Kästle Pro Team athlete Giulia Monega's reports from South America, this is from the second 1/2 of her trip:

 

Dispatch #3:
One of the main objective of this trip, besides the having fun and spend a good time climbing mountains with friends, was to ski some steep lines, one of which was the Huayna Potosi S/E face.

This beautiful mountain is visible from the outskirt of La Paz and is a very popular climb for guided expeditions. Its west ridge in fact is a simple hike up the glaciated mountain and doesn’t require much climbing experience. A lot of “adventure travel companies” use guides to bring people up in 2/3 days from la Paz, and beside those tourists, there aren’t many other independent climbers going up on their own like us. We were an even greater exception with skis and boots on our backpacks! On Wednesday morning we arrived at Zongo pass, where the trail starts. From there to the higher hut, at the base of the glacier there are more or less 400 vertical meters to climb and it doesn’t take very long. The elevation for us wasn’t a problem anymore since we can consider ourselves acclimatized, but the heavy packs slowed us down quite a bit. The next morning all the climbing parties left the hut between 1 and 2 in the AM!!! We slept in a few additional hours experiencing quietest hut ever! We departed for our own route at 5AM. The sun rises around 6:30, so we planned to have early light for the last part of the approach to the face, where we left the beaten track and navigating through the crevasses. The timing was perfect and we arrived at the base of the face with perfect sun/snow conditions.

We climbed the steep face in about an1 hour and half. When we approached the knife-sharp summit ridge I knew we were close to 6000m. Here we realized that the peak on our right wasn’t the Huayna Potosi main peak 6088m, but it was the south summit, few meters lower. To be able to claim the real summit we would have to go down a steep section in order to climb the higher summit. All this would have to be done twice, since we wanted to ski from where we were standing, on the ridge. It would have been possible if we had more time, but as we were getting ready with this plan, the clouds starting coming in fast from the west, already covering part of the bottom of the glacier. A summit is always a summit, but the claim of Huayna Potosi wasn’t our main goal. We were there to ski the French Direct route on the S/E face that we just climbed and we didn’t want the clouds to ruin our dream. In a silent preparation we got ready, skis on and poles in hand, ready to drop in. Christian stood at the top to shoot the first turns and Dave went in first. The snow looked good and the impressive face beneath us suddenly looked less intimidating with somebody skiing in it.

I went in next. I couldn’t really trust the snow for the first few meters, so I traversed a short section to have a better feeling under my cold feet. Then I found my sweet spot, I did my first turn! I always find it pretty hard to commit to the first turn. It has to be done in the right spot, and it’s usually the most difficult moment of all the descent. Here in the S/E face it was also the steeper section, so it required maximum concentration. No mistakes allowed. We shoot and ski the face together taking turns on who was going first, and where. The snow was pretty consistent the whole way down, not icy and giving a good grip on the edges the all time. We finally got our descent, and it was pretty much perfect for Bolivian snow standards!

Without wasting time we skied out left of the face, in the clouds that now had just came in, to reach the easier and safer terrain where the main track goes up and down the west ridge. Once we reached that point we could say we had safely skied the Huayna Potosi face!

 

Dispatch #4:
Thanks to a newfound friend, the Aussie Jeff, we got hold of some recent photos and map out some possible ski objectives in the lower slopes of the impressive Illimani face. The plan was, to reach the base camp on Saturday, leave the next day to establish a higher camp, closer to the face, and camp on the foot of the glacier. Monday morning we climb and skin into what looked to be an amazingly esthetic line, steep and exposed, dropping down from a sharp ridge, connected to the real summit. We wouldn’t have the time to make the summit, because of distance, but it would have been an amazing ski descent. We had to be back in La Paz for Tuesday, since on Wednesday evening I have my flight booked to leave Bolivia, so it would have worked really good for timing and logistic.

We leave La Paz in a 4x4 car, the first real good car we had in the whole trip, and we adventure south along a beautiful dirt road that Carlos, our driver, shows us proudly. It was the first time we went south of La Paz, and the first time in 3 weeks that we dropped lower than 3600 meters! As we crossed deep valleys, impressive canyons, and rural villages, we realized the scenery and vegetation was totally different from the Altipiano that we were used to. We saw for the first time, corn plantations, apple trees, flowers and greens that I wasn’t expecting to see.

The base camp on Sunday night was a magical place. The west view over La Paz, offered us the most beautiful sunset we have seen in Bolivia so far, and put us all in a good mood for the next morning mission. In the camp there were other 2 groups heading for Illimani: a Canadian couple and 2 Austrian cousins, with one guide each, they would head up the regular route, from the west ridge, sleeping at the 5470m high camp of “el Nido del Condor.”

After breakfast we headed up with a porter to the unknown location where to have a better look at our objective. After a couple hours of walking we reached the tongue of the glacier we wanted to climb, but the closer we got, the worse the route looked. The broken glacier was filled with nasty crevasses and hanging seracs above our heads. The steep face we wanted to ski, revealed itself as highly exposed with possible frozen snow. At that view, we all sat down and reassess our plan. There was little chance of making our objective.

None of us wanted to risk so much, so we decided to instead continue up the regular route, which did look a fun ski anyway, and would set our new altitude record and highest summit for this trip. We were stoked to have easily have made that group decision. After a hike along the rocky steep ridge, we finally saw the first snow at 5400 meters, on top of which we set our tent. I’d never had to climb so high, to reach the snow in my life!!
 

The next morning as usual, and a little incomprehensibly, the other groups left super early, leaving us sleeping in a dead silent camp for few more hours. We left with daylight, around 7, and start cursing up the ridgeline towards the summit. We all felt strong, finally acclimated with no doubt of summitting that day. Then at about 5800m, I was few meters on the left of the route, 10meters away from Chris and Dave, I  see and them exchange a worried look. They called to me and quickly start heading towards a crevasse below the big slope above us. Immediately I realized what happened. Two of the climbers that left early that morning were on their way down, but slipped on the firm snow, and sliding head first down the mountain. It was a guide and the Austrian woman. It was incredibly lucky for them that we witnessed the accident and were so close. As we lean over to have a look at where they stopped, we saw the guide, standing up, apparently not injured, but the girl, was screaming from help in a painful position crushed in the crevasse with both the legs broken.

We instantly understand that she needs serious help, and abandon going on with the climb. With no hesitations and without saying much to each other, we shift our primary goal to the rescue. As we were on top of the crevasse, we needed to find a way to access it from below. The rappel to get to them looked like a safe way for me to get to them quickly, I start putting together a rescue procedure while Dave and Chris were going from below, scoping the way out of there.

As I reached the girl, I tried to concentrate and act fast to get her out of there as fast as possible. Immediately I realized that the guide wasn’t present enough to help for the rescue, and probably was still in shock, and hadn’t enough experience to deal with such a situation. (We found out later that he wasn’t an a qualified mountain guide!) The girl was conscious and beside some strong painkiller that we gave her, she was dealing with pain and cold the all time. Chris, Dave and I did the job to move her down the first section, the most complicated, moving down and sideways in order to reach the ridge, where luckily after few hours the other two guides showed up to give a hand.

We immobilized her legs using poles, and built a sled with my skis to slide her down the snow. We had to rebuild the sled twice, but the second one came out solid and efficient, and became the key tool to get her down fast and safe. Without skis and poles I honestly doubt we could have rescued her, especially since none of the other guides in the mountains had any other useful tool to do so. When I saw her in that hole the first time, with the unnatural position of her broken legs, I committed to getting her out and down safely.

Once reached the high camp, we were exhausted and drained from all the energies we had in the morning. We have made the hard part of the job, and amazingly we brought the girl safe down to the tent. Working that hard above 5500meters is tiring, and demanding, and staying focused for so many hours was an extremely difficult task.

There we only had to wait for the porters, whom alert by the other guide, hiked up the ridge to meet us up and carry her down on a “Bolivian stretcher” which we could simply call it a “wooden ladder”!! Luckily there were now eleven people, and we were able to focus on getting to base camp safely on our own. We arrived down in the dark and crashed into the tent with no energy left.

The next morning after every single muscle on my body aches, telling me that I gave all my energy on saving that woman’s life. The failure on climbing the mountain was no longer a disappointment compared of the reward on saving someone’s life. The Illimani experience it was a great teaching and an amazing step forward on learning and understanding the mountains.

Back in La Paz we went to check on the Austrian woman at the hospital. She has fractured a femur, tibia and fibula and few ribs. She needs an operation on both legs, but overall she was feeling better than expected. She was thankful to be alive and for the lucky circumstances that brought her to stop in that crevasse, not to have fallen the entire way, and to have been found by three skiers, that rescued her, in such a remote place.

This was the conclusion of the Bolivian trip, really unexpected, but successful in many different ways. Thanks to Christian and Dave for the great trip with hopes of many more adventures to come!