Huayni Potosi (6088m)
So in La Paz for less than a hundred pounds you to can try to summit a 6000m plus mountain without oxygen.
Sofi thought my idea of afun way to spend 3 days and really get to experience the Andes was a totally insane way to spend my time. I thought it would be great fun!
So for the first timein 9 months we spent 3 days appart. The first day we went straight to 4800m to practice ice climbing, and walking on glaciers, jumping over crevasess etc. All skills we would need later on in the trek.
The second day, back pack filled with food, water, sleeping bags, plastic ice climbing boots, ice axe and lots of other heavy stuff we climbed to 5180m. Un nervingly we walked past a cross for a Dutch girl that fell to her death in 2010. ( see one of the pictures were I am holding on to the rock with back pack on, there is quite a steep drop behind me)
I felt quite good at 5100m no altitude problems like in Tibet. I even put on my crampons and practiceby climbing to about 5400m.
At 5pm we go to sleep, I have terrible stomach ache all night and don't manage to sleep at all. At 00:00 we wake up by 1am we areout the door in the dark climbing to the summit. The wind chill is killing. My stomach is in agony. I have to stop unhook from the saftey rope take of 6 leyers griping my ice axe not to slide I have terrible diarria. My arse is freezing!!! I feel abit better, 10 min later I vomit, and then vomit again. It's 3am and at 5500m I decide I have to turn back as being sick I am slowing the other down to much. I walk back alone in the dark the high camp, were I lie in 2 sleeping bags shivvering and going to the toilet every 30min.
Utterly disapointed I did not make the summit. When the others get back I learn only just over half actually made it all the way. I still feel ill and trek down to base camp at 4800m, and hour down the mountain.
I later learn the spring water I drank was the reason I became so sick and am very angry at myself for not boiling it first. I thought at 5000m it would hardly be contaminated, but I was wrong.
Even after I get back to La Paz, the hiking the altitude and being so sick meant when I see Sofi I colapse into a bed and sleep for 6hours. (the fact that there is a normal shared toilet, toilet paper and its not fucking freezing make me feel allot better)
I will have to come back to Bolivia one day to try again!
So in La Paz for less than a hundred pounds you to can try to summit a 6000m plus mountain without oxygen.
Sofi thought my idea of afun way to spend 3 days and really get to experience the Andes was a totally insane way to spend my time. I thought it would be great fun!
So for the first timein 9 months we spent 3 days appart. The first day we went straight to 4800m to practice ice climbing, and walking on glaciers, jumping over crevasess etc. All skills we would need later on in the trek.
The second day, back pack filled with food, water, sleeping bags, plastic ice climbing boots, ice axe and lots of other heavy stuff we climbed to 5180m. Un nervingly we walked past a cross for a Dutch girl that fell to her death in 2010. ( see one of the pictures were I am holding on to the rock with back pack on, there is quite a steep drop behind me)
I felt quite good at 5100m no altitude problems like in Tibet. I even put on my crampons and practiceby climbing to about 5400m.
At 5pm we go to sleep, I have terrible stomach ache all night and don't manage to sleep at all. At 00:00 we wake up by 1am we areout the door in the dark climbing to the summit. The wind chill is killing. My stomach is in agony. I have to stop unhook from the saftey rope take of 6 leyers griping my ice axe not to slide I have terrible diarria. My arse is freezing!!! I feel abit better, 10 min later I vomit, and then vomit again. It's 3am and at 5500m I decide I have to turn back as being sick I am slowing the other down to much. I walk back alone in the dark the high camp, were I lie in 2 sleeping bags shivvering and going to the toilet every 30min.
Utterly disapointed I did not make the summit. When the others get back I learn only just over half actually made it all the way. I still feel ill and trek down to base camp at 4800m, and hour down the mountain.
I later learn the spring water I drank was the reason I became so sick and am very angry at myself for not boiling it first. I thought at 5000m it would hardly be contaminated, but I was wrong.
Even after I get back to La Paz, the hiking the altitude and being so sick meant when I see Sofi I colapse into a bed and sleep for 6hours. (the fact that there is a normal shared toilet, toilet paper and its not fucking freezing make me feel allot better)
I will have to come back to Bolivia one day to try again!
No comments:
Post a Comment