Chachani - 6075m!!!!!!!!

This is very long and boring so dont read this if your not interested in mountains, I just wrote it to remind me later on!

So I decided I had to conquer a mountain and Arequipa was the place to do it. The mountain was actually a volcano called Chachani, 6075m high, although the otherone called Misti looks a lot cooler, the guide cheekily made it seem as if the higher hill was easier, it was not!

The first day was fairly relaxed, after weeks of acclimatisation in La Paz and up to 5000m on the Salt Flats, a 2 hour climb from 5,000 to 5,300 was easy going. In fact, it gave me a little too much confidence considering I was unsure if ide make it with the old asthma, leg and hepatitus... The day of our climb to base camp another group of 10 had already tried for the summit and only 3 made it with similar results expected for our group. The group was mainly french speaking, a french couple, 4 swedish guys, 2 of whom over twice my age, an american, 2 Venezualans and myself. The french couple were cool, the guy had a similar crevass story to myself - Him and a freind fell part way down before stopping themselves with their snowboards, digging them into the edge of the ice cliff. They waited 3 hours holding on before they were spotted by some skiers on another mountain, an hour later the rescue team coaxed them into jumping onto the hanging rope ladder, wow. Im not sure how the fell exactly when snowboarding down to stop themselves with snowboards in their hands but it may have been lost in translation. His girlfriend was a 4rth year medic in france paying less than a 3rd of my tuition fees! Anyway, After arriving at base camp we set up our tents and gear, I shared with the american, Christian (not English Christian from Argentina and Machu Picchu etc) who was one of about 4 suffering from alititude sickness along with the french girl and the Venezualans. We ate an early supper of chicken and veg soup before heading to bed which didnt exactly go as planned. The tent and my sleeping bag wouldnt zip up at all so all entrances were open to the wind giving me a nice 4 hours or so to lie there freezing whilste watching Christian sleep like a baby.

At 1am we got up to start the ascent in the starlight which was just amazing. Putting on all our gear was a little difficult under a pathetic head tourch but some swiz fellas helped me out. The first thing I noticed was that the pace was brilliant, each burst was just about long enough to keep warm without getting puffed out...dont get me wrong, that was pretty slow but I think excusable when factoring in the altitude. After about 40 minutes we passed the rocks and entered the snowline where we took our first break to fit on the crampones and ice axes etc. At this point we lost the French girl who I thought was fine but the altitude really got to her. The Venezualans also pulled out here but Christian looked much better than the climb to base camp.

Shortly after putting on our gear we had to scale accross a near vertical cliff edge for an hour with no trail to walk accross, just a thin line of footprints carefully placed and ice axe holes next to broken prints where the odd person slipped. Luckily it was too dark to see the drop very cleary but at this point we had begun to see the lights of Arequipa below us, the second largest city in Peru. The next 4 hours we pretty dark and long with the pace considerably faster than most of us could manage so the only noise was heavy breathing and crunching through ice. As the sun rose it revealed our toughest stretch up to 5,900 from 5,300 (having gone up to 5,700 and back down in the hours before). It was this stretch that almost ruined my climb, I had a mild asthma attack which made it a hundred times harder than before, falling from the leading position to about 30 metres back from the main group with is much longer than you would expect at that hieght. When I eventually got to the top of the peak, the guide told me 3 more hours to go and my heart sank, I was certain I had to turn back but he told me there was no point, it would be harder than carrying on! 10 minutes further and I saw it, the peak! A small hill in the middle of a gigantic mountain sitting in front of me, my determination kicked in and the rest of the group cheered me on as they waited at the base taking their first break since hitting the ice about 5 or more hours before. I took a much needed break and we waited another 20 minutes for Christian and the one of the older swiss guys to catch up.

The last burst to the peak was easier than the peak before because I´d had my first drink of water and a few nuts, it took about an hour but I made it to the summit! The view was incredible, the whole of Arequipa and the top of the neighbouring volcanoes including the active volcano Misti. We took some photos and just stood laughing for about 20 minutes before heading down, most of the group had made despite a couple of guys feeling very sick.

The way down was horrendous! My crampone broke metres from the summit which was "fixed" with elastic from my trousers. Every few steps it came off which for the first hour wasnt such a problem, once I reached the near vertical cliff the guides had no idea what to do. They agreed it was too dangerous for me to continue but might a not funny joke about the lack of a helicopter service in Peru. Crap. One guide followed me for about 20 minutes before leaving me on my own to catch up with the main group, everybody was completely out of sight and everytime I lifting my one foot witht he crompone I slipped a little, plunging the axe into the ice to prevent a 1000m drop. Christian came back for me when he saw the second guide pass him, realising I was alone and tried to create more of a track for me to cross but it didnt help too much. We both eventually arrived in base camp about 20 minutes behind the rest having been 2 hours behind when I finished crossing the cliff edge.

After another 45 minutes to the pick up point and packing up all the gear I finished the 12 hours of solid climbing, having conquered my mountain, woohoo!!!!!