D A Y 86 - 88: H U A Y N A P O T O S I (6088moh)

Date: 20-22feb

Huayna Potosi, Height: 6088 m above sea level, considered one of the easiest +6000 meter summits to ascend in the world, and it’s only 1 hour outside of La Paz. ”Why not?” we thought. ”It’s will be a once in a lifetime experience, and how hard can it be?” Trust me, it was hard!

Day 1:

Check out our gear. Yep, that’s what one needs to climb Huayna Potosi. That and one day of glacier climbing school, to get used to the gear, and then we had to spend one day as basecamp 1, at 4700 meters, to acclimatise.

The glacier

good student 1

good student 2

good student 3

Day 2:

We made it to the 2nd basecamp at 5130 meters above sea level. It was tough having to lug so much gear, and walking at this altitude was definitely not something we had done before.
Perro todos bien! We were still very much fresh, and ready to go, ready to reach the summit. So we ate a good meal and slept a lot, and in the end we were as ready as only Vikings can be!

Our guide, Felix.

Sweden at basecamp 2

Cecilie half dead

proof. basecamp 2.

Day 3: Time to go! 

Our guides woke us at midnight, giving us 6 hours to reach the summit. It was dark, and to add a cherry to our icing we had a snowstorm…just great!
We filled our pockets with coca leaves (only to help with the altitude I swear!) and chocolate (because chocolate is great anywhere). We attached Ice-Cramps to our boots and put on our harnesses before attaching ourselves to a single rope. The guide first, Cecilie in the middle and me at the back, we turned our torches on, jammed our ski poles into the ground and we were off. 
It was hard, and dark, and the only thing you could see was the end of the world if you should slip of the trail. One wrong step, and it was “sorry dude your out”…with your only chance being that the guide (who was half our size) might be strong enough to keep us from falling.

Only pictures of the actual hike. This is Cecilie.

and this is me

At 5500 meters above sea level I felt as though I couldn’t wake anymore. Cecilie kept feeding me chocolate and hot coca tea, and dragging me with the rope. We could hear falling avalanches ahead of us, and when we asked our guide “Peligroso?” (Dangerous?), he simply answered “Si, Claro!” (yes of course!)
At 5600 meters above sea level, we started to cry. I couldn’t walk anymore, Cecilie couldn’t breathe anymore, and we were scared. Felix (our guide) was nice and tried to get us to walk a bit further, but we couldn’t do it. He was kind enough to tell us to come back later when we would be older and more experience. Haha  (we don’t have any pictures of the actual hike, as it was to damn cold to take any!)

Remember – Det er ingen skam å snu! (There is no shame in turning back!)

Only two of ten people made it to 6000 meters, and it was to dangerous to go all the way to the summit (6088), and the remaining 8 turned back at between 5600-5800 meters.

Cecilie, after the hike, back at basecamp 2.

• Camilla did the hike one week before us, and unlike us they had great weather and made it all the way to the top (not that thats the only reason they made it to the top and we didn´t ;)). Look at that view! I will definitely come back when I’m older and more experienced.