Poo Poo'd Peru's Perilous Pisco

“so, just south of here is the 2^nd biggest group of mountains in the world? wow”

I just had to go get in and about these. After the high altitude village tour referred to below it was time to go and climb what's advertised as “the easiest big peak”.

The mountain hut also referred to below sits at 4765m and the peak, Pisco, is at 5750m. At less than a 1000m difference and (I repeat) advertised as the easiest peak, surely I can head up to the hut, wait for good weather and smash it solo in a day?

Hut to Peak is less than 1000m. Easy?

On the Morning after I arrived at the hut I made my way to the glacier's edge to sus the route out. The following conversation with a descending group and every other I had over those next two days ended with; “whatever you do don't do it alone”.

Poo Poo.

Although sceptical of their over caution I have to admit the following facts;

• I didn't know what a snow bridge was and this climb involved crossing one
• There was no Cameron McNeish* style route guide
• Didn't realise that everyone starts their climb at 2am so the snow is still solid on descent
• I hadn't used crampons before

I'm not on this trip to intentionally do things that are risky although I wanted to assess the feasibility of doing this hill alone instead of blindly accepting from the word go that it was beyond my capabilities.

Accepted: too dangerous to do alone. Waited till the next dudes arrived, which happened to be a jolly Frenchman and his perky little guide. Can I follow you guys up? Yes. Bingo – we're on.

The staff at the hut cooked the mother of all feasts for the three of us the evening before and it was off to get some sleep before the 1am rise. Too excited and feeling very very full I managed about one hour.

45min into the walk and the chronic diarrhoea began, the now not so perky little Peruvian guide fell to a little of it also although the 'stomach anything' Frenchman appeared 100%. Bad news for me as we both agreed that the guilty portion had to be the fried cheese, that unfortunately I had eaten about a pound of.

The 'Stomach Anything' Frenchie

Totally unwilling to turn back I soldiered through the whole 10hr ordeal through wave after wave of pre explosion debilitation and post explosion revival. Dehydrated like a raisin and with my lungs failing to extract any oxygen from that high altitude air it was for sure a unique challenge.

My normal response to someone's question, “did you make the peak?” could quite easily have been the over confident, “yes I shat all over it” meaning yes I did and I dominated it. However on this occasion it had a whole other meaning.

Poo Poo - Great View - Huascarán Norte 6655m & Sur 6768m

 

*Cameron McNeish – The guy who wrote the definitive guide to climbing all of the Munros**

**Munros – A Munro is a mountain in Scotland with a height over 3000 ft. They are named after Sir Hugh Munro. There are 284 of them.