Andean vacation. Volcano San Jose. Base Camp
Andean vacation. Volcano San Jose. High camp
January 6 the wind died down, and we moved camp up to 5100. The German-Australians had gone down, freeing their tent places, and we settled onto one of them. We did have to make a trip up to 5200 to fetch the cache, but a bit of exercise never hurts.
On the morning of the 7th we set out for the summit. There was no strong wind, the sun was shining, and by local standards it was positively warm. –10°C on top.
The ascent there is steady, across snow-and-rock fields.
Smoke break.
The summit is over there.
And down there — the refuge and the exit into the valley.
San José is quite an active volcano, its upper part wide and spacious, with three large craters.
Ahead is the rim of the first crater.
The first crater, with a substantial glacier inside.
Closer in pieces.
Here you can clearly see the sulfur — proof that the volcano is very much alive.
Marmolejo.
The second crater.
The summit (overall view with the cairn on the cover photo). On the far side of the crater is the Chilean summit. It’s lower than the official one; patriotic Chileans invariably go over there as well, but we won’t — we lack the Chilean patriotism required to do laps around the crater rim.
The summit cairn has all sorts of things embedded in it, from a compass to several memorial plaques. Judging by the inscriptions, the people commemorated did not perish here; apparently they simply loved this mountain and had stood on this summit many times.
We sat on the summit, had some tea,
Admired the surroundings,
Waved to Marmolejo,
And headed down.
We descended calmly to the tent, but I had barely lit the Jetboil to melt water for dinner when snow began to fall — which very quickly turned into SNOW. And it kept coming, without pause, for 36 hours…
To be continued…
