Volcan Sajama, Bolivia - May 2012 - Trip Report

Your first time is similar for everyone; you fumble around, you don’t know if you’re doing it right and it’s not quite how you expected. Quite often you’re breathless, heady with excitement and doing it with someone you don’t really know. Mountaineering of course. Unlike many however, losing my mountaineering virginity was in the Andes attempting a 6,000er with someone I met on the internet.

After university in 2012 I had a gap year before starting an ‘exciting’ career in finance. I spent a good chunk of this year in South America, which involved a visit to Bolivia. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America, and the rural mountain folk here enjoy a traditional life without computers, cars and the other distractions we westerners have. It was in the city of La Paz, the highest capital in the world at 3,640m, where I arranged to meet Stuart Gillan for the first time. Stu is of a similar age and used to be president of a Scottish university mountaineering club, so I had faith in his ability to at least be marginally more competent than me, a southerner whose greatest mountaineering achievement to date was completing the UK’s 3 Peaks Challenge. I’d planned to go to the European Alps the previous summer to learn the required skills, but this idea had been swatted away by a kayaking accident that resulted in my ankle being put in a cast (to the horror of my non-outdoorsy friends and hilarity of my outdoorsy friends).

It was in a hostel in La Paz where Stu and I first met and formed our plan; we aimed to climb Nevado Sajama, the highest mountain of Bolivia (6,542m). Although clearly ambitious given our ability, our approach I insist was cautious. On top of book and internet research, we phoned mountaineering agencies and hire companies for advice. One such hire company was run by a fella named Jeff, who would do anything for a sale. This included trying to convince me that the what looked like broken lace hooks on the B3 boots I was renting were in fact a feature to allow ankle flex. Despite my suspicion I hired them anyway and they would indeed prove to be just broken lace hooks (oh Jeff). Ice axes, and snow stakes were also hired, but I kept my roll mat and ancient sleeping bag, both of which were double the size of modern equivalents.

In addition to our preparation, we took a guided climb up Huayna Potosi (6,088m), which would help us acclimatise and gave us a chance to ask an expert questions. The normal route on the mountain is a typical tourist trap for backpackers but, this said, it is beautiful to behold, in the “extreme altitude” band, and is still an impressive feat which even the most ostentatious “gap yah” backpacker should feel proud of.

So, for Volcan Sajama, although we lacked experience, we were young and fit so surely would not need a porter! This maintained the sentiment on the bus ride of day one to the village of Sajama, but little did we know then that this resolve was soon to wane in to regret! Riding on the bus through the high altitude scrubland, squat cuboid buildings appeared in the dust that we soon recognised as the village and where we would acquire a jeep to transport us to the base of the mountain to set up camp. And what a camp! This location came with a hot spring, which Stu and I thoroughly enjoyed for the remainder of the afternoon as R&R before the big day following.

Day two was a long and hard walk-in. Our approach was more of a siege style expedition then the light and fast alpine I would later in life come to prefer. Our equipment was too heavy to carry up the steep slope to high camp in one run, so we decided to set-up two intermittent camps.  We dropped our heaviest kit (tents and sleeping bags etc.) at camp 1 and then carried on to camp 2 where we stashed spare food, clothes and snow gear before returning to the lower camp.

Day three was short as we only needed to ascend to our second camp, just below the snowline. Stu’s bergen was giving him grief, for it was combo-luggage design with trolley wheels that were digging into his back, thus exaggerating the improvised nature of our adventure even further. So much of an irritation these wheels were causing Stu that he ‘volunteered’ as camp cook whilst I did a second shuttle back to our first camp for the final equipment.

Day three we left at 08:30, deciding to do only one run of it this time. Although we were jettisoning kit we no longer needed at each camp (to be picked up again on our descent), this made negligible difference to the pack load. This decision however made for an excruciating slog. It was a hands-and-knees affair by the time we came literally crawling to high camp. And high camp was less Ritz and more a platform in the snow not even big enough for one tent. Fortunately we arrived before an older gentleman with his guide and porters did, for they had the agro of digging a new platform.

We melted snow for 3.5 hours that afternoon, so that there would be minimal faff for our 01:00 start the next day to reach the summit. It felt exposed up there, not just to the icy wind but the sense of jeopardy and lack of help should something go wrong. Stu’s thoughts that night were more singular than the night before, focusing on a “tricky bit” that Jeff had warned us about. Although not mentioned on the internet or in the guide books, the tricky bit should be protected with snow stakes according to Jeff, which was the reason for us hiring such. Having some Scottish winter experience, Stu would be the one leading, which is possibly why he was fretting more than my more blasé we’ll-see-how-it-goes attitude. The following day will tell, I thought, and Jeff’s broken boot kit recommendations hadn’t yet warmed me to his judgement.

The night was cold, my obsolete sleeping system used for boyhood camping was not intended for high altitude mountaineering. I idolised Stu’s thermarest, that warm pillow of air, opposed to my hard and unforgiving roll mat. Sleep was made more difficult by Stu vocalising seemingly random trains of thought. I look back fondly now at the bizarre and out of context questions I would be asked in the dark of the tent as the wind rattled on. His nervous excitement for the day to come manifesting in this way, whilst my mind was more of quiet reflection and how best to relieve my bladder without exposing myself to the -15oC air outside our tent.

Day four commenced at 01:00 as planned but despite anti-faff measures the previous day, we were only underway at 02:30. We caught up with the older gentleman and his entourage but Stu did not want to overtake so that we could watch them tackle the tricky bit first, despite how slow and cold this was making us. It turned out that the tricky bit was just a ridge traverse that was easily passed, so we stashed the snow stakes there having not needed them (oh Jeff) and pressed on past the other team. It was ridiculously cold at around 6,000m, in the wee hours of the morning, with inferior equipment, so we did what every sensible Briton would do in that situation; we had a cup of tea. Huddled together in a survival shelter with our hot brews, the tortoise team overtook us hares, but we decided we were happy to wait thirty minutes for the sun to rise.

With the encroaching dawn and accompanying less-cold, we reluctantly stirred ourselves into action. I have never been that cold before but as moving is the only option, moving towards our objective made sense rather than to abandon the attempt for it being nippy. The subsidiary peaks were rounded by snow, with false summit after false summit chipping away at our morale. By the point we did actually summit, we were so used to disappointment that we hardly believed we were here. The summit here is so flat it is like a plateau, and was once used to stage the highest ever football match in 2001 as protest to FIFA’s decision to remove La Paz as a venue due to altitude. We sought the highest knoll and at 08:30 claimed the summit!

Our descent down was unintentionally on a slightly different route and through a field of penitentes. These are densely packed knife-like ice formations, pointing in the general direction of the sun. They are very rare, forming almost exclusively in the dry parts of the Andes above 4,000m, but Sajama is known for their propagation. They can grow to five meters in length, but as it was early in the season these were just knee high but a massive hindrance to break though, like wading through glass. As we trudged down, kicking the shards to make way, I thought how a slip here would not be humorous!

We relocate to our kit dumps at the “tricky bit”, high camp and our two mid camps, where we also met the old gentleman’s tortoise team that won the race. Here we shared his whiskey, reminiscing events that seemed so prolific that I was in disbelief of how recent they were. We continued on, greedily drinking the spring water from our bottom camp and celebrated our arrival to the dirt track at 16:30. We had been moving for 15.5 hours and psychologically the dirt road was the end of our adventure. However, after waiting 1 hour there had still been no passing vehicles to flag down, and so we ended up walking the five kilometres to town, which was disproportionately soul destroying!

The steep learning curve of losing my mountaineering virginity to a 6,000er meant that many lessons were learnt. Some of these were simple, such as don’t take luggage that has wheels up a big mountain, and don’t trust guys named Jeff. Others are more reflective, such as not to be daunted by big ambitions. Many people have told me prior to such adventures that it would be a foolish undertaking, although this happens less and less nowadays now that I have achieved some successes. People, even individuals more experienced, will try and impose limitations on you based on their own fears; but what I try to do is listen to their advice and be prepared to abandon an attempt, rather than not attempt at all.

Lastly, we endure massive highs and lows with our companions for adventures such as this, and we form friendships closer than most will ever have as a result. For all of his midnight rambling Stu became a good friend of mine and one who I later shared a month long expedition in Kyrgyzstan with. Go out there, listen to advice, test your boundaries and make friends for life!