by Chris Comair
Climbs of French alpine difficulty Grade AD
Yanapaccha is another one of the lower altitude and lower difficulty peaks that I have been wanting to climb for a little while. With the funky schedule in the Cordillera Blanca this year, I thought that it would be a great opportunity to knock this one out.
Huarapasca is a hidden gem of the Cordillera Blanca. Not appearing in any guide books and out of sight from pretty much anywhere, this amazing climb sits relatively untouched. It is also one of the very few single day climbs in the range that can be done car-to-car.
Vallunaraju has been a climb that I have been wanting to climb since the first day I arrived to Huaraz back in 2017. Towering over the city, the peak is dramatically obvious with it’s two “horns”. Although by the standards of the Cordillera Blanca it is neither very high nor very difficult, it had been calling me.
One of the considerations I have had for a long time has been spending a summer season climbing a bunch of alpine routes close to home. The irony of me leaving for peaks abroad during the core of the climbing season here has never been lost on me. For that, I have never actually had the time to climb in the Boston Basin.[...]
Illiniza Sur, Illiniza Norte’s far less popular yet much more difficult sibling, was our main objective. Up until 2009, there were two routes up Illiniza Sur, with the most popular route being La Rampa. As of 2017, La Rampa is pretty much just a melted out rock shooting gallery, so we would be using the other route. Funnily enough, nobody really seems to remember what the current route used to be called back when there were two routes.[...]
Upon arriving back to Ecuador for the second time, now few years later, I had all the same levels of excitement as the first, but with something very different in mind. Technical climbs. However, because of how poorly the technical climbs of Ecuador are documented, I had really very little idea of what I had ahead of me.[...]
For most people who are even beginning to bud into the world of high altitude climbing, Altitude Junkies and its owner, Phil Crampton, has probably blipped onto their radar. Somehow the name is often mentioned here and there, never really being in the direct spotlight, but always with an air of prestige and hardcore-ness. Somebody over here would mention that they are always the fastest up the mountain. You would read over there that Phil saved somebody from dying in a high camp. Somebody elsewhere would say that everybody on the team are just friends and that the company is not even a guiding service to begin with. Who are these people?[...]
