In Zürich they check the scales twice when I check in my 26Kg heavy backpack and in Miami everybody seems to look at me as if I was some kind of a freak when I walk arround with my heavy boots. But I arrive well in La Paz with all my luggage, including 1 Kg of cheese and lots of dried meet...
Karin & Gregi have been here for 3 days already and we meet in town. We start to pack heaps of food for the first 9 days in the Condoriri group. But before we go there we want to acclimatise a bit better in town and make a trip to Chacaltaya.
With a taxi we drive as far as Tuni, the last village. Our food we transport with a mule to the basecamp, 3hrs away. Rather curious looking: the mule with its little load and we with our huge backpacks. The way to basecamp is already very beautiful with great views of Condoriri straight ahead of us, looking like a condor with his wings spread out. Having reached the basecamp at laguna Chiar Khota we set up our tents and arrange ourselfes for the next days.
At first we wanted to climb Pico Austria on our first day. But we are not very motivated by the long scree slop that leads up there. So instead we head for Piramide Blanca. Because of the general glacier deterioration it is also only partly covered with glacier anymore. The routes in the south west face that we want to climb have changed accordingly.
When we stand in front of it I have to swallow hard at first. That looks very steep! But we want to give it a try. The conditions in the firn are almost perfect. It really is quite steep (more than 65°) but we can belay good in the firn and ice and it is just great fun to climb up here. Gregi grins from ear to ear as he can already use the snow pickets for the first time. After the most difficult part we follow a beautiful ridge to the summit. Here we enjoy the view to the other peaks that we will be attempting in the next days. For the way down we choose the easy glacier. Wow, what a start...
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 - Pequeño Alpamayo 5375m
Pequeño Alpamayo reminds one of Alpamayo in Peru, hence the name. But before we get to see it at all, there is a long walk up the glacier to the foresummit - Tarija.
From here the beautiful south west ridge starts. In the good firn we climb to the summit. Even though Gregi is having a very bad day today he has been tormenting himself to come up here.
Contrary to the Customs here we usually don't start at 2 o'clock at night (as eveyone else seems to), but wait until there is some daylight. So far we have been lucky. It was never very windy on the peaks.
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The main goal in this area is of course ¨Cabeza del Condor¨, the head of the condor. An impressive steep rock buildup that we want to tackle, now that we are well acclimatised.
We want to set up a high camp at 5200m to do some other tours up there and to get used to the altitude of high camps.
Especially the last part of the way to the high camp is terrible. We have to go up a steep scree slope. Everything seems to be in motion while we scamble up the loose stones. But the location of the high camp outweights by far. On an rocky platform we enjoy like on a balcony the view on the glacier and towards the surrounding peaks.
With fullmoon light we start next morning at 5 walking up the glacier. Below us we see the flickering lights of el Alto. Just as we get into the shade of the moonlight the sun rises - perfect timing! Now we climb up a steeper getting couloir until we reach the ridge. From here we follow the narrow and very exposed ridge all the way to the summit. This is too good to be true - one of the best ridge tours I have done at all!
On the way down we climb the face of ¨Ala Derecha¨, the right wing of the condor before we go back to our high camp to recover.
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So it is only the left wing left... That peak we want to go for on our last day. Through the deep snow we blaze a trail to the foot of the west ridge. Here we want to climb up. Looks very steep and difficult. We climb about 1/3 of the face. It is great fun but for the whole face we need too long so we turn arround. No summit today but a cool tour to remember.
On the way down we search for a direct route through the seracs. We pass giant crevasses and finally find a possible way.
Illimani is the local mountain of La Paz beeing visible from almost everywhere it seems that it is very close to the town. After the 4hrs drive to the foot of the mountain over very rough roads we don't think it is that close anymore. We are now in a totally different landscape: deep valleys, fertile fields and many little farming villages. It is very scenic.
From Pinaia, the last village, we walk around many fields and finally over alpine meadows to the bascamp, impressively located at the foot of this giant mountain.
Next day we scramble over lots of scree and sand towards the highcamp ¨Nido del Conder¨ the condor's nest. Is is spectacular placed with imposing views of the surrounding glacier. Because we have no porters and carry everything up here ourself quite an effort. At night we can see the countless light of la Paz from the tent - what a view! Strangely we are all by ourselfes, there is no one else on the mountain - we don't mind.
At 4 in the morning we start the long walk up the glacier all the way to Pico Sur at 6438m. Here we enjoy the incredible view. A long descent and drive back to La Paz follows before we can start to gather new strengh while looking back at this fantastic mountain and studying our route...
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By now we should be ready (that is acclimatised) for the highest mountain in Bolivia: Sajama. Other than the mountains we climbed so far, Sajama is a vulcano. It is located close to the chilenian border and visible from far away towering over the Altiplano. The approche is quite long but it is fortunately the best road of Bolivia. This is again a totally different surrounding: desertlike with vulcanos and little lagunas.
From the village of Sajama we continue the 2hrs walk to the basecamp. What an massive, giant piece of rock and ice! Sand and scree dominates the lower part of the mountain as normal for a vulcano. Because of that the walk up to the highcamp is often quite tiring. But the view from the highcamp over the endless Altiplano is already gigantic.
 - Sajama 6559m
At 4 in the morning we set off. The moon is considerably lesser by now and provides only little light. At the beginning we have to cross some fields with snow penitents. A south american speciality resulting from the special solar irradiation here. After a short couloir and a rocky ridge we find ourselfes at the foot of a long glacier slope. Climbing at this altitude is not always real fun. Is is often just tiring, hard work. In slow motion we move up the slope. It is terribly cold and even though we have good equipment, we are all struggling with cold feet and fingers. Eventually we reach the huge summit plateau. A very strange environment: The plateau has an arctic character because of the cold and the snow formations. At the same time we look down towards the desertlike Altiplano.
When we get up next morning at the basecamp. A endless caravan of people is walking past our tent to the foot of the mountain. What is going on? Yesterday we noticed already a lot of military around the mountain. Later we find out that today the president himself is comming here (by helicopter) to play a footbal game at 5000m! Why? As a demonstration for the FIFA who doesn't allow international games to be held higher than 2500m anymore. Cool the bolivians :-)
After the descent we go to the hot springs that are close by where we enjoy a bath with a last view back to the mountain.
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In the first part of our trip we made some technically more difficult climbs but the peaks were not so high yet. In the second part is was mainly high peaks that are technically easy. Now we want to combine those two and try a technically more difficult high peak. Illampu is the mountain we want to go for - the most difficult (normal route) 6000er of Bolivia...
That this mountain is of a different category we realise quickly: everything here is a little bit bigger, longer, more difficult, higher. The approach is already quite adventurous. Passing lake Titicaca we reach Sorata where we charter a Land Cruiser and drive over bumpy roads to Ancoma a little village. Here we want to get a pack-mule for the walk to the basecamp. We first cannot belive it quite when we hear: 'no hay mulas'. Right here, where we have taken quite some more equipment with us... But there is no other way but to add the load that was planned for the mule to our own already huge backpacks. My goodness, the backpacks are terribly heavy. Will we be able to get up there with that?
From the very start we can already see up to Pico Norte, a neighbour peak - very impressive... The trail follows a stream over nice meadows. But it is unclear and we get lost a couple of times. We are quite happy when we leave the shrubs behinds us. We reach the base camp just before nightfall.
On the second day we walk up a rocky slope along the glacier, always with great views of the peak ahead of us. We soon realise that we are very slow because of the heavy backpacks we have to carry. Since we have sufficient time, we split the way to the high camp for two days and camp one more time below the glacier.
The next day we walk up the glacier to a plateaux at 5600mm where we set up the high camp. Right ahead of us there is the first main difficulty on the way up: a 60° steep 300m high headwall with a large bergschrund at the bottom. Looks very impressive (like the rest of the ridge to the summit) but the conditions seem the be very good.
At 3 o'clock in the early morning we start. Not easy to get out of the warm sleeping bag into the cold at that time. In the pitch dark night we work up the steep face. Actually I am glad that it is so dark, so I can see neither up nor down and can concentrate only on the 2 meters just ahead of me.
At the end of the face we reache a narrow and exposed ridge. The ridge soon becomes broader. It seems there has not been anybody on the mountain for quite some time. We have to make our own trail in the often deep snow. The summit constantly seems to be so close but at this altitude everything happens in slow motion. After 6 1/2 hours we reach the summit after a last steep section. All of a sudden the sun is here and we forget about the cold during the climb.
The vista is fantastic: To the right the flat Altiplano, then the mountain range - the Cordillera Real and on the left the lowlands - the Yungas, behind us the Titicaca lake.
Carefully we descend. When we reach our tents we are quite exhausted, no surprise after almost 12 hrs afoot.
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In the next 2 days we walk back to Ancoma. I will fly home in only 2 days. Gregi & Karin have still 2 weeks more time. As Gregi said: ¨now our holidays begin!¨
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