Huayna Potosi climb also truly regal

Inga and Pedro, our climbing guide,
after successful ice climbing practice.

November 19 was a long and memorable day! It started at midnight with the wake up call - like we were sleeping! By 8:10 we had summitted and then about 10:45 am we made it back to high camp for hot soup.

Jan´s first real ice climb: nice style!

In preparation for getting to the top of our first 6,000+ metre mountain, our climbing guide, Pedro - also of Bolivian Mountain Guides - taught us how to ice climb and walk with front pick crampons on a glacier and, at the same time, instilled a great deal of trust in his abilities in the mountains. For the ascent of Huayna Potosi the technical skills needed are minor (as long as you have a great deal of fearlessness and no issues with exposure anyhow) but he actually had us climbing with ice axe and crampons and covered belay and rescue techniques. As rock climbers we knew a fair amount, from knots to anchoring theory, yet learned plenty that day.



Inga with well-placed ice axes goes
for the kick.



Jan relaxing on the sun-drenched rocks
at high camp the afternoon before
our climb.

We´ll show you in pictures how we got to ascend Huayna Potosi.







Never seen a sunrise from this vantage point. About 5,750 m
on Huayna Potosi. 400+ m in elevation to go to the top.



There was this one crevasse we jumped
over both on the way up and down.
Pretty intense, but on belay, of course!



6,088 m. The summit. Yes. We made it.
And still got energy for the descent.
Thanks Pedro for some great guiding.