Author: Daniel

Surviving a 100-foot fall

Daniel 9 Comments

Since this is the Internet, you get the crude title, and the summary up top. 

The short version: yes, I did fall ±100 feet trad climbing in Eldorado Canyon (My Garmin Fenix GPS watch measured a drop of 33 meters – 108 feet). I was runout on easy ground, lost balance, popped a piece, fell way past the next one, and was caught on a Gri-Gri. I broke my left foot in two places (fifth metatarsal, non-displaced calcaneus fracture) and had two cuts to the face which required stitches (5 in the left eyebrow, 11 in the forehead/scalp). No surgery for the foot. The incident easily could have killed me, but instead left me with a relatively minor 10-week recovery. 

The long version, after the jump.
(Warning: there will be a couple bloody pictures)

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New Routes in the Cordillera Blanca Since 2003

Daniel 1 Comment

Hey friends, back from Peru. A rather unproductive season, for a variety of reasons. You might get more on that later. But for now, I just wanted to share a resource I have been working on: a summary of all new Blanca climbs reported in the American Alpine Journal since 2003, when the last round of guidebooks for the Cordillera Blanca were published.

This is a rough sketch, mostly made for my own reference. It will mean nothing if you don’t speak climber. But since up-to-date information on this region seems so hard to get, I thought I would share. This covers ONLY the Cordillera Blanca, not the Cordillera Huayhuash or the southern Peruvian ranges.

This document is intended to give an idea of reported new routes since the last publication of new guidebooks, circa 2003. To discover more info on a climb, use the AAJ online portal: https://publications.americanalpineclub.org/ The online reports may often include photos and details not noted in my list.

You can find my summary of recent first ascents in the Cordillera Blanca, here.

Thanks to the American Alpine Club Library in Golden, which made compiling this info easy and convenient.

Vallunaraju North Ridge 2024

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Calum Kenny (UK/Hong Kong) and I climbed the North Ridge of Vallunaraju in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca on July 10, 2024. We successfully completed the route, although we found it in much harder condition than reported in many sources. We carried our camp up and over and descended the standard route to moraine camp, and then the Llaca refuge.

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Climate Change in the Cordillera Blanca

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two cell phones showing images of huarapasca glacier in the cordillera blanca in 2023 and 2024. the 2024 photo shows less snow and ice

Hello from Huaraz!

Back for my second season in the Cordillera Blanca. And none too soon it seems, as there has been significant glacial retreat even since I was last here 11 months ago.

Peru’s Cordillera Blanca is a tropical mountain range, making it especially vulnerable to the effects of a warming global climate. Whatever your political stance on the issue, it is impossible to deny that these glaciers are melting. Here’s just a few quick photo comparisons from the lower-elevation peaks around town:

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Colorado Ice Climbing Guide Books

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Colorado’s ice climbing scene is a little secretive. Numerically, we probably have the most ice climbers out of any state in the USA. As an informal way of controlling those crowds, information about where the ice is located is pretty hard to come by. Conditions, too, are often hoarded.

Facebook groups exist, and are probably the best source of current info (as well as drama). If you know where to look and what the names of the climbs are, Mountain Project can be an ok resource. But there’s plenty which is not online or is intentionally obscured.

This post is just intended as a primer for the guidebooks which exist for Colorado ice. It points you towards a few resources, if you care to track them down. I’ll link to Amazon where possible, but keep in mind that the prices on these things change algorithmically according to supply and demand, so it’s hard for me to know what type of price you’ll see.

If you don’t want to buy these books, the regional Colorado libraries have some copies, and the American Alpine Club has a spectacular guidebook library, located in Golden, which AAC members can take advantage of. I have also personally installed a few of these books at the Ice Coop in Boulder. Don’t steal ’em.

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