Dispatch:
Sea Level to 10,000 feet in Eight Hours
Huaraz, Peru - Saturday, June 24, 2000
DISPATCHES
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Fox
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 Listen to Porter's Call
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Hey, this is Porter, checking in. Our flight was really smooth, we were sort of in the depths of Lima. But anyway, we got on a bus this morning, thanks to Jake's connections in Lima and Huaraz, and had a pretty epic bus ride up here, from sea level to 10,000 feet in about eight hours. We saw two really bad movies and one cartoon that was pretty much indecipherable, but we had a great bingo game on the bus, and it was pretty interesting. I actually thought I won and stood up and yelled, "Bingo," but, little did I know, they were playing black out and not just the straight string — classic bus-bingo rookie error there.
So, besides that, we just got to Huaraz tonight. We checked into the Andino Club Hotel, which is sitting up on the hill above Huaraz, (it's) absolutely beautiful. There's ruins, along the sides of the road as we drove up here, of churches and remnants of the Spanish Conquest and missions through this part of the country. It's really quite amazing. And gosh, Huaraz is just this great little mountain town. The mountains are all around us—20,000 to 22,000 feet (high)— I mean, you can just see massive peaks all around; we can see Huascarán from our hotel room and it's pretty impressive.
We're going to put together our crew tomorrow, get some food and some more supplies. And we have a local guide and porter that's going to come with us that's been with Jake before that climbed Huascarán about 20 years ago. He's a very interesting guy; 55 years old, he was carrying bags that took two of us to carry today — and he was just slinging them around — so he's pretty cool.
So that's the plan. We'll be here for two days getting ready to head up the Ishinca Valley and check out the mountains and decide what we're going to go for first. But all is well, got all our gear, everybody is in tact. Had a great dinner tonight and we're in good spirits. Hope all is well there, best to all our friends and family, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. Take care.
— Porter Fox, Senior Editor for Powder Magazine, and MountainZone.com Correspondent
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