracs and a very broken up glacier (similar to the Hooker at its We spotted Camp 1 high up on the worst in Mt Cook). glacier field, but still at least two hours away. Slowly trudging along a With Ian enjoying the beaches up north well beaten track in the sun, a few (injured), Matt and I ventured up to groups passed us heading down looking the little town of Musho to arrange relieved and pleased, mostly European donkeys to haul our gear to base camp. and travelling with ski poles and crampons. A couple of knackered Unlike our other climbs, this one will clowns eventually slid into camp, and require 32 days to complete, and it after putting up the tent, spent the involves slogging up to the peak afternoon relaxing and rehydrating. carrying gear. We were joined by two Swiss with their Peruvian guide, and two Americans who It was a nice gentle walk in to base were to be our companions during our camp where we reluctantly accepted climb. our packs from the donkeys. This was followed by two hours struggling up Day_3 dawned clear and fine, but very the rock ridge to the moraine camp. (about -5° to -100 at night, and August 1, was in the shade which we were to c814 Day1, completed. going Dave Humm and friend, Tocllaraju Punta Union Mathew Comesky be in for the next three or four hours). This day's travel involved more crevasses, some so deep and dark you couldn't see the bottom when you jumped, and then a bowling-alley slope which included a 20m steep ice pitch. Seracs hung above us ominously, and as we progressed up over avalanche debris, we were all noticeably nervous. Cooperation within the three groups had us all above the ice wall and traversing across snow/ice slopes heading to the col, where Camp 2 was situated (at about 5900m). The effects of altitude had us moving about 20-30 metres then resting, while our breathing rate caught up. The heart rate was up to at least 200 beats per minute and by now the heat Peruvian woman in marketplace Mathew Comesky was starting to have an effect. We arrived at Camp 2 to find it in much the same condition as camps on all our trips: refuse and human waste making the place a pigsty! Due to strong winds in the afternoon, we pitched the tent with good kiwi snow anchors (the bottoms of two litre plastic bottles). Then with a feed and a few sleeping pills, we crawled into the pits to try LOOKING BACK and rest for the summit tomorrow. Mathew Comesky We were away at about 6.30 am on Day 4. The route up the South Peak from the col was well marked from previous The city looked deadly grey. The expeditions but it was still full of rain swept across the airport, driven danger, overhanging seracs being the by a southerly wind that tasted of worst. Progress was slow. Now past salt spray. It cut straight through 60001 m, the need to stop and take in my summery clothes, blowing out the the little oxygen available meant the sticky, tired feeling of sitting in stuffy, air-conditioned aeroplanes: home sweet home. The businessmen scuttled for cover, while I enjoyed it all. The desert, mountains and altiplano seemed so long ago, in a different time, from which I'd been transported in a giant flying time machine. It was good to get home and be smothered time required to pass obstacles by familiarity and love. Peru seemed increased alarmingly. This year at like a long, long time ago as I lay in least three or four people have been a steaming bath, listening to the killed negotiating such things. radio, and reading a paper. Yet it Finally we emerged onto the long was only yesterday. summit ridge. The track seemed to stretch on and on, with false horizon Was it worthwhile? After a lot of after false horizon driving the money, risk, hassles, and miserably clowns close to exasperation. long sick days, the answer is: absolutely! The objectives of the Finally, at about 12.30 pm, we trip were different for each one of positively fell onto the summit, us, but generally we were all there to absolutely knackered but feeling no climb, learn, and have a thoroughly bad side effects from being at 6768 m good time. We exceeded our expecta- (over 22,000 ft). Standard silly tions in all these things, so I guess photos and a sleep, was followed by a the trip was successful. 1% hour "run" down to Camp 2. Ian, David and myself heartily thank The trip out on Day 5 was a little everybody who in some big or small way less harrowing, retracing our steps. supported us. We hope we can repay We reached Musho in time for copious the favour by providing information beers and the best greasy chips and and support for similar projects in the future. eggs we've ever tasted!

ANDEAN EXPEDITION '68 Nelson Lakes The members of the First Expedition The end of March had arrived, bringing were: Paul Green, Malcolm Riding, with it Easter, and for some the Allen Higgins, Ken McNatty (Leader), prospect of four days in the Nelson Peter Goodwin, Bob McKerrow, Dick Lakes area. Cowan (Hutt Valley TC) and John Lawrence. Thursday night involved the usual last minute packing before arriving at the The following extracts convey some of ferry terminal to join in the hysteria the flavour of that expedition. They associated with catching the interare from "Impressions of a Tramping island ferry. To our amazement the Club", the Journal issued in the ferries were actually running, twenty-first year of the Club: although not to the published timetable, being somewhere in the vicinity The Climb of "Torayoc" of an hour late. "It took two weeks of interminable wrangling, four customs agents and Our intrepid leader soon discovered dozens of rubber stamps and signatures that trying to assemble 17 people, all to clear the two tons of expedition travelling on one ticket, and getting gear and food through customs in Lima - them on board in one group, was a bit a very depressing time. Ken and I like trying to get a herd of sheep had stayed in Lima for this purpose into a pen! Amid the confusion and while the others had gone on to the chaos at Picton we eventually Vilcabamba region to look for 'our' positively identified our bus and valley, the headwaters of which are blasted down the highway to our mapped, but nobody knew where it destination, Lake Rotoiti. Following drained into the Vilcabamba River = a short road walk, a suitable campsite our approach route. presented itself. "After a final two days of completing Friday morning after a hearty break- Lima arrangements, like changing our fast and a wash in the Buller River thousands (much to the annoyance of a lone money into of sole notes (1 fisherman standing downstream), we set sole equals 2% cents US), Ken and I off for the car and the boarded a truck, with the gear, for Speargrass Creek park track. the journey to Cuzco. This proved to Making be a mammoth trip, 60 hours non-stop reasonable time we reached our destination of Speargrass Hut for lunch, and driving (except for punctures and the were safely incarcerated the time occasional meal) over 700 miles of the heavens opened and torrential by rain really rough road which included descended upon the area. Countless several passes of 15,000 feet or more. brews and tall tales moved the after- On arrival in Cuzco we stored the gear noon along, and during one particularly in a warehouse, then collapsed into heavy shower, Jack offered the generously sack to recuperate:.. to rent a group of hapless and bedraggled trampers a tent for $20! "This brought us back onto the ridge, They were last seen heading back the which was composed of rotten rock, as way they came! the daily mist enveloped us. One rope length (150 feet) saw us to the Some of our hardier companions elected end of this and where the final snow to sleep in tents since it's difficult ridge to the summit began. We to accommodate 14 people in six bunks. strapped on our crampons again, having Comment was passed on the fact that taken them off for the rock. one of the tents appeared to be of a "I filmed Ken and Paul as they moved different design, requiring three poles instead of the usual two!!! the final two rope lengths to the top. They looked to be suspended in space owing to the 'white out'. When they Worried glances cast skyward confirmed returned, Peter and I moved up to the our worst fears as far as the weather top and back. It was midday. The was concerned, so we consoled oursummit was very narrow with steep selves with a delicious dinner drops on all sides giving us a very followed by more hot brews. Rohan was sensation, the clear-cut winner in the competiairy especially as we tion to find the loudest and couldn't see anything but mist.. snorer, the heaviest sleeper award must surely "We returned to base the next day go to Anita! under huge loads to find that the others had put up a great new route on By Saturday morning the cloud had the north face of Millizos and done miraculously disappeared and we were the first traverse. Great elation! greeted with magnificent weather, not And we are just a bunch of trampers!" to mention a very heavy frost. Raring