Huayana Potosí

Climbing Huayana Potosí was easily the scariest day of my life. From now on, it's only bunny hills for me when I go skiing. If I ever see Cliff Hanger on TV, I'm turning off the tube. Hell, if I even see any other Sly Stalone movie on TV, I'm changing the channel to avoid any reminders of Cliff Hanger. Scaling the mountain was even scarier than the Costa Rican drive-by shooting I witnessed in San Jose. When my parents warned me of the dangers of mountaineering, as they similarly do before every adventure, I took my dad's words as another cry for wolf. But this was the most terrifying thing I've ever done.

After spending the first day hiking past the rocky bottom half of Huayana Potosí, we reached the High Mountain Camp at 5,130 meters. The stone walls of the small cabin were lined inside with plywood for brave backpackers to leave advice scribbled on the walls: "Go back." "This was the worst experience of my life!" "I've never felt so much pain before." "I went to the heavens only to find the devil." We nervously laughed and decided these early warnings were probably just a joke played by the guides to scare us.

In the middle of the night, at one AM, we started our trip to the summit in order to reach the top by sun rise. Bright pin holes in the sky dotted the Milky Way Galaxy. In the east, a faint halo above La Paz glowed as the city lights reached up towards the heavens. With the moon sleeping through the night and tucked in behind the horizon, headlamps lit our path in the pitch blackness. Thankfully, the light only illuminated three feet in front of me; I couldn't look back down the steep slopes of the mountain. We all were tightly secured to our guides with a rope and harness around our waists, but we were never securely attached to the mountain. Throughout the night, I silently followed my guide Mario as we trekked through the thick snow.

As we calmly moved forward, my deep breathing fought the thin air. Suddenly, with one wrong step, I dropped waist deep with my feet dangling above a bottomless cave. The wind frequently blows snow across the mountain face, covering ice caves with thin layers of snow. With my icepick in one hand and my free arm reacting quickly, I saved myself from this sure plunge to the afterlife. Super Mario laughed as I pulled myself away from death. We continued upwards.

The higher we climbed, the thinner the air became and the heavier my gasps for oxygen grew. We ice picked up a thrillingly terrifying 75 meter stretch up a 90 degree face of ice (in the photo, notice the cliffs on the right/center of the picture). I kept praying that the metal spiked crampons attached to my feet sturdily held me in place hovering in the air, like Spiderman climbing up the sides of skyscrapers. If only I could have seen below (like I did on our decent -- the absolute most petrifying portion of the entire climb), I would have noticed that we joined the cliff close to its peak, the fall dropped below our feet for hundreds of unseen meters. But when scaling this ice wall, I can't begin to explain the adrenaline rush and relief I felt when I finally reached my gloves over the last icicle and felt packed snow and a flat incline.

When the rush began to fade, the altitude began to take its toll. The usual altitude induced headache didn't overcome me. It was the thin air that absolutely drained me at accelerated speeds. It caused extreme fatigue to the point of delirium, wobbly legs, and drunken balance. As we approached our final push to the top, crossing the last leg, a steep slope off the edge of the mountain, I couldn't keep myself standing or walking in a straight line. The sun began to rise. With the thin atmosphere, UV rays penetrate the cold snow, melting the powder into thick packing snow (the good stuff for snowballs). This dangerously sticks inside the crampons, transforming them into uncontrollable ice skates. I found this out when I unexpectedly found myself skidding off the edge of a steep slope. My stomach dropped as it does in roller coaster rides before my mind could comprehend what was happening. I was literally falling off the edge of a mountain. For 25 meters I slid. Yank. Super Mario caught the rope attached my to waist and instantly stopped my free fall. I couldn't help laughing as I cautiously grabbed my icepick (my knuckles stinging after gripping the metal rod so tightly) and climbed back to the path.

At 5,900 meters, after looking death straight in the eyes for a second time, my oxygen deprived legs and overstretched lungs admitted defeat. With the summit of 6,088 meters (20,000 feet) in sight, Mario and I turned around.

Of six who attempted to conquer Huayana Potosí on Sunday, only two made the summit. A Colombian in my group, who was clearly worse off than me, tried to go the last leg. He threw up midway, forcing him and his loyal girlfriend to head back toward base camp. The last survivor who didn't make it watched jealously as his friend crossed the last bridge of ice to greatness. The two who did summit Huayana Potosí has both been living in La Paz the past year. One was a Swiss volunteer working with street kids in the city and the second was a grizzly Belgian scientist researching glacial recessions.

Twenty years ago, Huayana Potosí did not have a rocky bottom. Both days of hiking, trekked through thick snow -- the type of snow that covered the top of the mountain in waves of whiteness that I could only dream of skiing down. With global warming, the glacier has melted away at an average of twenty vertical meters per year. What used to be another peak of the glorious mountain is now a small pool of water and scattered rocks. The largest reservoir, amongst the tens that service La Paz, lonely rests at the foot of the old glacier. As Huayana Potosí and the countless others that surround La Paz continue to thaw, the water that supplies and services the city will begin to disappear. What happens to the ever growing city when its main water sources run dry? Huayana Potosí may have won the battle with me, but I fear the mountain is fighting something it cannot win.

Even though I never have the intention of attempting to climb another mountain ever again, I can't imagine watching a great giant like Huayana Potosí melt away. This was the scariest day of my life, but Huayana Potosí will continue to have some frightening times ahead of it.

(The Lonesome Reservoir)

(The Retreating Glacier. This used to be another mountain, not a sorry puddle.)

Huayana Potosí