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| Icicles on Vallunaraju |
Two years after the initial ascent with
Justine and our guide, I revisited the mountain Vallunaraju. It
feels like I've gone back to the birth canal of my passion to show it
that, this time, I could deliver myself alone to the bright light of
summit sunrise. In Quechua, valluna means portal of
dreams, and raju refers to icy mountains. They couldn't have named it better -- it was this mountain that got me started.
I went by myself, thinking I would find other people
at the camp, thinking I could follow their headlamps should I get
lost. But I got to camp and found myself very, very much alone in my original dream portal,
affronting Patagonia-speed winds without a Patagonia-style tent. I
spent an hour setting up camp, moving a dozen twenty pound stones
inside my tent to keep it in place.
I went to bed thinking I wouldn't climb
the mountain – the winds were too strong, the sky too dark, and I
too alone. The wind blew the sides of the tent into my face, and the
sounds of the glacier cracking into the frozen lake scared me. I
thought a big piece would fall off and send an icy tidal wave my way.
I put in my earplugs—my one defense against high winds and
cracking ice—and set my alarm for one in the morning, just in case.
One in the morning came, and I slept in
late, not getting out of the tent until three. The wind calmed down
and there were shooting stars. It was time to go up the mountain. I
jammed my ice axe in to the frozen wall and was surprised to find
that I could just as easily do this alone (despite the broken compass
in my head, as my friend Michel would say of my sense of direction).
I walked alone in silence, picking my
way safely around the crevasses. A while later I ran into a group of
three, whose headlamps suddenly appeared from the other side of the
mountain. We intersected and went up to the summit together. My one
mistake was leaving too early. I got to the summit 20 minutes before
the sun rose and did star jumps to warm up (reminiscent of frigid
mornings and frigid nights back at Oberlin!). But then the wind was
too strong and I had to squat down on the summit to not be blown
over. Saw the sun rise, got back to camp at seven. All in today
morning's work!
The real adventure was getting to
Valluna. Angie and I have been talking about the anecdotal value of
our experiences, and this one counts! The taxi encountered
unexpected construction closing the road to Valluna, but in Peru,
everything can be resolved. The construction workers flattened a
mountain of dirt from the middle of the road so we could drive over
it. The car got stuck, hovering six feet in the air. The
construction workers got behind the bumper and pushed us over. My
taxi driver Zózimo spent the rest of the time teaching me what he
finds to be the most useful phrases in Quechua (Siki ta mutzai / Kiss
my ass), telling me that in Peru it is okay for men to have multiple
women, and recounting how a snakebite left him impotent.
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