Parón Valley

Jiri, Imran, Kaeli, and I made a joint attempt this week at new series of peaks: Caraz 1 & 2, and Artensonraju (all just over 6000m). But for all our planning, food, gear, and even all the time we had, we didn’t manage to get very far.

The Paron Valley, in which these three peaks lie, is a bit different than the rest of the Cordillera Blanca. First, it doesn’t see as much traffic as some of the more popular guided/trekking valleys. Second, the valley itself contains a giant, dammed reservoir, which is administered and “guarded,” so to speak, by a private Peruvian utility company. As a result, you can get in and climb without a permit or any of the bureaucracy required of other valleys, BUT they don’t allow donkey transport, and the nearest village, even if they did, is 18km down the mountain.

Parón Valley with Pirámide and Chacaraju in the background

Laguna Parón

So what did we do? We packed expecting to hire donkeys! Duh. 6 mega cans of beans and chicken soups, half wheel of cheese, 3 liters of fuel, 10lb tent, 15 eggs, all the fixins’.

We found and hired this great husband-wife-and-small-child team that operated a collectivo (shared van) between Caraz and Huaraz to drive us all the way to the lake for 150 soles, about 100 less that Brad Johnson quotes. En route, we learned of our soon to be ill-fated approach. We wondered all along how the donkeys would walk 18km from town and meet us at the end of the road... it sure didn’t seem right.

Sure enough, no donkeys.

We did find a weathered old Peruvian man and his son at the guard post, where we paid our 5 sol entrance fee, who offered to work as porteros and carry all our stuff to basecamp. But they only had a combined 4 legs. We’d packed for 8-12 legs!

It worked out though. Everyone shouldered about 60lbs, the young guy with Imran and Jiri’s NF duffel maybe more... A 2.5 hour hike brought us toward Piramde at the head the valley, and along side the banks of the most insanely blue-colored lake I’ve ever seen in my life. The water-level had been recently lowered (I think permanently), exposing white sandy silt that, in contrast with the deep blue water and brilliant sunny sky, gave us the feeling that we were walking along some sort of lost, high-altitude Caribbean beach front. Absolutely stunning. Piramde stood ominously in the background, casting it’s, intimidating, fluted glory down the entire valley. Artesonraju remained hidden...

...That is, until we finally neared basecamp at the far end of the lake (about a 2 miles from the road). And BAMO! The massive SW face, all 600m. Wowzers.

Here we made camp.

The next morning we departed for our “camp 2,” heading further up the valley along a moraine ridge toward the southern aspect of the two Caraz peaks. We had a late start and found a perfect little patch of grass and fresh-flowing water about 3 hours in, at 4800m, and called it a day (perhaps a bit premature). The views were absolutely stunning.

4800m camp

Artesonraju

Huandoy

2 am looking to the southwest in the Parón Valley - Chacaraju, Pisco, Pisco Oeste, Huandoy

Artesonraju, Parón, Pirámide

The next day we ventured further up the mountain toward the Caraz 1-2 col at 5700m (3000ft of gain to 18,700 ft.). The day for me was absolutely grueling. Because Kaeli was recovering from a stomach bug, that nearly prevented us from joining on the trip, I opted to carry almost all of our group gear, probably to the tune of about 65 or 70lbs. We spent about 3 hours stumbling through a boulder field before arriving a the toe of the glacier. From there, we followed Imran and Jiri for about 7 hours through a maze of crevasses and deeeeeeep sugar snow. It was actually quite beautiful. The ice cliff to our left threatened to squash us like ants. And it nearly did at point as we climbed the final headwall. Around 3:30pm tumbliing cacophony of ice blocks about the size of large house came tumbling down, forming a torrential ice flow that ended about 4 meters from the trail we’d (they’d) just blazed.

Approach to col, Caraz I and II

(minor) Headwall

Cloud rolled in. No more happy views--just fog. We clambered on. I cursed weight of the pack, and the blasted snow. It was up to mid-thigh in places. One step up, three steps down. Wasted effort. I didn’t really feel like continuing on. It was going to be a miserable 500 more meters to the summit (300 the next day) if we had to climb through this shit.

If it hadn’t been for Jiri and Imran digging the way for us--literally--then we probably would have camped back at the moraine at 5100m and reconsidered. But Imran urged us on, and I started getting some sort of sick joy out of the struggle, partly motivated by the sight of Jiri swimming in snow, moving forward without complaint, almost enjoying it. We’d gone far enough that we’d better damn get to the camp at least, I thought.

Jiri at the top of the headwall

But wasn’t going to reveal itself that easily, not before a 70 degree pitch of mostly-unprotectable sugar snow. Where the rest of us backed down, Jiri came through a fantastic little lead. Sticks were shit. Snow was deep. Somehow he wallowed his way up with all his limbs toward the top, finding some decent icy/snow a picket a long the way. The 3 of us followed up on belay and trudged onward to camp.

There, at 5700m just a few feet from the col, we all collapsed in exhaustion. We melted water, drank tea, at chocolate, and hid in our vestibule. The weather worsened a bit before it began to clear. By nightfall, the stars were shining bright, and soon after the moon rose as well.

Summit attempt :(

Ding, ding, ding! 6am the alarm goes off. I peer out the tent: white everywhere. Up, down, left, right. I can see Jiri and Imran’s tent but nothing else. No summit in this weather. Kaeli was feeling sick again and opted just to stay curled up her sleeping bag. We all sat around in a daze waiting for the weather to clear. Not much happened. Around 9am, after we got suckered into gearing up, we decided to head up the mountain, leaving Kaeli to rest in the tent. I’d say we hiked about 5 minutes before conditions worsened to the point that we could hardly see each other on the same rope. We quickly put an end to that.

Back to camp.

A few more hours of sitting around, strategizing. Then I started feeling sick and a bit nauseous. Something we’d eaten? We think it was the coconut milk in the curry that we made ourselves the night before we left Huaraz, or possibly dirty vegetables.

We decided to call an end to our adventure and head down. Imran and Jiri kindly offered their rope for a double-rope rap down the headwall. Kaeli and I cruised back to the moraine, passing the previous day’s ice fall debris. We hiked through clouds and falling snow back to the 4800 camp. Nausea and stomach pain prevented me from downing anymore than about 50 noodles of mac and cheese and a little water. Extreme bouts of stomach illness continued during the events of the next 72 hours. 

The next morning we headed down to basecamp at 4200, where we greeted by cows and a group of guided french climbers. Some rest, some delicious, but still indigestible food followed. Late in the afternoon Imran and Jiri arrived. The sugar snow wouldn’t relent, and despite the incredible weather that morning, they too were defeated by the mountain. We had pancakes and Nutella for breakfast (thanks to Imran!) before hobbling, sickly back across the lake to find a taxi home.

Imran and Jiri are still in the valley trying their luck on Artensonraju.

Artesonraju - SW face to the right of center ridge

More photos:

http://www.andret.com/peru/paron-valley/