Las Payachatas - the twins burning hearts
So finally it comes...
after a night spent at hot springs bathing in the 38 degree water in 4300 m under the starlit sky, we pack the necessary stuff and head out for the first of our objectives / the 6324m tall Parinacota, a younger of the volcanic twins stretching near the border of Chile and Bolivia in Sajama national park. The Pomerape and Parinacota twins look like huge breast of mother earth... or maybe we are just too long away from home :-)
Parinacota is a perfect conically shaped volcano promiosing skiing down to 5200m... Me and Miro skied down its volcanic twin Pomerape in 2004 via its south face... Anyways, we expected a bit more snow in this period but one must do with what there is so we are happy...
The first day, we get up to the basecamp at 4800m and haul the ski mountaineering equipment to the col at 5200... Rasto has a bad caugh and Christian is complaining having altitude sickness syndroms, so they retreat to Sjama the next morning. We go to advanced base camp at 5280 and build a very elaborated water dam system to get the necessary 20 litres of water:-) Mac Giver style...
In the evening, we bribe Apu Parinacota (the mountain god of Parinacota with Miros pear spirit (52%) and coca leaves. This should do for a successful summit day.
The alarmclock wakes us up at 2am. Unwilingly not being quite awoke froem the dreams about sparsely dressed chicas, we are getting up. The temperature is far bellow 20 bellow zero and the wind does not add to the thermal comfort, indeed.
At 3am we set out fpor the summit. From now on, I will rather spend my vacations on the beach, I am convincing myslef... The dawn starts at 6:30am and accompanied by Pomerape and Sajama on the horizonts, we slowly climb up high.
Me and Herwig reach the summit of 6324m tall Parinacota on 18 of may at 9:45 being followed by Miso and Miro... Durco squeezing the last energy comes a bit later ... Thae crater is 200m deep and can not be skied down into, so I at least pee into it determined to extinguish any potential volcanic eruption.
Obligatory summit fotos and we click into our biindings descending turn by turn towards the arid Altiplano... This is almost the end of story apart from the fact , that some of Rastos and Christians things need to be taken down from the mountain resulting into us serving as donkeys... The beer in the village and rest in the hot springs is wel deserved ans so is the forst sucessful summit...
Next plans? The highest mountain of Bolivia Sajama... but that is already a different story. Stay tuned!
Posted at: 28.5.2006
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