Ice wall climbing

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice."
~Robert Frost

Thursday, September 18th 2008

As soon as I put on the gear our guide handed us near lake Llaca I knew I made a mistake.
My shoulder blade started to hurt during the last few days of the Huayuash and one day of rest was not enough to let it heal. However when during the afternoon on the day before I got invited to try this activity I could not say no. We started with a small group of 4 but by the time we boarded the van early in the morning there were ten of us. The small van jumped along the rough road to Llaca where we disembarked and got our climbing gear. The wall itself waited us at the end of an hour-hour and a half of uneven path at 4500 meters. As soon as I took the the first step with the heavy climbing equipment my shoulder started to bother me and I knew I made a mistake...

However one of the group was new to Huaraz and this was her first walk in those heights so we took the trail very slowly even stopping for coca tea on the way. The weather was hot making carrying the equipment even harder. We hiked along the small green lake and advanced to the glacier that feeds it - the landscape was filled with jagged rocks and pools with floating ice it didn´t look earthly or welcoming. When we got to the base of the grey ice of wall we could see that it was slowly melting in the hot afternoon sun. We sat below the wall as the guides setup the ropes and starting wearing the heavy ice boot and crampons. I was the first one who was ready and I confidentially went and stand beneath the harder route remembering my rock climbing experience.

Another mistake...

Turns out that I´m not as good in ice climbing as in rock climbing - the exact opposite - I suck at it! While rock climbing is about finding your way up across the rock face looking for handholds and footholds and keeping your balance, ice climbing is about kicking and hitting the ice with your crampons and axes into submission. And in my case, the ice didn´t yield.
My kicks and blows either weren´t deep enough to support my weight or I shattered the ice creating unusable shallow holes. I kept kicking and hacking but half way through I run out of air and got off from the wall defeated...

Others were not as bad as I was and on the easier route almost everyone got to the top. I felt a little better when I saw that only one other made it higher than me on the hard one (although he did made it all the way up). Although the sky turned grey and the guides were worried that it will start snowing - I wanted to try the other route to see if I can redeem myself. I didn´t. I did marginally better on that route and although I was determined to reach the top on muscle power and sheer will power alone, I tried too hard and the crampon broke from my boot under the force of my kicks - the ice wall has won again...

At this point the sky turned black and fearsome the exact opposite of the hot summer sun that followed us in. We quickly packed our bags and although my shoulder gave me hell, started walking back as fast as I could in the heavy snow that started falling. The snow turned into a storm when I was near the starting point, I almost run the last 500 meters slipping a few time on the icy rocks but I made it back in roughly half an hour. I put on my warm clothes and rested my shoulder while I waited close to an hour to last of the group to huddle through the storm.

All in all it was quite a memorable experience ;)