Climbing Huayna Potosi (6088 m)
Cordillera Real, Bolivia, June 2000
In June 2000, when I returned to La Paz after a wonderful trip to the incredible Salar de Uyuni and the wild southwest of Bolivia, I didn't want to leave the country without climbing the beautiful and nearby Huayna Potosi (6088 m). Unfortunately I didn't had a tent with me, so I went to one of the many offices and joined a guided group tour. At the morning we were supposed to take off, the group had disappeared and I found myself alone with Eliseo, the bolivian mountain guide. Just one minute before we left, Umri an israelian traveller showed up and joined us, so we were a small party of three. After a short drive to the base of the mountain we prepared our backpacks and headed for the high camp (around 5100 m) at the last rocky outcrops before the glacier starts. It was quite windy up there and we had to move our tent to a more protected place.
The climb: at 3:00 am we put on the crampons and left the camp. It had -15 degrees Celcius, not bad for a winter night at 5000 m! In the distance we could see the golden web of light of El Alto, the part of La Paz which lies on the altiplano. After some time of walking on the gentle rising glacier we hit this ice-wall in the darkness:
(Click on the thumbnail to view the larger picture):
(Picture credit: Karsten Rau)
The route goes up on the easier, right side of the face, the main summit is the peak in the background and the
secondary summit is visible on the left. After climbing up this steep step we were engulfed by clouds and
saw only ghostly the light of the headlamps of other climbers. But we were lucky: when we reached the base of the
summit pyramide the clouds disappeared and we could view a fantastic sunrise. We didn't follow the summit ridge nor
did we climb the steep direct approach, the Pala, we did a variation known as Media Pala. This is
another steep step to the right of the longer Pala and it reaches the summit ridge about 50 meters from the
summit. At 9:00 in the morning we stood on the top of Huanya Potosi and enjoyed this beautiful view (or better a
very similar view):
(180 deg Panorama Picture credit: Karsten Rau, click to enlarge)
This 180 degree summit view panorama shows the final part of the summit ridge on the left with the lake Titicaca and
the Cordillera Real in the background. The Media Pala hits the summit ridge at the snow band which splits
the two brown rock sections. On the very right of the picture you can see Illimani in the background.
Then we went back to the high camp and after a rest further down to the hut at the base of the mountain where a small van brought us back to La Paz. Is Huayna the easiest 6000m peak of the world, as often stated? Well, I'd say it is probably the 6000m peak with the shortest and easiest approach. You can do the whole thing within 2 days from La Paz. But the steep sections of even the most simple, the normal route, make it more technical than many 6000m vulcanos where one never needs the frontpoints of the crampons.
Acknowledgement:
Many thanks to Karsten Rau , who allowed me to use his two Huayna pictures, especially for the nice panorama from the summit!
Visit his excellent website: Karsten's Heimseite fuer Weltenbummler (in german)
about his travels to North- & Southamerica, Asia and Australia and more!