Escalada de hielo

He he. That was fun.

Yesterday Ol, Jess and I spent the best part of the day at 5000m, climbing the face of a glacier. Luckily it was only a small glacier, but bashing up it with the ice tools and crampons is fun. But that was on top rope – who knows how much I’d enjoy it leading a few thousand meters off the deck. Perhaps we’ll never know. It was fun anyway. If I manage to get to Canada for winter, I may have found something to keep me entertained.

And Ol and Jess left last night, for skiing further south. Hopefully they enjoy that – no doubt they will. And thus ends phase II of my trip. (phase I was pre Ol and Jess, phase III will be getting to Iquitos). So on that note I’ve got a ticket for tomorrow morning out of Huaraz. I’ll go back to Trujillo and then mosey north.

I can’t be too quick though, today is the celebration of 150 years since Huaraz was founded – hence there was a bit of a party last night. After climbing and being up early, I crashed at 12:30, but I got woken by the fireworks at 2am. Pity I missed it, it sounded like a hell of a raucous… But I think one party that cannot be missed is the Peruvian independence day on the 28th – all the locals have been preparing for some time for this one – painting buildings, etc. A big town is in order in a few days time.

Climbing in Huaraz

Ol, Jess and I have returned from climbing at over 4000m. It is certainly a lot tougher at altitude. The barometric pressure at the refugio we stayed at was 610 mbar – there is only 60% of the atmospheric pressure for us to breathe! The climbing was pretty good, but I lost interest on the second day after Jess took a pretty big fall. i just couldn’t get keen after that.

A few days were enough, and now we are recovering from a Mexican dinner and enjoying being warm. But only briefly, tomorrow morning we are off on the most popular trek in the area – a four day jaunt in the mountains.

Sorry for the brief post, it’s late.

Surprise surprise

The training climbing / surfing trip didn’t happen on Sunday. So I read, moped around, juggled, slept, walked and… well I guess you could only call it relaxed.

Climbing tonight was on though! Except the people I expected to be there, weren’t. But others were, so it’s all good.

A few days ago I decided to start my holiday proper (after climbing, messing about and having fun near Lima with Ol and Jess) in Ecuador. I have no special reason why there exactly, but it makes a lot more sense than starting in Terra del Fuego in August. Yesterday I decide that flying from Lima to Santiago to ski for a week, and then flying right back on my way to Ecuador, and then travelling back down the country overland didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It would be great to ski with Ol and Jess, and I hope that by piking now I’m not ruling myself out of future trips (although I might be). C’est la vie.

I got an electronic copy of my passport photo from my housemate (who is a pro photographer if you are in Brissy and need a wedding taken). I thought I’d place it on Flickr. Yes, it’s me. See?

GRUBbing about

Today has been a great day. 6am I was at the house of Andrea and Es, and sometime later we were joined by Ben, picked up Anders on the way and we were off. Up to the Sunshine coast for a surf first thing. Since I’ve only tried once on my own, I had limited chance of actually catching a wave, but I gave it a shot (for an hour or so) and manged to ride the wash in a few times. I reckon I could get that pretty easily if I lived where there are waves.

Then we drove to Mt Tibbrogargan in the glasshouse mountains for some climbing. We went to slider wall, first up I hacked my way up a grade 10 lead (The Fires of Jealousy) (easy, easy but difficult to get the head around leading again). It was sport leading, so not really leading but good to be above the rope again. And then some top roping on Blowing Bubbles, 17, and top roped Monkey Swallows The Universe, 14 which seemed easy enough to lead, so I did. Then the current challenge was to try Pigsy, 21 – I got up after a few sits in the harness (that didn’t feel hard enough to be a 21). Anyway, there was plenty climbing, and it was good day. Some photos were taken, but not by me, so I can only post them when I get them. (ed – some are on Flickr now)

Met Tina at the cliffs again. It appears the climbing community in Queensland is rather small. The people I met also know her. Honest, I’m not stalking her! She had a story to top mine by miles. After having climbed with Missy Higgins (yes, The Missy Higgins) she got invited to her concert on Friday night. Right place, right time Good on her. Lucky bugger.

How does this relate to the trip? Climbing training for Peru. I’d better get real good, real quick if I want to keep up.