Nevado Copa Norte 6173m - 21 August 2008

This summit, in the White Mountains of Peru, gave me some bad moments for several reasons. I had to walk for three days to conquer it, ascending over three thousand metres. As there were no huts we had to expend the extra energy entailed in carrying and setting up camp twice. I didn’t have the opportunity to acclimatize as I would have liked to and I experienced altitude sickness for the first time. It took the form of headaches and general discomfort which prevented me from sleeping well. The last section proved to be particularly difficult. I became breathless, so it took me twice as long as it would have done at a lower altitude. I learnt three important things. The first was that you have to acclimatise well to climb big mountains. The second was that you have to take a photo when you see the possibility of a nice shot, even if you feel too lazy to take off the gloves and get the camera out. I lost the chance of a really good photo, with a wonderful mountain landscape, because of that bloody laziness, because, when I took the camera out later, I couldn’t see anything because of the clouds. The last thing I learnt on this trip was that stopping close to the snow bridges that enable you to pass over the glacier crevasses is not a good idea. I saw one of them fall very noisily, just two metres away from me. I got a serious fright, but it was an important lesson and I lived to tell the tale. The photo was taken on August 19th, 2008, two days before reaching the summit. The descent isn´t done along that big wall but along the slope you can see on the left.

Esta cumbre de la Cordillera Blanca peruana sí me lo hizo pasar mal por varios motivos. Conquistarla supuso caminar durante 3 días, superando un desnivel superior a los 3000 metros. Como no hay refugios hubo que cargar y montar dos campamentos con el desgaste que ello supone. No pude aclimatar como me hubiese gustado y conocí por primera vez el mal de altura en forma de dolor de cabeza y malestar general que no me dejaba dormir bien. Superar el último desnivel fue verdaderamente duro. Me quedaba sin aire y por ello tardé el doble de lo que habría tardado a una altura menor. Aprendí tres cosas importantes. La primera es que hay que aclimatar bien para subir grandes montañas. La segunda es que cuando se ve posibilidad de hacer una foto bonita hay que hacerla, aunque dé pereza sacar la cámara y quitarse los guantes. Allí perdí la ocasión de hacerme una buena foto, con un paisaje de montaña estupendo, por esa maldita pereza, ya que, cuando saqué la cámara más tarde, las nubes no dejaron ver nada. La última cosa que aprendí en este viaje es que no conviene parar cerca de los puentes de nieve que permiten pasar sobre las grietas de los glaciares. Vi como uno de esos se caía con gran estruendo a menos de dos metros de mi. El susto fue importante, pero aquí estoy. La foto es del 19 de agosto de 2008, dos días antes de conquistar la cumbre. El descenso no se hace por ese paredón, se hace por la pendiente que se ve a la izquierda.