Then it came time for the last climb of the trip. And this one was by all measures big. A complete traverse of the Illimani massif, consisting of about 9 miles of technical terrain, most of it over 20,000 ft. At 21,122 ft, Illimani is the highest peak in the Cordillera Real and the second highest in Bolivia. This time, we were joined by Bolivian aspirant guide Marcelo, who added a great energy to our rope team. We stripped down light, opting to go for speed rather than comfort on our attempt. We planned two bivouacs on the route, with both locations just below the glacier where we could access running water to save gas. On our main day, we climbed for 20.5 hours straight, mostly in truly "heads-up" terrain, where absolute focus on the task at hand was critical. For hours on end, a slight mistake or lapse in judgement by any one of us could have led to disaster. We often dealt with challenging unconsolidated snow conditions, which made not only for difficult forward progress, but also upped the risk. It was also violently cold and windy...none of us felt fingers or toes for much of the outing. Nonetheless, and light on sleep and nutrition, Marcelo, Alex and I made it back down to a gorgeous meadow on the morning of our third day and had enough energy to rally for a nice, celebratory end-of-the-trip dinner in La Paz. In the photo essay below, pretty much every time you see a ridge, we were on it.
The road to a mine, the traditional starting/ending place for the traverse was washed out. So we had a five hour climb to our first bivouac.
Mururata
Our first bivy. Photo: Alex von Ungern
Marcelo battles the cold. The night was frigid.
Following the ridge in earliest morning light. The traverse followed the entire ridgeline behind us. Photo: Alex von Ungern
Looking back at some of the early ridge
Somewhat typical terrain on the traverse. Often the snow was completely unconsolidated sugar, making the difficulty of getting good axe and foot placements quite high, not to mention the consequences of a mistake. Photo: Alex von Ungern
Here, I follow a challenging corniced section. Photo: Alex von Ungern
Photo: Alex von Ungern
The second half of the traverse. The main summit of Illimani (21,122 ft) is on the right.
Marcelo leads the long ridge ahead. Photo: Alex von Ungern
We followed the entire skyline (and more behind).
Marcelo and I staying to the sides of cornices. Photo: Alex von Ungern
Most of the traverse is visible on the skyline
The massive main summit of Illimani
Me reaching the summit as the sun sets. Photo: Alex von Ungern
After a lengthy and involved descent, we bivouacked next to the first running water, 20.5 hours after starting our climb. Too tired to eat dinner, we just chugged some streamwater and went to bed. Here, the next morning, Alex descends between high camp and base camp on the normal route.
We traversed the massif from left to right. Main summit is on the right.
Freddy drove us home on beautiful, yet "interesting" roads.
