Entries By elias de andres martos
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Buenas tardes from High Camp of Alpamayo! We arrived one hour ago and are currently resting and making water and dinner. The word out is that we might go for it tonight! Everyone did a terrific job getting to here, and this year is no joke, as the bergschrund to gain the col (to then drop to the northside of the mountain) is as broken and steep as l have ever seen it. Climbing 200 meters of steep, broken glacial ice with heavy packs at 17,000 feet is a task, but now that's behind us. Now we have the joy of straight up 70-degree ice, on one of the most beautiful runnels in the world, with no packs, lays ahead. It is beautiful up here, folks, we just can't get enough.
Stay tuned,
RMI Guide ElÃas de Andres Martos and team
Posted by: Elias de Andres Martos
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Peru Seminar
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Good afternoon from Camp 1 again. We changed our plan just a touch, and instead of moving this morning, we did a carry to the Col. We are back to rest for the afternoon, as we continue to trigger our acclimatization process, and having lighten our loads will pay back with hopefully an earlier arrival to high camp tomorrow. We got eyes on the wall as we approached the Col this morning, and everyone got really excited, at the same time as they felt good for the ice climbing training over the last couple winters; the French Direct to Alpamayo is no joke!
Stay tuned for tomorrow's progress,
RMI Guide ElÃas and Team.
Good afternoon from Camp 1, aka Moraine Camp. Rain this morning gave way to high clouds, and patches of sun encouraged us to not delay our move up. Even with heavier loads, we beat our time from our carry two days ago, and now we're finding ourselves relaxing in our tents, with the vestibules pointing to the most astonishing views one can hope; Artesonraju, Paron, Paria, Alpamayo, Quitaraju,,, are only a few of the jagged peaks we have in near horizons. We're excited and ready for our move to High Camp tomorrow.
Best regards,
RMI Guide ElÃas de Andres Martos and team.
Good evening once again from Alpamayo Base Camp. All is well here. After a rest day, we're all eager to start moving uphill for good. We spent the day with a short hike to Arhuaycoccha, a beautiful turquoise lake hanging 15 minutes above BC, and underneath the Pucajirca Group, just at 4,420m. We followed with a review of anchor transitions, and lunch and a nap took care of the afternoon... Being well rested is key for the demanding pitches ahead. We just had dinner, and the funny note was the competition trying to cheat the pulse ox meter (not much room to do so when all these four individuals are as fit as one can be).
That's all for now, tomorrow we'll be checking in from Moraine Camp on our move upwards.
Regards, RMI Guide ElÃas de Andres Martos and tea
Good evening from Alpamayo Base Camp. We had a productive day today, carrying a load to Camp 1 at 4900meters. We set a tent up and deposited half our kit. After that, we remained up there for a while, breathing the thin air and letting the body and lungs get a taste of what's coming up. Some clouds and a drop in temps let us know it was time to head back down to base camp, and a light drizzle materialized around dinner time. Tomorrow we're going to take a rest day here at base, as we are getting excited to get moving up higher soon.
That's all for now,
RMI Guide ElÃas de Andres Martos and team
Hope everyone is acclimating and enjoying great views while you prep for the higher camps and the summit push!
Posted by: Laura on 7/16/2016 at 4:39 pm
We love you! Enjoy your trip daddy. We miss you but are doing well.
Love, Kate and Momo
Posted by: Kate Stainton on 7/16/2016 at 8:49 am
Greetings from Alpamayo Base Camp! Pretty uneventful day... aside from an incredible hike through beautiful country, fueled by outstanding food from our cook and blessed by perfect weather. Yes it was an uneventful day on the mountains today.
Quite a few teams are populating BC, some going, some going down. We're planning on doing a carry up to C1 in the morning, and take it from there. Time to go to bed now,
RMI Guide ElÃas de Andres Martos and team
Posted by: Elias de Andres Martos
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Peru Seminar
Day two is behind us! It flew quick, marveled by the wonders of the lower Santa Cruz Valley, which is one of the prime trekking destinations in Peru by itself. We also flew quick, and bypassed the standard camp, gaining an hour for tomorrow's arrival to Base Camp. Everybody is doing fantastic, and we're currently enjoying an outstanding dinner at our dining tent (squash soup, trout and fruit cup is being served). We look forward to a good night of sleep here at Icchi Coccha camp and to tomorrow's move to Base Camp.
RMI Guide ElÃas de Andres Martos and team.
Greetings!
Today was a great day for the first day of our Alpamayo Expedition: stellar landscape on the acclimatization hike, for a stellar crew, on stellar weather. This third year of Alpamayo Expeditions for RMI looks very promising! We hiked up to 14,400' to our traditional destination of Lake Churup, and we had incredible views of the range, the glacial lake and the mountain of the same name. We hiked back to town and had a team lunch before returning to our hotel for some packing and relaxing. We're heading tomorrow to the trailhead. Everyone is doing great and is very excited.
We'll be checking from the trail from now on!
Best,
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos and team
Posted by: Elias de Andres Martos, Robby Young
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Peru Seminar
Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. Copa taught us a great lesson about ourselves today; about how much trail we could break, how much wind we could withstand, route finding we could do, crevasses to go around, or in other words, what are we made of. The climb stopped for us at 5,850m, basically a few feet from gaining the summit ridge. But the team had been building up to the circumstances with the previous climbs, and we held it together until it was no longer the right thing to do. Regardless, the feel of accomplishment is very present, and we're celebrating at Base Camp with the most awesome of dinners our cook Emilio could collaborate, including homemade chocolate cake, which by the way, made at 14,800ft on a portable propane stove top, is big deal. We'll head to Huaraz tomorrow after loading our donkeys, and close up our program with a celebratory dinner.
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos
Spanish word of the day: viento blanco (cloud cap)
Posted by: Elias de Andres Martos, Robby Young
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Peru Seminar
Elevation: 17,060'
Hello. This is the Peru Seminar calling in from our high Camp on Copa. We are going to bed. It's 6:30 pm local time and we are hoping to give you guys a call tomorrow from the summit. It's been a little bit of a taxing climb this year. Much drier year than others, but we managed to get up to camp. We hope to have a good climb tomorrow. Stay tuned.
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos calls in from Copa High Camp.
Good luck on the BIG summit today!
Posted by: Sandy Sawyer on 7/7/2016 at 5:59 am
Good luck and I hope you make the summit today!
Mike Mangano
Posted by: Mike mangano on 7/7/2016 at 3:44 am
Hi to all the expedition members, MartÃn is following and suporting Elias from Spain!!!!
Take care and enjoy!!!!!! good luck
Posted by: MartÃn de Andrés on 7/20/2016 at 12:36 pm
WOW! You guys are killing it. Sounds like a strong group.
Staying close to my phone hoping David wins a Summit Call!!
Posted by: Katrina Stainton on 7/20/2016 at 10:53 am
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