September 7, 2007

AAI guide Mark Johnson called today at 8:15pm Bolivia time with a report:

We awoke at 2am this morning and left by 3am to begin climbing Pequeño Alpamayo. The weather was cloudy and lightly snowing when we left camp. We got on the glacier, roped up, and began climbing with everyone feeling very good. There was about a foot of new snow that had accumulated over the last two days, and as we climbed on up a little ways to steeper slopes, I stopped and dug a snow pit (that was about 5am). I found signs of instability in the snow, so I dug about five more snow pits, about half of which showed signs of instability. I talked it over with everyone, and we made the decision to turn around (we were at about 16,400 feet). The snow just needed a little time to slough off or settle, and we felt we needed to play it safe considering the angle of the slopes ahead of us.

We got back to camp at about 7am and ate a pancake breakfast, which was followed by - you guessed it - a nap. We then all left camp at 11:30am and hiked back towards the glacier, where we did some good ice climbing on frozen water ice. The weather wasn't very good, but we climbed all day anyway, then returned to camp at 5pm where we dried off and had a hearty spaghetti dinner.

Tomorrow, we'll be heading out of the Condoriri Valley. Next is Huayna Potosi. We're remaining optimistic about the weather - hoping that we'll get some warmer temperatures to stabilize the snowpack - but we'll just have to see what the weekend brings.

We're all doing well and will be back in touch soon.