Ranrapalca, NE
Slopes, D+
June 2002
For our first trip out Robbie and I chose Ranrapalca,
an accessible peak up the Ishinca valley, but not as popular as some others
because most of the routes are harder than average and require some expertise
at mixed climbing. Just what we
were looking for.
I arrived in Huaraz on Saturday and by Monday we were
already on our way to base camp. The
base camp in the Ishinca valley is horrid, it serves several peaks including
easy ascents like Ishinca and Urus. Itīs
basically an empty field shared by climbers, burros, and cows. Imagine camping in a pasture and taking your
water downstream from a cowherd. Yuk.
Needless to say we used a ton of iodine in our water :- ).
We spent three or four days acclimatizing before
heading up. Two days before our ascent we hiked up to high camp at 17K feet and
stashed a bunch of gear. There we ran
into a couple of Americans that had tried the peak the day before we arrived
and backed down. Apparently the ridge
which we intended to do was way out of condition, requiring something like 1500
feet of mixed climbing to get to the summit plateau. These guys had wisely decided to punt on that
adventure and were on their way down. We
scoped the route and tried to see if there was a way up the slopes through the
rock band... basically, the Northeast
side of Ranrapalca is a giant bowl of snow with a lip of rocks. It was hard to see exactly where to go so we
dropped our stuff and headed back to base camp to rest before our ascent.
Taking only 5 days to acclimatize to 20k feet
basically breaks all the rules of high altitude mountaineering. But Robbie had a couple days on me and I
generally do reasonably well at altitude, so we decided to go for it and see
what happened. Our trek up to high camp
revealed that we were reasonably well acclimatized and after only a day back at
base camp we were ancy to get going.
We headed back up to high camp, set up our tent and
started brewing snow for water to drink.
The weather, which is normally incredibly stable at this time of year,
was windy and stormy. As we lay in our
tent with nothing to do but watch the stove and wait for the alarm to go off we
could hear snow gently hitting the sides of the tent. We discussed various options for deciding
what to do as we dozed off, including bailing or postponing... both were
quickly rejected. Robbie and I are
rather stubborn climbers!
The alarm sounded at 3 and we were really psyched to
go. A quick check of the skies revealed
nothing but stars. . .the storm seemed to have blown through during the early
hours of the morning and we had cold, nearly perfect conditions for our
ascent. The first major obstacle was
getting through the first Bergschrund, which turned out to be a non-event. There was a giant snowbridge and that we
strolled over and headed up the bowl past some giant fallen seracs.
We made it to the base of the Northeast ridge at about
sunrise. Following the tracks left by
the American party a few days before we roped up and Robbie, who is a much
better mixed climber than I am, took the first mixed pitch. After some time of picking his way through
ground that was much more difficult than it looked we had a brief conference
and decided to head up the slopes.
Robbie rapped off a nut and we unroped and headed over to the steep snow
under the rock band which led to the summit ridge (a continuation of the NE
ridge we had just bailed off).
300 meters of some of the best climbing followed
(steep snow to 60-70 degrees). We were
totally in a zone, climbing unroped and moving quickly over moderate
terrain. As a climber I find these
moments to be some of the most rewarding, when you shut off the fear and
fatigue responses and empty the mind of everything but whatīs required to keep
you alive. After what seemed like entirely too short a time, we reached the
rock band which guarded access to the summit ridge, where we once again roped
up. I hadnīt mentioned this to Robbie,
but I hadnīt really ever led a real live mixed pitch before. My turn, I take off, leading up through
alternating bands of rock and patches of snow.
At one point I was doing some of my first dry-tool moves and I thought
They say īNecessity is the mother of inventionī I would say more like īDesperation is the
mother of inventionī. I am making
things up as I go along but really enjoying being in the mountains and moving
through the hard terrain. 60 meters
comes and I set up a belay and bring Robbie up.
He leads another 60 meters of similarly hard terrain and letīs out a
whoop of joy. Weīre there! I follow his pitch and collapse on the summit
ridge.
Ranrapalca is a particularly difficult mountain to
deal with from an altitude perspective because you have to spend so much time
near the summit. The true summit is only
about 100 feet higher than where we are standing on the summit ridge but takes
several hours to traverse over to it. We
are clearly one of the only parties that has been up here in a while as there
are no tracks leading along the ridge.
Robbie and I have a brief conversation in which he convinces me that
three hours at 20k feet is worth it to get to the true summit and off we go.
The traverse was one of the hardest parts of the
climb. We were breaking trail,
postholing up to our waists, for about a mile to a second schrund about 150
feet high. Robbie led over a delicate
snowbridge, up the 75 degree snow that is only mostly consolidated (making the
climbing particularly interesting!). I
followed and we made waded over to the summit for the obligatory photos.
Getting down took forever, including my downleading
the shcrund and endless raps. We ended
up rappelling most of the steep face because we were so tired, cleaned up our
high camp and wandered back to base camp in the dark. I tripped over a rock in my stupor and sprained
my ankle horribly (guess I will be playing hurt for the rest of the trip).
We agreed all in this was one of the best alpine
routes we had ever done.
In the great stone deserts of the mountains, there exists a strange
trade, you can swap the whirlwind of life for the infinite peace of the soul.
Milarapa, Tibetan poet