July 24, 2007

We received a final dispatch from guide Joey Elton today, who just returned to the United States. Since it's been a couple days since the last dispatch, we had Joey start by recounting his story during their summit attempt of Illimani.

As stated in the last dispatch, guide Danny Uhlmann and his rope team got to within 50 - 100 feet of the summit of Illimani but had to turn back due to an impassable crevasse. They met Joey's rope team on the way down and warned them of the crevasse. Consequently, Joey took a route to the left towards the summit (Danny had gone right), and this alternate route worked out very well, requiring them to cross just a very small summit bergschrund. Joey and Steve summited at 10:30am, six hours after they left High Camp. "Conditions were great," Joey said, "We summited under a beautiful day, with a light breeze and clear conditions. We had the entire summit to ourselves, and we could see to La Paz in one direction and to the cloud forest and Amazon Basin in the opposite direction."

Joey and Steve took photos but didn't linger long on top. They descended to High Camp in 1.5 hours, then after a brief break and packing up camp they descended to Base Camp. At Base Camp they were met with a huge, traditional feast of roasted lamb, potatoes, and wine. They ate as much as they could, then went to bed early.

The next day was again beautiful and clear, but Joey said he saw high winds whipping the summit, so he was glad to have summited when they did. They hiked out to the road, where they unloaded the horses and loaded the jeeps, then drove to La Paz, arriving around 2pm. The team spent the afternoon resting and cleaning up, then watched the documentary that Kurt Gusinde had recorded throughout the trip. In the evening, they had a fabulous three-course meal at La Comedie, a very nice French and Bolivian restaurant. Over good food and good wine, they reminisced on their trip, toasted, and congratulated themselves on their success.

All team members flew out the next morning, July 22nd.