Huayna Potosi: The "easiest" 6000m peak

After the Salar de Uyuni, we headed back to La Paz, one last time. We had wanted to do some more climbing and decided that a 6000m peak would be a good challenge. And what do you know, there is a 6088m peak just outside of La Paz, how convenient!

After talking to a number of companies about the route, prices, gear and food, we settled on Alberth, who turned out to be a fine choice. We spent the previous day prepping ourselves by walking a few sets of pee smelling stairs, repacking our bags to accomidate the full suit of mountain armor we would be renting, and we also found a lady that made us some pretty good, nutty trail mix off the street.

Day One:

We walked to the tourist agency to try on all our gear. We got ice/snow boots, gaiters, pantalones, harness, jacket, gloves, balaclava, helmet and head torch (without batteries). Our gear all sorted, we stuffed it into our big bags, now popping at the seams. Then it was a waiting game of the rest of our party, 4 Canadians (eastern). We didn´t have to wait long, and soon we had: gear, guides, and van, we were off.

It took about 2 hours (40km) driving on some very bumpy roads, up and out of La Paz and up to Zongo Pass. We were dropped off at the first hut, our base camp that we didn´t have to hike to, at 4800m. We soon geared up to practice some climbing moves on the nearby glacier, which like so many others is quickly retreating. We learned how to walk up-slope and down, ice climbed, and self arrested. All in all it was a fun time on the glacier learning some pretty crucial techniques. Then we trekked back to the hut and had some dinner (soup and a pasta dish..)

Day Two:

Kasey and I slept very well during the night dispite having to use the baño a number of times, the others in our group didn´t fare so well in terms of sleep. Breakfast was the unusual, granola and yogurt, fruit, bread, egg and tea/coffee/hot coco. Today´s main goal was to get up to high camp at 5130m. With only 330m to climb it wasn´t supposed to be too hard but our group struggled a bit carrying our full packs up. The guides thought we should have been mas rapido, so they decided to get up earlier the next "morning." Kasey powered her way up the small climb, followed by myself and we decided to help out one of the gals who had been sick the night before, by carrying a small bag of hers. We got to the high camp and then it was lunch (at 1pm), followed by rest, followed by dinner at 5pm! Altitude really takes the appetite away from you but we knew we needed some energy for our 11:30pm "morning" wake-up call. Early to bed and we hoped we could get some sleep for our long day tomorrow!

Day Three, Happy Birthday Kasey, Happy Anniversary Ben n Amy, and Summit Push!!

We woke at 11:30pm to have a bit of food, bread rolls and tea (I didn´t eat anything). A girl from another group remembered it was Kase´s Bday and offered her a piece of "cake" and we sang happy birthday to her. Then we geared up: four layers plus our jackets up top, two socks, and warm hat, long-jonnys and trekking pants. We trompped down a small rocky hill to put on crampons and rope up. Kasey and I had gotten the main guide (2 people per guide) Illisayo, and two of our group chose not to wake up (don´t worry they aren´t dead..) Headlights on we started our ascent, following balls of lights wobbling up the glacier. Following a pattern of plant Ice ax, cross leg and follow, for steps we began at a fairly good clip up the mountain.

Soon we passed Camp Argentino and rested for a bit before carrying on. I soon began to feel the altitude take its toll on me, I packed my cheek full of coca leaves and carried on. Illisayo and Kase kept a race pace, and I had to stop a number of times to catch my breath and make some excuse about taking off a layer or putting on the same layer I had just taken off :) I was feeling pretty worked. Half the time I felt like they were just pulling me up the mountain as I concentrated on the pattern of sticking one foot in front of the other.

We came to a near vertical ice wall that we got to use some of our ice climbing skills on. After pulling ourselves up the wall, and taking a break, Illisayo said we were making excellent time and we were nearing the summit. Kasey says she was just following the guide´s pace but she´s a badass and isn´t phased by silly things as lack of oxygen.

Around 5:40 we were at the final push: a ridge about 80m long and 1m wide was all that was left between us and the summit. Illisayo instructed us to keep the rope taut and keep a steady pace. The ridge fell steeply off on either side so we focused on following his footsteps. Both of us had adrenaline pumping through our systems now and focus came easy, a few minutes later we were at the summit, 6088m! At 5:55am we were the second group to acchieve the summit and we slapped hands and Illisayo and I sang Kasey Happy Birthday again. After snapping a few dark photos, sunrise photos and surrounding beauty with frozen hands and dancing around (Illisayo had burried an ice ax as an anchor) we waited for a few more groups to cross the ridge before we headed back down, me in front this time.

Our hike down could more accurately be called a "stumble" as both of us felt exhausted. But we trudged on and even had a stretch where Illisayo had us sit down and slide on our butts! It was great not to be on our tired feet! We soon found ourselves, after some breaks, at the bottom of the small rocky hill where the high camp was. Although now the hill looked a lot larger, so we released our crampons and un-tied from our guide and made our way slowly, groggily up the "small" hill. At the hut we were elated to have made it back and started pealing off gear, first the boots! We had to pack up all our stuff for the hike back down to base camp so we could catch a van back to La Paz, but first I had a treat for Kasey :)

I grabbed the two candles I had brought and the Snickers bar (that I had meant to give her at the summit but we were too preoccupied by actually summitting!) that I used as a "cake" and candles lit the girls (who had not climbed) and I sang her Happy Birthday Again :) She tells me that the Snickers bar was the only thing that could have filled her appetite at the time.

After a few snacks (buttered bread and tea) we headed back to base camp, a feat in itself because we were so tired and beat, also carrying our full bags again. Feeling accomplished and happy for our summit of the closest thing to a 20,000 foot mountain that we have done, we climbed in a van and headed back to La Paz.

All told it was an amazing experience. Neither of us have been pushed that far towards our breaking point (me especially). But we managed to climb the "easiest 6000m peak in the world" (It wasn´t that easy...)

Electricity of El Alto, lighting up the Altiplano as we reached the summit still in near total darkness.

Kasey, showing off and instructing us on how to properly swing an Ice Ax!

High camp, 5130m, with our summit of Huayna Potosi in the background.

The ridge we came up and over en-route to the summit, listed as 6088m or 19,974ft. (Many summiting groups site 6110m at summit, so we would have been just over 20k, depending on the measurements I guess..)

Salar de Uyuni...The Salt Flats!!!

Our furthest stop south in Bolivia would be the infamous salt flats just out of Uyuni. They are over 10,000 square kilometers of SALT! The typical thing to do is a three day tour with six people and a guide in jeep. Luckily, we already had a group of 6 friends we had previously met and were all converging in the tiny town of Uyuni at the same time. This meant we could walk into a tour agency and book a tour the morning of, which is ideal, since the town of Uyuni itself is quite dusty and dull.

First though, we had a little adventure getting from Potosi to Uyuni. We left Saturday night on a 6pm bus from Potosi, hoping to reach Uyuni by 10 or 11pm. Signs that this trip was going to go poorly:

1. Upon purchasing the ticket at an agency, they told us to go to the Ex-terminal, not the Nuevo (new) terminal.

2. Upon arriving at the Ex-terminal, Diana Tours (our bus) was by far the shittiest looking thing in the lot.

3. 45 minutes outside of Potosi, going up a slight incline, I realize I could walk faster than the bus was moving. Strange noises are also coming from the engine.

4. The bus starts hobbling, like it has a flat tire somewhere. It was a physical limp that actually caused your body to sway.

5. The bus driver pulls over near the top of the hill and says there were problems with the engine. (My thought here is, fine, lets turn around and coast downhill to Potosi, still only 45 minutes away. But that is not the mindset of a Bolivian...if the thing is still functioning, we are still going forward. The future and consequences of actions are not part of their thought process.)

6. The bus breaks down 3 hours later, 10pm, in the middle of nowhere with fluid pouring from the engine, onto the cement..Our bus just had its throat slit.

So anyway, those were the signs and we broke down and were stuck in the cold darkness in the middle of nowhere. There was a group of about 5 of us gringos huddled by the side of the road, trying to figure out what was going to happen next. A guy jumped up on the top of the bus and began throwing down all of our luggage and people unloaded all of their stuff from the broken bus. We sent a delegate to the mob of locals at the front of the bus and found out we were waiting for other buses to pass by to hop on and take us to Uyuni. Apparently there were others coming...when, we didn´t know. The only answer we got when we asked how long was "Si." So we waited, but surprisingly, only 30 minutes later, headlights appeared on the road coming in our direction. The bus was flagged down and stopped and mobs of locals pushed us out of the way. We shouldered back but we weren´t good enough at pushing in as the big Bolivian women with their large sacks on their backs. The bus admitted a handful of people and then said it was at capacity and took off. Us gringos and the rest of the locals that didn´t make it on were left once again by the side of the road. The gringos huddled together and made a pact that we wouldn´t let the locals push us off the next bus and we weren´t spending the night by the side of the road...it was all for one and one for all!

The next bus came only 10 minutes or so later, roared by our waving mob and came to a stop about 100 meters down the road. We all took off in a full sprint towards the bus, fully loaded with all of our heavy backpacks, flip flops on, running in the night screaming at the top of our lungs: "Go Team Gringo!!!" Rolly bags were spinning out of control on the pavement and Jon was about peeing himself laughing but we got to the bus first and held our ground for the slower mob of locals. We found out that the bus could admit 20 people...there were maximum probably 15 people that needed a ride, but if anything maybe we got some respect from the locals...or more likely solidified their view that gringos are in fact loco.

Anyway, on to Uyuni, since we did after all make it there. We met up with our group of friends the following morning and headed out on our tour by 11am. The first stop were the salt flats themselves. We drove out onto the flats and took the pictures all travelers take with figurines and bottles of alcohol, using the infinite flat surface to do optical illusions with the relative sizes of people. We saw some workers out on the flats digging up piles of salt to be used to eat. We also saw buildings and statues made out of pure salt. There was even a Salt Hotel out in the middle of the flats: walls, beds, tables, everything made of salt blocks. The salt was scaled into a white, reptilian looking floor. It was very different from anything I had ever seen before, and the massive expanse of it all was pretty spectacular. We were told by our driver that the salt "crust" was only about 1 foot thick in some places with many feet of water beneath.

On the way to our accommodation the first night we stopped at the Train Graveyard, with all kinds of old rusted train engines, cars and parts that we could run around in and climb on. We drove through a landscape that looked strikingly like eastern Washington...home sweet home (for me). At our accommodation we enjoyed a bottle of rum and played cards the entire night, celebrating the birthday of one of our group members.

Day two of the tour we stopped at a giant garden of volcanic rock formations that we could scurry around on and take pictures (Jon spotted a Viscacha...looks like a rabbit-squirrel hybrid, should have been named a rabbel) and a bunch of lakes. The landscape was changing as we went, sometimes we felt like we were on Mars as we drove through rolling hills of red dirt and rocks. Then we would pass snowcapped mountains and giant orange and grey volcanic rocks. The change in scenery over the kilometers we drove was incredible! Only really pictures can describe. We also stopped at Arbol de Piedra...a stone tree! We took pictures there and our final stop was at Laguna Colorado, a massive red lake! (Jon inserts dorky info here: The lake gets it red color from the algae and plankton that feed on the mineral rich water. This laguna is rich in sodium, magnesium, borax and gypsum, which also accounted for the white shores. Three different flamingo species feed on the plankton in these waters, waters that can reach -20 C at night. Flamingos use a cool filtering system to feed. ...nevermind, back to the blog) That night was spent drinking another bottle of rum and playing more cards.

Day three we woke up at 4:15 to head out by 5 am. Our first stop: Geiser Sol de Manana...basically a bunch of sweet gysers! We took a picture by a Peligroso (Danger) sign, and then walked past it to see where the steam was coming out but our guide laughed at us and asked if we had read the sign we just took a picture of and told us to come back. We got to the famous Thermal Baths (along the shore of Laguna Verde, this one a seafoam green from lead, sulfur, arsenic, and calcium carbonates, don´t worry we weren´t swimming in the lake) by 7 am and got to take a quick dunk in those before bolting off to the Chilean border where we said goodbye to our group of friends (all 4 of them were heading to Chile) and Jon and I headed back to Uyuni. That night we caught overnight buses to La Paz (different ones since there was only "one seat" left in each bus), glad we didn´t have to stay a day in Uyuni.

The moment Kase realized that she just ripped her pants. .

Some tricks on point of reference as giant Kasey picks up miniature Jonny.

A cool reflection of a snow capped mountain in the middle of the desert.

A interesting rock formation, er, um excuse Me, THE Rock Tree!

Laguna Colorado, dotted with feeding flamingos.