Brad Johnson
William Thompson
John
Veranth
Adrian Ccahuana
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The Lares Trek.
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John
on the
Lares Trek. |
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Nearing the
pass on the Lares Trek.
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The other
side of the pass.
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Teachers who
were on strike closed most of the roads
in the Cusco area by covering them with rocks
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Heading into
the Cordillera Vilcanota
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| Vicuña.
While Alpaca are
domesticated animals actively herded, the vicuña is wild (and
endangered). |
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John at
Campa pass.
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John
climbing Nevado Campa.
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Bird life
around camp.
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Icebergs
calving off into a small lake near camp.
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The
aftermath of one of the three snow storms we had.
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Camp on the
far side of Campa Pass.
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The
triangular peak on the left is Pachanta. Next over is Ccapana
(5725m).
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First
attempt on Ccapana (5725m).
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We
headed up to the base of Ccapana with the intent of dropping a load of
climbing gear and then heading to the top the next day. When we
got there at about noon, the route look sufficiently easy and short
that we figured we could climb it that day. This was a
mistake! At 4:00pm we turned around 30-40m from the top and
with less than two hours of daylight remaining.
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| Two days
later, Adriano and Bill went back to Ccapana and reclimbed the whole
thing in order to finish off the last 30-40m to the top. From
then on, both the event and the peak were referred to as "Guillermo's
Folly". |
Back over the
pass, to be "greeted" by more storms.
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Pachanta (5727m) on the right, along with
two subsidiary high points. We attempted the left most of these
shown in the picture. The route traversed the bench near the
bottom of the picture, climbed the steep slopes to a col, and then
proceeded up the ridgeline towards the summit.
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Brad and Adriano scouting the lower part of
the route.
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Heading up
the the col and then beyond. We had anticipated that the summit
ridge would present relatively straightforward climbing, but this was
not to be and we turned about about half way from the col to the top.
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| At
approximately 5,375m on the Pachanta ridgeline, this could be the
highest elevation known natural
arch. In
the picture at the upper left, the arrow points to a small white dot in
the black rock fin that may or not be visible. The dot is just
above the snow line.
The picture
at the upper right is a blowup in which the "dot" is more
visible.
It
appears white because of the cloudy sky. At the bottom right is a
picture
looking through the arch, which is about 5m-6m high. |
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Heading back to town.
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John helping out the local economy.
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