manual adrenaline White Fear Mountaineering tales can’t mirror the reality of climbing Peru’s intimidating Mount Tocllaraju BY DAMIAN HALL THERE’S ONE PROBLEM with something being an armchair mountaineer – it of the same doesn’t prepare you for reality. In drama and my case, the reality of being three- heroism. I wanted to quarters of the way up a bloody big climb a mountain. WHAT? mountain. At 3.30 in the morning. I was already a committed Strap on your crampons and climb At -10º centigrade. At an oxygen-shy hiker. My next step was to one of the Cordillera Blanca’s many 5200 metres, where breathing is hard, learn some technical skills peaks, from mountains you can trek bordering on painful. by summitting three peaks on up to serious technical summits. Or I blame my former boss. a mountaineering course in New hike over breathtaking (figuratively I clearly remember him plonking a Zealand. While they may have been and literally) alpine passes and down copy of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air technically challenging, the Kiwi white long, glacier-carved valleys. on my desk. “Read this,” he’d said; pointers were all a bit, well, small. nothing more. The book is a chilling They didn’t feel like “real” mountains; WHY? firsthand account of Mount Everest’s not like the ones in the books. The region boasts 50 magnificent peaks worst disaster to date, and I was And so, almost inevitably it seemed, above 5500 metres. If size matters to hooked. I read mountaineering tales I found myself in the northern you, Mount Huascarán, the highest greedily from there. Peruvian town of Huaraz. The nearby in Peru at 6768m, towers over the After Sir Edmund Hillary, perhaps Cordillera Blanca (Spanish for “White town of Huaraz; or try Mt Alpamayo the world’s best-known mountaineer Range”) boasts 33 Andean peaks (5947m), dubbed “the most beautiful is Joe Simpson, of Touching The Void over 6000m – the highest collection mountain in the world” by UNESCO; fame. Simpson’s tale of being left for outside the Himalayas. Simpson’s or Artesonraju (6025m), better known dead after shattering his knee climbing life-changing accident took place in as “the Paramount mountain”, as seen in Peru – his partner famously had to the Huayhuash range, not far away. at your local cinema. And when you’ve cut the rope Simpson was dangling Was I here because of Touching The climbed them all, the Huayhuash range ALL from so he could live – had a powerful Void? I didn’t want to think about that is nearby, too. H effect on me. I wanted to taste too much. AMIAN D 114 YAHOO7.com.au/mensheaLth MEN’S HEALTH FebRuaRY 2009 115 manual adrenaline Talking of books, I ask José about Then we’re off. We slog through the rock-hard snow, then thwacking in my Touching The Void. “Should he have snow, headlamps on. ice axe. Repeat. Pause for breath. Think cut the rope?” I ask. We soon overtake a German couple, positive. Repeat. At last, time to anchor “Maybe,” he concedes, after a the only others going for the summit It’s as though in. I’m buzzing. long pause. “Maybe . under the today. But the higher we get, the I only have José catches up. I belay – feeding circumstances.” harder it gets. My legs are okay – I’ve one lung, him the rope while acting as his safety We will go for the summit at night ensured I’m in decent shape – but my anchor – as he shoots off above me. I when the snow is firmer and safer. lungs aren’t. There . just . isn’t . reaching for wait a while. Then, hearing his call, I As I get into my sleeping bag it starts enough . oxygen . to . breathe. but never follow. So close now. to snow. I stop regularly, gasping and getting Then, finally . I’m there! On top wheezing. It’s as though I only have enough of of the world. Or near enough. ”Time to climb,” I’m told, at 3.30am, one lung, reaching for but never I’d read that mountaineers often after a frustratingly sleepless few getting enough of what I want; like what I want find the actual summit disappointing; hours, courtesy of light but persistent one of those arcade games where you there’s a sadness to it, almost a altitude-induced headaches. try to grab a cheap toy with a claw. melancholia. Despite pioneering a More coca tea with mucha azúcar. “Uno momentito (a moment),” new route, when Simpson reaches Equipment check (will I need my I request, yet again. (Later, José the summit of 6344m Siula Grande penknife? You never know). Crampons generously praises my fitness, so I’m in Touching The Void, he experiences on . crampons on! certain it’s the altitude hindering me.) “the usual anticlimax. What now? It I don’t know if it’s the altitude, my A few deep breaths and we’re off was a vicious circle. You succeed with drowsiness, the cold, or all three, but again. Then, like flicking a light switch, one dream, you’re back to square one.” It’s dark and attaching my crampons has suddenly the sun leaps across the sky. The views Instead, I feel euphoric. It’s an bitterly cold when it comes become very difficult. If I can’t even do are magical; snow-topped peaks in unmatched high, barely describable. time to leave this simplest of tasks, how am I going every direction. It could be heaven, if I’m giving José high-fives and yelling camp two for to conquer this bloody big mountain? I believed in such a place. Better still, “woo-hoo!” loudly. I’m a championship- the summit; But José lends a heroic helping hand. the summit is just ahead – like a great winning boxer, a victorious bullfighter on the way, Heroic because he has to remove his wave, frozen just before crashing. and Natalie Imbruglia has just asked a treacherous ice wave must gloves to do so – and it’s bitingly cold. As we prepare to get technical for me in for coffee. be negotiated In mountaineering literature, the final 70m, a vicious wind whips I’ve just graduated. I can now call safely. climbers often find themselves at around the mountain. I take a photo of myself a mountaineer. -20ºC and lower. Even when frostbite myself and see my lips are blue. claims six fingers and half their nose, Surprisingly, José tells me to go they never ever whine. We’re only at first. I’m thrilled he’s put his faith in the name meant The next day, it take us more than -10ºC, but I want to complain. I have me – and petrified. Our position is “yellow snow” in three hours to climb just 800m, the two sets of gloves on and I’m still precarious. We’re climbing up the side, the indigenous near-vertical gradient and thin air purposefully wiggling my frigid digits the edge of the wave. Quechua forcing us to stop several times to to maintain circulation. If I fell to my right, I would probably language. He catch our breath. My enthusiasm has taken a survive. A fraction to my left would was unsure why Half a dozen climbers pass us knock. It’s a reality check. After all, be another matter. It looks like one With my limited experience, I wasn’t exactly; I had my theories. coming down. They look shattered, I was, until now, only an armchair giant steep white slide, perhaps 200 or foolish enough to attempt a serious I’d also hired a cook – nicknamed like exhausted, shell-shocked soldiers mountaineer. But surely I wasn’t naive 250m, then a cliff, then . nothing. peak alone. After consulting a local “Mario” after the Super Mario computer returning from the front. enough to have thought there wouldn’t There’s little margin for error. One guiding company, we picked a peak, game – and a permanently grinning After setting up camp two, I be discomfort involved? Where there’s slip and . and I don’t want to think Mt Tocllaraju (pronounced “tock-yara- donkey driver to carry the majority of spend the afternoon gawping at the pain, there’s gain and all that. about it. Think positive, think positive. who”), and agreed on a “special price”. our kit to base camp. heartbreaking views and fattening up After my mini pep talk to myself, I I concentrate on kicking my crampon To reach Tocllaraju’s 6032m summit Packed, it was time to find out on Mario’s pasta, rice, potatoes and notice how dark it is, too. We rope up. spikes firmly into the frozen, almost required a final 70m ice climb. The whether I could go from the armchair countless cups of coca tea with mucha (much sugar), José’s favoured attempt itself would take four days, a to the ice face. azúcar WHEN? slow ascent allowing my body to adapt to energy drink. Ess Ential GEaR The mountaineering season is from the altitude. Us gringos are notoriously A taxi drops us in a hillside village As well as providing an ingredient Ice axe susceptible to the lethal effects of and we totter off through ever-rising for cocaine, coca leaves – almost Crampons These multi-function tools can May to September. Treks can be made altitude sickness, which can attack countryside, where indigenous farmers a religion in Peru – are believed to Ensuring you are stationary and upright, be used for ice-climbing, but are year round, although it may rain in the best for general alpine use, such above 2400m.