Mountaineering

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Information about this peak is a little scarce or outdated online, so I thought I would provide a 2023 update.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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Self-Portrait Atop a Mountain in a Lightning Storm

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This photo was taken above 4,000 meters on Long’s Peak, after a climb of the Notch Couloir, June 2020. My partner and I had dawdled on the way up, and we got caught up high in a light afternoon thunderstorm. Deciding our best option was to wait the storm out, my partner and I stashed our ice axes, crampons and other metal gear fifty yards uphill, and took refuge in some small talus “caves.”

In reality, my boulder was barely large enough to provide shelter. My legs, pulled up into my chest, were still getting wet. My partner, a few yards away in a better cave, described themselves as on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

I shot this photo on my 35mm film camera. The storm soon passed. We summited an hour later.

Climbing the Tetons

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Climbing Grand Teton National Park

The Grand Teton. There is perhaps no mountain more aesthetic in North America. It dominates the landscape, sharply rising more than 7,000 feet above Jackson, Wyoming.

The Grand is a worthy prize for any American mountaineer.

With two weeks to play with, my climbing partner Jose and I headed for the Tetons, with the ultimate goal of climbing the Exum Ridge.

But first, we had some training to do.

We were lucky enough to have a pair of tremendous hosts, Teton locals who housed us for two weeks and were more than happy to help us get up to speed on the approaches, rock quality, and general character of the range by showing us some of the better climbs in the Park that weren’t on the Grand Teton. (It’s always a good idea to do your homework in the mountains).

Without further adieu, here’s a two-week itinerary for climbing in the Teton Range:

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