Climbing Huayna Potosi and breaking 6000 m from La Paz.

Huayna Potosi is a popular climb from La Paz and supposedly an “easy” 6000m climb. At 6088 m, it is higher than bucket list regulars Everest Base Camp and Mt Kilimanjaro, higher than any peak on the European continent and almost 6 times higher than the highest peak in Ireland; Carrauntoohil (1038 m). 

At the summit, the standard barometric pressure is 46kPa. In English this means that there is 46% of the oxygen that is available at sea level. This was a challenge I wanted to undertake and see what limits I could push my body to.

Quick facts:

• Summit: 6088 m
• Base camp: 4400 m
• High camp: 5130 m
• Ascent time: 5-6 hours
• Decent time: 2 hours
• Time required: 2 days, leave La Paz 9 am and return 2pm following day.
• Cost: 650 Bolivians (€83)
• Included: gear, sleeping bag, guide, transport, lunch, snack, dinner, breakfast and soup after climb.
• Not included: breakfast day 1 and 20 Bolivians entrance fee.
• Difficulty level: hard
• Technically: easy, no mountaineer or climbing experience required.

I had my eye on HP, literally, since getting to Bolivia. It can be seen high in the distance from Isla Del Sol and towering over La Paz.

I had wanted to summit it since hearing about it in Ecuador. I wanted to give summiting Cotopaxi a go but at $300 a pop, my budget wouldn’t stretch to that so I decided to keep my attempt at summiting over 6000 m until I got to Bolivia. I had heard from other backpackers that HP could be summited for a third of the price from La Paz and was 100m over Cotopaxi, breaking the 6000m mark. I met a few guys in Peru who had summited it. All of them had recommended Jiwaki, whether they had gone with them and had a great experience or if they had gone with another group and longingly looked at the decent gear on the Jiwaki crew. There’s two options for climbing HP- a 2 or 3 day option. Everyone I spoke to had done the 3 day one and loved it but told me if I was well acclimatised to the altitude of La Paz, I would be OK to skip the first day which is mainly acclimatisation and practicing with the crampons and ice picks. Keen to get back to La Paz to go out on Saturday night (priorities), I opted to get this over and done with and do it Iver the 2 days. I enlisted Jordan from the Wild Rover bar whom I’d spend the previous 3 days drinking with. Probably not the best preparation for taking on a mammoth climb there our bodies would be put to the biggest physical test yet. Excited and looking forward to the challenge, I got an early night alcohol free prior to leaving La Paz the next morning.

Day 1:

We walked to the office for a very sociable 9 am and met David and Simon, the two others crazy enough to call this fun. I think I need to look up the definition of fun and pass it on. As I asked the guys about their previous hiking experience I quickly realised Jordan and I were way out of our depth. Talk of 5000 m plus hikes in Nepal and 14 day long circuits in the Himalayas made me serious rethink my decision. Both David and Simon were seasoned hikers and climbers. I thought at least I’ve done several marathons for fun, shows my idea of fun is definitely skewed and I’ve some sort of mental resilience.

After a 3 hour drive, we arrived at base camp where we had lunch and collected our gear for the climb. The company were excellent and well organised. I had tried on my kit when I booked it in the office in La Paz. They gave us a great sleeping bag, outer trousers and a coat, a fleece, fleece pants, snow boots, crampons, helmet, an axe, gloves and harness. This sounds like plenty of layers but I suffer from the cold at 10 degrees in Ireland so I knew I had to pack all the layers to not end up crying with the pain of cold at – 15 degrees. It’s the kind of cold that once it’s gets into your bones you haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of shaking it without a long hot shower, a hair dryer and central heating.

Once the bags were packed we started the 2 hour hike to high camp, where we would spend the night. The hike isn’t very difficult or long but its uneven, rocky and starts at 4400 m and finishes at 5100 m. It’s really just the altitude that makes the hike difficult. Half way at 4900 m we passed a hut with a man in it charging 20 Bolivians. I’m pretty sure he saw a business opportunity and that crazy tourists would pay for the experience of putting their bodies through hell and decided to monatonize on it. I wouldn’t think the smartest of business plans, some days no one passes, other days he may get 20 people passing. He also charges 1 boliviano to allow people pee behind a rock. The day we passed, there were probably close to 15 of us so at €3 a pop, he didn’t do too badly. We reached high camp at 3 pm and were greeted by hot drinks and biscuits. The views of the glacier lakes below were incredible.

When the sun is shining its very warm but once it starts to creep behind the mountain and the refuge is in the shade, it gets very bloody cold very quickly.

One of the effects of the altitude is lack of appetite, which made it difficult to even think of having yet another meal at 6 pm. Dinner was served at 6 pm and then we tried to get a bit of sleep before our 1.30 am wake up call. The refuge was basic but had an actual toilet and beds, two basic things but once I’m off the ground and don’t have to pee into a hole or behind a shed, I’m happy.

In the refuge there’s a book where people write about their experiences or how they’re feeling the night before. There were a lot of

Cher journals, I didn’t make it, it was the toughest experience of my life etc…

This did not fill me with confidence. About a quarter don’t make it. After dinner our guides explained the plan for the next day. ‘Breakfast’ would be at 1.30 am and we would leave at 2 am with all the gear on bar the crampons, we would put them on at the snow line. I had firstly thought we climb in the middle of the night to see sunrise and how it must be very spectacular of the guides want to dig themselves out of bed at 1.30 am three times a week for it. I then found out it was not to see sunrise, it was because of the almost certain risk of avalanche if you attempted to climb it when the sun had soften and started to melt the snow. This is why the guides warned us we would have to turn back if we were slow and not moving at the pace we needed to. This seemed like a legit reason to climb during the night that I couldn’t argue with. The guides explained how the climb could go and the dangers of altitude sickness. All Going well, Jordan and I would pair up, Simon and David would go together and we would all be tied together to our guides. The rule was two climbers per one guide.

The signs of altitude sickness are loss of appetite, headache, nausea, unable to walk in a straight line or speak intelligibly, vomiting and dizziness. Our guide William explained the last three are fatal and if we experienced any of these, they could lead to pulmonary or cerebral oedema, we would be going back down quickly. The guides warned us the day before after we arrived not to nap before dinner, I learnt why the next morning. I didn’t really sleep the night but woke up the next morning at 1.30 am with a thumping headache. It’s freezing the the cabin but the sleeping bag I was given was really warm at somewhere between 11 pm and 1 I managed to catch some sleep.

Day 2:

The alarms went at 1.30 am, not that they were needed. I don’t think many people slept and the other groups in the refuge started to rummage around from 12.30 am. I later learnt they stagger the groups as the summit is so tiny no more than 6 people can be there at one time. After trying to force some sugary mate tea and cake, I got layered up and felt and looked like a real life michelin man.

Apparently chewing coca leaves or putting them in your tea, helps combat altitude sickness. I didn’t really feel they helped, just felt like chewing grass which numbed my lips and tongue. With our headlights donned and so many layers I could bend down to tie my snow boots, we headed out into the – 15 cold and howling wind. It’s about a 30 min clamber over the rocks to the snow line where we put on our crampons. Well, where I waited like a helpless beached whale unable to move on my back with my feet in the air while the guide put my crampons on.

The total training or practice with the crampons on was a 30 second demonstration. Walk sideways criss crossing on the steep parts and walk straight on the flat parts (there are none) and keep the axe and rope opposite sides to each other with the axe to the mountain. It was pitch dark with only our headlights to show the way. After about 2 hours we stopped to check in at 5500 m. William told us the had now reached the point of no return he had previously told us about. Jordan and I got hooked onto our guide and started the gruelling 5 plus hour shuffle to the summit. William explained the axes weren’t just for the photos to to pick our way through the ice. They had their uses for balance when climbing and to use to hoist ourselves up at certain times but mainly to stabilise us if someone along the line falls, ensuring we also don’t fall off the side of the glacier.

Jordan was really struggling with his breathing and the fatigue was setting in due to the lack of oxygen. We had to make a call at that stage- do we all try and go on and if one person in the pair can’t continue and has to turn back, the other has to also or do the ones struggling cut their losses and head back now and let the other continue. Jordan made the tough decision to turn back there, he was afraid he wouldn’t make it. After I learnt the guide tried continuing for a few more minutes one on one with him but his body was giving up on him.

Simon, David and I reattached our harnesses and ropes to each other and to William the guide. I always thought I could make it and it never crossed my mind until Jordan left, what if everyone has to turn around becsud of me. At that moment I knew I didn’t really have a choice unless I started to show signs of cerebral odeoma- I would have to finish. The hardest part was not being able to see anything and seeming like you were walking forever but getting nowhere. I’ve never had to concentrate on staying alive until now. I was just concentrating on places my feet carefully on the half a meter wide glacier ledge and breathing in for 3 and out for three. Every so often we stopped to catch our breath and have a sip of warm sugary tea. At one point my stomach started to feel like I’d had a bottle of cheap wine, 10 tequilas, 5 jagerbombs and I was being thrown around in the back of a taxi at 4am. The only similarity to those situations was the time.

Some more sugary coca tea and water, I was able to keep down anything that was threatening to come up. After several more hours of shuffling up the almost upright glacier face, the sun started to make the faintest of appearances.

This meant we were nearly there, and it would be getting warmer soon. We sat for a minute and enjoyed the fact we could see both the orange glow of the sun and the peak. We were 100 m away from the summit. The last 200m are the most technical and challenging. You’re exhausted, the climb is quite difficult and requires brain to coordinate with arms and legs. The last 100m are a row of switchbacks and the track is very narrow so you’ve to take care not to fall off the side whilst letting people pass who had already made it to the summit and were on the way back down. The sunrise had started as we got onto the switch backs. I just plonked myself down against the glacier wall for a the moment to forget about the climbing and marvel at the magnificent view unfolding.

My photo game was not strong on this, too bust staying alive and when I did take my gloves off for a second, I was afraid of losing a few fingers. A feeling of pure illation washed over me when we reached the summit. I knew when we could see the peak and a hint of light that we would all make it. The air is so thin up here that even having a conversation is difficult and leaves one panting.

We celebrated at the top for a few minutes and admired the views of Lake Titicaca and the Cordillera Real mountain range below. The summit is pretty tiny so we couldn’t stay long. Long enough for a few photos and to catch our breath. We had to start motoring on the way down to avoid an avalanche as the glacier started to heat up in the sunshine.

Half way down we could relax, the descent technically I found harder at times. Probably because I was so exhausted too. Once off the difficult and narrow part, we had a drink and William encouraged us to eat some sugar. I had a snickers in my bag and usually I wouldn’t need to be told twice to eat a snickers but I felt awful, worse than at the time, like I would throw up any minute. After forcing the snickers into me and loads of water, I felt much better but needed to get down to lower altitude ASAP.

The walk down was long and sore on the feet but so much easier than the way up. It took us 2 hours to come down. In the sunshine we stripped off the layers and could enjoy the views of the glacier.

Once we got back to the cabin, I started to feel terrible again and got into my sleeping bag and lay down. “No sleeping, not good idea” one of the guides said. No sleeping, just resting I ensured him. I didn’t manage too long resting, I was dug out for soup and bread which again, I couldn’t think anything worse but once I had a bit, I was glad of the energy. Simon on the other hand was like a duracell bunny full of adrenaline, happy to clear everyone’s plates. The walk back to base camp seemed to go on forever. It was less than a two hour walk down but it felt like forever with the heavy rucksacks and tried bodies.

Here we got the minivan back to la Paz which only took 2 hours. I think we arrived back to La Paz at 2 pm, plenty of time to naap and recover before celebrating!