Some of the great camps I’ve been privilege to over the past six weeks in Peru.
Continue readingCampsites of the Cordillera Blanca
Climbing Huarapasca, Cordillera Blanca.
Information about this peak is a little scarce or outdated online, so I thought I would provide a 2023 update. (2024 update: the glacier tongue shrank and technical ice section is now subject to bad rock/icefall. Guided groups are attacking it in the middle of the night to mitigate risk. As you’ll see if you read this post, that was not at all the case last year, we climbed in full daylight. For more on this topic, see my 2024 post, Climate Change in the Cordillera Blanca.)
Huarapasca is a mountain at the southern end of the Cordillera Blanca, in Peru. It is notable for an extremely short approach, by Cordillera Blanca standards, as well as a 100-140 meter section of AI3/WI3 – legitimate ice climbing. It is one of only a handful of peaks in the area which you can do in a day and back from Huaraz.
Although once considered an obscurity, it saw quite a bit of traffic this season (2023), with several agencies in Huaraz promoting the mountain as a guided offering. People who have climbed it in years past say the mountain is becoming icier.
Continue readingClimbing Nevado Pisco Independently (Without a Guide)
Summer finds me in the Cordillera Blanca, the great mountain range of Peru.
Nevado Pisco is one of the most popular peaks in this range, owing to its generally easy nature and great summit views. Every tourist agency in Huaraz will offer to take you to the top of Pisco – but do you really need a guide to climb Pisco? Not if you have some experience mountaineering. You may encounter some old information which says guides are obligatory in the Cordillera Blanca, but as of 2023, this rule is not being enforced.
In this post I’ll give a brief breakdown of what skills, equipment, and money you will need to climb Pisco independently in 2023 (and 2024).
Continue readingMount Evans Ice Climbing: Off the Couch Alpinism
When I wrote my Ice Season wrapup post in late April this year, I commented that I probably wasn’t done climbing ice. And here we are, mid-June, still finding solid water ice in Colorado. I logged Day 47 of my ice season this past Sunday on Mount Evans (a.k.a. Mount Blue Sky), a 14er near Denver.
Evans boasts one unique feature: a road to the 14,267′ (4,350m) summit.
Continue readingEnter The Dragon (M4), RMNP
My climbing partner Enrico Calvanese just finished editing this video of a mixed ice and rock climb we did in Rocky Mountain National Park this March. This was my first climb coming off of having Covid – I was smoked!!! It was fun to pair up with someone dedicated to the videography as I usually neglect documentation in favor of focusing on the climbing.
Enjoy the video! It should be available with Italian subtitles as well. Enrico has other great mountaineering videos on his channel too – check it out!
It might not be the last time I make an appearance on there…
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