Page 24 - 2005 AMA Winter

Exercise Northern Ascent
At Fitzcarrald, on the northern edge of Huaraz, as I gazed at the first collectivo for Caraz (our jump off point for the mountains) I reflected that maybe it was just as well only Will and I had made it on the trip. There certainly wasn't room for more than two inside the collectivo. and there defi­ nitely wasn't room for more than two peoples’ kit on the roof rack, stacked as it already was with crates of chickens and piles of metre wide plastic wash bowls (so you could trample the laundry with your feet? I wondered). In fact, I wasn't convinced that the addition of our four large packs wouldn't turn the collec­ tivo from an uncomfortably over-crowded vehicle into a top heavy death trap, but the cheerful insouciance of the driver and his mate "No hay problema” and the knowledge that the next collectivo didn’t have a roof rack swung the risk assessment and we were off.
What had started as an eight man exped had dwindled down to two as original partic­ ipants were told they could not be released or were warned for ops. An effort to re-recruit by offering places to newly qualified Mountain Warfare Instructors from my own formation, 52 Infantry Brigade, fell at the hurdle of operational commitments and career courses now overdue because of previous opera­ tional commitments! All this meant for my plan, however, was that the time planned for acclimatisation and training would now consist of only the former.
I had climbed with Will Manners before and as befits a previous OC of the Joint Service Mountain Training Centre, he is a vastly experi­ enced mountaineer. I, on the other hand, was the local expert having made two trips to this area previously, one
into the same valley we were now ascending. It was during this trip I had decided to return to try to climb the classic face route on a most beautiful mountain, Artesonraju 6025m, which dominated the valley.
We established ourselves at our base camp with the help of two porters (we had 13 days supply of food and fuel) and began the process of acclimatisation and recon­ naissance. Four days later we had established our high camp on the glacier at 4770m and the following day we recced the route through the crevasse field to the foot of the South East face at 5200m. We marked the route with canes.
The next day we carried out an acclimatisation climb on a peak at the head of the valley, Paron. reaching 5405m before turning back due to poor snow conditions. The exped is all going to plan so far We descend to our base camp overnight, to collect more food and fuel and return to await conditions to climb Artesonraju. What we hadn’t planned on was it snowing that night and was still snowing in the morning. However, the altimeter said the pressure was rising, so up we got, re-victualled and set off back to high camp through some very Scottish weather. We dig out the tent and reoccupy it. It is still snowing, in fact it is getting worse and the wind is picking up. We decide that if it peters out overnight, we will give it a go, but if there’s too much snow, we’ll retreat and wait it out. If it is still snowing in the morning we will descend to base camp.
To add to our difficulties, I have now started a serious toothache and the infection is rendering one side of my face the consistency of wood. It therefore takes me a long time
although we had the good positioning, a tent does not offer any defence against an avalanche. On cue, this chain of thought was interrupted by an almighty crack and this time, to our left, I listened to the SW face avalanche
22 ARMY HGUHTfllNttB )
CordilleraBlanc, Peru2 0 0
4
By Cath Davies, Vice Chairman (Mountaineering)
to get to sleep, a sleep rudely interrupted at 0200 hrs by the
boom and crashing of a huge avalanche. By proximity and
position, it can only be the SE
face! We are camped below
the ridge, or arête, between
the SE and SW face and
arêtes don’t avalanche, I hugely. hastily calculated. Will sleeps
on, having made a considered decision to use earplugs that night, the consideration being there is no use worrying about something you cannot influence. I suppose this must be the nearest you could get in peacetime to being under indirect fire, hoping good posi­ tioning and well
The next morning, it was still snowing, so we packed up and ran away After getting my toothache sorted in Huaraz, we headed off into another valley and summitted on a 5686m peak, Vallunaraju, not quite as beautiful, but with spectacular summit views and some interesting mixed
constructed
defences
would save
you. The
only differ-'
ence was
that there.
climbing on the way. Artesonraju will have to wait until next time, but that is the one thing about mountains, they are always