Page 39 - 1995 Mountaineering Club Bulletin

Thursday 27 July. Poor weather, overcast and raining. But we set off anyway and put in a bivi under Punta Union for an attempt on Millisharaju (5510m).
Friday 28 July. Away by 4.30am and straight into a bog, then flog up scree and slabs to reach the snow ridge. At this point Haggis has bad altitude sickness so we turn round, but Chris and Andy continue to reach the top. On returning to base we cook up a huge meal.
Saturday 29 July. While the others rest Andy and I head up to the Alpamayo Col camp, soloing past a group of continental incompetents who were jumaring up the 50 degree snow slopes.
Sunday 30 July. Away at 4.30am for the Canadian-Peruvian route on Alpamayo (5947m) but in the dark we got onto the Ferrari route by mistake. Four hours and seven perfect pitches of grade III later we reached the knife edge summit ridge. We quickly abseiled off being bombarded by ice from the 4 parties still climbing and were back in the tent by 12.00. A lot of groups attempt this route, because it is famous, even though their skills and experience are totally inadequate (we saw one group spend 12 hours on the route).
Monday 31st July. Away at 4.20am for the north face of Quitaraju (6040m). We climb this beautiful 600m 50 degree face in two hours reaching the top at 8.00am. There are incredible views of Alpamayo and the previous days route. The descent of the west ridge is time consuming in deep snow and complex routeftnding through seracs; we do a scary abseil over a serac before getting back to the glacier. After a quick lunch we head back to the basecamp meeting the other two on the way down. Chris has had the shits so they haven't done much.
Tuesday 1st August. Rest day.
Wednesday 2nd August. Set off after lunch for Rinrihirca (5945m). Chris and I are going badly and turn back to camp at Tauillapampa. Andy and haggis carry on to bivi on the moraine.
Thursday 3rd August. Chris and I head back to basecamp scrounging some food on the way to supplement our supplies. Andy and haggis appear mid-afternoon exhausted having failed on Rinrihirca at about 5200m in deep snow and complex seracs. They are understandably disappointed but if we wanted to get to the top of every peak we would have stayed in the Alps.
Friday 4th August. While the other two rest Andy and I slop for 5 hours up moraines to bivi on open slabs under Artesonraju (6024m), the Paramount mountain. The bivi site recommended in the guidebook is seriously threatened by stonefall.
Saturday 5th August. A 4.00am start after a bad nights sleep. The glacier is hard work with knee high neve penitents and some huge crevasses. We get onto the North ridge at dawn and Andy leads a hard pitch (Scottish IV) despite breaking his ice axe and his crampon falling off! Evil 50 degree snow slopes of unconsol­ idated sugar lead us to the summit at 9.00am. The weather has been rapidly deteriorating and we do some frightening down- climinb and abseils off snow stakes in storm conditions eventu­ ally getting back to the bivi after a 4 hour descent. We have a
lunch of rolled oats before yomping back to the basecamp. Chris and Haggis have failed on their attempt to get up to the Alpamayo Col due to illness.
Sunday 6th August. We have run very short of food but manage to buy some from some Italians. A huge German expedition appears and we hire some burros to go down. That night we camp in the same place we did on the walk in.
Monday 7th August. A very trouble free journey to Huaraz where we set about restoring our lost body weight and celebrat­ ing our return to civilisation. As Edwards Inn was full two of us stayed at Los Andes which was very friendly.
Tuesday 8th August. A rest day. Andy is pretty ill with the shits. Wednesday 9th August. Left Huaraz on the luxurious nightbus.
Thursday 10th August. Exploring Lima, a grotty city. Changing the guard at the Presidential Palace was less than professional but Burger King was excellent. The gold museum is highly recom­ mended. We crammed 4 of us and all our kit into a tiny taxi for the journey to the airport.
Friday 11th August. A day in New York. World Trade Centre, Times Square, Broadway and an excellent lunch in Little Italy
Saturday 12th August. Home at last. NOTES
ANNUAL BULLETIN
THE ROYAL NAVY & ROYAL MARINES MOUNTAINEERING CLUB
37
Peaks and Routes
Urus Este5 Little Ishinca
J and A J and A C and A J and A J and A J and A
420mSE slopes PD- 5300mAndy's route PD- II5510mNE ridge PD+ (F-) 5947mFerrari D (AD+) 6040mNorih face D- 6025mNorth ridge D (AD+)
Tents. The Ultimate dome tent was ideal, 4 of us would fit under just the flysheet for bivis. The Wild Country Trisar was too small.
Stoves. We had two MSR stoves running on Benzina Blanca (available from hardware stores) 10 litres was ample for four men for two weeks. At altitude we used 1 bluet gas cylinder a day, C if melting snow.
Clothing. It gets cold at night so duvet jackets and good sleeping bags were useful, otherwise similar clothing as used in the Alps in summer was used. On Artesonraju in the storm full Gore-ex, balaclava and mitts were essential.
Climbing Equipment.The most useful items were snow snakes which were often used and sometimes abandoned on abseils. Otherwise we had a small rack and used mainly ice screws. Most of the routes of TD and above have some aid on them. 2 x 50m
9mm ropes were useful for abseil descents of the harder routes. Cont
Millisharaju
Alpamayo
Quitaraju
Artesonraju
JandA=JamesandAndy CandA=ChrisandAndy Grades in () are those given by the guidebook.
Equipment