Chimborazo

Date:

28.08.2010

Cotopaxi

Date:

25.08.2010

Illiniza Norte

Date:

23.08.2010

Characteristic:

Hike

© Hannah Vickers På tide å legge ut noen bilder nå, men det kommer ikke turrapport! Husker ikke så mye fra turen, bortsett fra at det var en kjempefin dag, vi fikk med oss en hund på tur (aner ikke hvor han dukket opp fra) og jeg kom tilbake med stor hodepine etter å ha blitt altfor tørst ila. dagen.

Guagua Pichincha

Date:

21.08.2010

© Hannah Vickers Our breakfast was scheduled for 6.30am, so we could be picked up by 7am and make our way to the next mountain on our acclimatization – Guagua (‘baby’) Pichincha. Sadly the breakfast was pretty meagre for several hungry mountaineers, we got a couple of slices of papaya and a small croissant. It wasn’t exactly a substantial amount of food to go climbing mountains on! Fortunately we were going to be passing by a bakery/grocery store along the way to the mountain, so I picked up some extra fruit and things to snack on. Today, we drove up another mountain road leading up to a farm at around 3700m. It was pretty windy when we got out, and felt a lot fresher than the previous day’s balmy stroll! The remainder of the road continued up towards ‘Cruz Loma’ at 4100m, where a lot of tourist >>>

Pasochoa

Date:

20.08.2010

© Hannah Vickers After breakfast I was met by Franklin at the Auberge Inn where I had been staying for a few nights. Franklin was our mountain guide for the 9-day trip arranged by the company ‘High Summits’ based in Quito. Today would be an easy acclimatisation walk up a hill outside of Quito. The rest of the group were waiting for me on the bus. There were 4 Germans (Andrea, Tomas, Elke and Michael), a Spanish bloke (Mathias), and an American who didn’t appear to have done any kind of mountain climbing/walking at all (Nick). They all seemed quite friendly people from first impressions anyway. Our first stop of the day was the baguette shop, on our journey to Pasochoa. A lot of the height was gained by bus, and we got off at about 3600m, which meant less to climb. It was a shame as it was a nice track >>>

Chopicalqui

Date:

21.07.2006

Characteristic:

Expedition

© Hannah Vickers Taken from my diary, the last peak of a 4-week trip to the Cordillera Blanca region of the Andes, in Peru. I forgot how much detail I noted! :-) Friday, 21st July 2006: Huaraz to Chopicalqui base camp Breakfast was at about 7am and the weather was looking very fine, stable and clear. We weren’t going to have any mules to carry our kit in to base camp for Chopicalqui so we had to try and minimize what we brought with us down to a single rucksack. We left Olaza's B&B in Huaraz at 9.15am and headed off back into the mountains for our last time. The road was the same leading north-westwards out of Huaraz to Yungay. Yungay is a town previously devastated by an avalanche or rock fall of some sort on Huascaran back in the 1970s but when we drove through there wasn’t much evidence of its past. >>>

Alpamayo

Date:

11.07.2006

Characteristic:

Expedition

© Hannah Vickers A shortened version of my diary from the second part of a 4-week trip to Peru (final week of the trip was spent making an ascent of Chopicalqui ) 11th July 2006: Huaraz to Cashapampa/Llamacoral We left Huaraz along the same road north-westwards that we’d used to get to the Ishinca valley, but this time the journey took us much further to the north-west to reach Cashapampa. It was quite an exciting journey and the road weaved round some ridiculously tight corners, which were situated close to some steep cliffs - but there were no safety barriers to prevent vehicles going over the edge! The countryside was spectacularly green though, lots of lush trees despite being surrounded by dry, steep and rocky gorges as well as the glaciated peaks. We arrived into Cashapampa at about 11am, where it was baking hot >>>

Ishinca

Date:

05.07.2006

Characteristic:

Hike

© Hannah Vickers First few days of acclimatisation in the Ishinca valley Wednesday, 5th July 2006: Huaraz – Pashpa – Ishinca base camp (4390m) The first part of our journey involved a bus journey from Huaraz to Pashpa. The roads weren’t great but we had many interesting sights along the way, passing some tree plantations and people working or walking along the roadside. They seemed to be very cheerful and friendly and gave us a wave or smiled as we drove past. After arriving in Pashpa and sorting out the mules, which were carrying some of our kit to the camp we began the trek at about 10am. It was pretty ok and grassy to walk on, but immensely hot. The views across to Huascaran and the surrounding peaks of Huandoy and Chopicalqui were unbeatable though and we took our time to fully appreciate the scenery >>>

Illimani

Date:

10.07.2003

© Hannah Vickers After the tiring summit day on Huayna Potosi, we spent 2 nights in La Paz and used the day before the journey to Illimani to rest and write postcards. It was also Paul's birthday on our rest day, and we went out in the evening to celebrate. Not satisfied with the beers in our first restaurant, the three blokes decided we would head back to a restaurant called Angelo Colonial's and have some beer there till 10pm. Thursday, 10th July 2003 In the morning, we left the hotel at 8am and our jeep trip to Pinaya took us through the rather spectacular Cañon de Palca, a deep vertical gorge of fascinating rock features and then up the mountainside where the roads weaved round on narrow ledges like you wouldn't imagine.....with drops to the side of thousands of feet and no rails to prevent vehicles from >>>

Huayna Potosi

Date:

06.07.2003

Characteristic:

Alpine trip

© Hannah Vickers Sunday 6th July 2003 Huayna Potosi (6088m) was to be the first 'big' mountain of a 3-week trip in Bolivia, and we headed over here after a week of acclimatising in the Condoriri group. It was a mountain we'd viewed from pretty much every peak we'd climbed in the Condoriri and we had been very impressed by it. Once we'd hiked out of the Condoriri base camp, and arrived back in Tuni, we were picked up by jeep and driven straight to our first campsite on the Huayna Potosi near the Zongo dam, situated in a rather bleak and uninspiring mining area. Our first impressions weren't particularly positive, especially after sleeping on a campsite surrounded by beautiful peaks in the Condoriri but inside the refuge where we had a supper of soup, steak and vegetables, we listened to a bit of Sophie Ellis-Bextor >>>