Andean vacation. Volcano San Jose. Base Camp
January 1 — a day off. Sacred, obviously. Especially when acclimatization calls for it.
We woke up unhurriedly, had breakfast, our companion decided to commit to rest with full seriousness, while we felt lazy — so we went for a short walk uphill, just to stretch the legs.
A look down — you can spot the tent with our fully committed-to-rest companion inside. The companion himself, however, is unlikely to be distinguishable.
And this is the view up.
And here are the flowers, defiantly ignoring altitude and cold.
Down there is the valley we climbed from and where we spent the first night.
We climbed up onto the ridge. There’s a lake on the ridge.
And a glacier flowing down into the Marmolejo valley.
January 2 — carry to 4700.
The traditional look back.
Look ahead.
At this point we were overtaken by a, uh, trail runner. He was doing San José in a single day. I understand he lives here, hikes these mountains every weekend, doesn’t need acclimatization — it’s chronic for him — but still, it was somehow unpleasant to realize…
We ran into the German-Australians again, as well as a large group from Quebec and a couple more pairs. Feels like a public thoroughfare. On the classic Marmolejo route there had been that beautiful solitude. But San José — everyone who isn’t lazy goes there. And not just locals either; foreigners come in droves.
View from 4700.
We hung around there, found ourselves a nicer little tent place with a view of a neighboring glacier with icicles,
left the cache and went back down to 4100 to sleep.
January 3 we hauled the rest of the load up to 4700. Pitched the tent above a drop-off onto the glacier. Rocks were falling onto the glacier with remarkable regularity. All night as well. Quite the musical accompaniment.
Had a little bonding moment with the penitentes. They’re small here — baby penitentes — not like the fields under Marmolejo last year.
That’s tomorrow’s ascent. Peer went up light to check it out, said it was so-so — steep and everything sliding enthusiastically; with backpacks it would be unpleasant, but what can you do.
January 4 we carried the cache to 5200. The climb to the ridge was unpleasant, as expected, but we scraped our way up. Beyond that — volcanic slopes of reasonable steepness with patches of penitentes.
At 4800 there are plenty of tent places, but why would we want 4800.
We climbed to 5100 and found two tent places, both occupied by the German-Australians. They weren’t there — apparently they had gone for the summit. We met a descending Austrian group; they said that higher up, until the pass (around 5400), there were no snow-free places.
San José ahead.
The valley we came from.
The little glacier beside which we’re standing.
We left our gear at 5200 (there is a small tent place, but you can’t squeeze our tent into it) and went back down, deciding we’d think tomorrow about where to camp.
Managed to catch a fresh weather forecast, which gloomily indicated that the next day, January 5, would be very windy. As in very windy — above 5,000 meters it would knock you clean off your feet. The 6th promised decent weather. And on the evening of the 7th a SNOWFALL was supposed to begin. In full capital letters.
We decided to sit out the 5th at 4700 — it’s sheltered there, the wind should be tolerable, and climbing onto the ridge where we’d be blown away didn’t seem wise. That’s what we did.
And it turned out we were right. Up high it was close to 100 km/h — definitely unclimbable — while we sat it out reasonably well, though it was certainly a pity to lose a day.
On the 6th we went up to 5100. After some thought, we settled on the place vacated by the German-Australians.
