Yanapaccha

Kaeli is in Ecuador watching whales mate (?) until next week, and I am back in Huaraz relaxing after (yes) more climbing. My rest days (week, actually) consist of sleeping, eating, reading, and hammering out blog posts like this one. I hope you enjoy it.

On July 15th Kaeli and I climbed Yanapaccha (17,913 ft) in Quebrada Llanganuco, one of the most stunning valleys in the entire Cordillera Blanca. The valley contains is surrounded by 7 of the ranges highest peaks and the popular trekking peak Pisco Oeste:

Huascaran Sur* -- 22,200 ft
Huascaran Norte -- 21,833 ft
Huandoy Norte -- 20,980 ft
Huandoy Sur -- 20,853 ft
Chopicalqui* -- 20,846 ft
Huandoy Oeste -- 20,209 ft
Huandoy Este -- 19,914 ft
Pisco Oeste* -- 18,864 ft

Quebrada Llanganuco from the approach (Huascaran, Huascaran Norte, & famous Llanganuco Lakes)

The approach to the base camp of Yanapaccha is amazingly short, just 2.5 hours from the road, and offers mind-blowing views of the surrounding peaks and valley below. We arrived at camp early in the day, around 1pm, which gave us plenty of time to relax. To our delight there was a large, clear tarn, from which to get pure glacier water, an upgrade from the last camp, on Shaqsha, where we had to sift
through the feathers and floaties of an old murky puddle to obtain not-so-clean drinking water.

Camp

We hung out in camp all day. I even spent an hour watching Skyline Adventures conducting one of their intro climbing courses. Yanapaccha is the peak of choice because of it’s relatively easy technical grade and because the popularity of nearby Pisco attracts all the heavy guided traffic. Aside from the class of 7 or 8, mainly Europeans and Americans, we had the place to ourselves.

And even better, on summit day, we were the only ones going up, so we had the whole mountain to ourselves. Kaeli and I planned to have her lead all the pitches to get some practice and picket placement and efficiency in preparation for what we intended to be a climb on the N face of Quitaraju (but which later ended up being the French Direct on Alpamayo).

So anyway, we took, I think, 4 pickets along, a 60m rope, and some ice screws. It was full moon. We brought our headlamps, but kept them off. Here’s the first part of our ascent:

Looking north under a full moon: Huandoy massif, Pisco Oeste, Pisco Este

Full moon with a bit of pre-sunrise purple glow - Huandoy Massif

Moonset behind the Huandoy Massif

After I spent 20 minutes taking photos, during which Kaeli was forced wait and freeze her butt off, we were off toward the crux pitch, a 70m, 60-65 degree snow pitch up to the ridge. Normally, the route goes directly up the middle of the face, but this year the bergschrunds were too large.

Kaeli on the steep pitch

Chopcalqui, Huascaran, Huascaran Norte

The final pitches

Summit of Yanapaccha

Kaeli on the summit

Peering over to summit to see Chopicalqui

On descent

Descending the face with the stunning SW Face of Chacaraju in the background

For kicks we decided to rappel the face instead of down climb the route we’d come up. Though the face was split by bergschrunds, most of it was easily passable on rappel, EXCEPT for the one 20 ft wide section we brilliantly chose. Of course, I didn’t know until I was standing on the edge, looking down. What should have been a relatively mild 30m rappel down to easy terrain ended up being a free-hanging-pendulum-into-huge-icecles rappel, off aluminum sections of window frame (which is what our trusty peruvian pickets are made from). Luckily, the bottom of the crevasse was filled with snow, so we could walk up and out. In the photo, Kaeli is about 30 feet from where she landed, so she appears slightly larger in the photo relative to the drop. It was indeed the most excitement we’ve both ever had on rappel.

Down climbing below a bergschrund (see the road??)

The infamous rappel

Close-up of the Huandoys during the day (!!!)

On the hike out to the road we flagged down one of those amazing diesel Hilux trucks that, if you've been to the Blanca, you see everywhere. We got to ride in one! Guido, from Belgium, was kind enough to stop for us and give us a 2-hour ride down to the highway. He runs a really cool for-profit sustainable tourism company out of Huaraz. Learn more here: http://www.respons.org/