adventure

Shaqsha, SE Face

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Shaqsha is an obscure mountain for Peru, despite the fact that it graces the cover of Brad Johnson’s “Classic Climbs of the Cordillera Blanca”, the most popular guidebook for the area.

A great book – exceedingly hard to find these days.

Shaqsha was not on my radar at all until a chance meeting with Alejandro Urrutia and Rodrigo Ramos, a pair of Mexican alpinists. They were sitting in Cafe Andino, a western-style coffee shop in Huaraz popular with climbers, making a topo of a traverse of Chopicalqui they had just completed, from the SE ridge to the SW ridge.

They had been sick half their trip, they said, but had also managed to sneak in Shaqsha, via the left side of the ridge. A good climb, easy. “The right side also looked good,” they said, showing a photo of their tent pitched on the glacier in front of the face.

I wanted that picture. And off we went.

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Climbing Huarapasca, Cordillera Blanca.

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Information about this peak is a little scarce or outdated online, so I thought I would provide a 2023 update.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.

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Enter The Dragon (M4), RMNP

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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…

2020 in Climbs

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Normally I write a “year in places” post, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, I spent much of this year at home, in Colorado and other states of the American West (WY, UT, CA). A look back on the year thus involves a bit less horizontal distance, and a lot more vertical!

Most of these climbs involve 5-10 miles of hiking in addition to the technical climbing. This isn’t Europe, and you can’t ride the telepherique to your objective. Here, you gotta walk.

These are the major climbs of the year.

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