 |
| Home | Dispatches | The Team | Images | Maps | Facts | Gear |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
Dispatch: Snow Sticks to Super Steep
Greetings, MountainZone.com, this is Bissell Hazen with the Toqllaraju Ski Expedition 2000. Yesterday, we summitted a mountain called Urus, which is almost at 18,000 feet, I think it's about 17,500. It was definitely a grunt getting up there. The first 2,000 feet were pretty much straight up this kind of rocky moraine, and it was at night, it was pretty cool. Like, my headlamp batteries went out, so for a while, I used the lights of the other headlamps, and that made for some pretty crazy shadows. And that, along with the high altitude, made for a pretty wild experience. We summitted at about 9:00am after an absolutely brilliant sunrise with scattered clouds and no wind. The summit was really small, with just a great looking ski run on the north side. It was kind of a snow ramp of about 50-55 degrees. It's amazing what the snow sticks to here, it sticks to super steep slopes. The snow pack isn't huge, but it's—with the snow they have—it's pretty much a warm climate, for sure, and God, it sticks to incredibly steep slopes. But yeah, that slope was pretty awesome. I wish I could have skied it. A huge cliff below it, so I would have had to climb back up, and I was pretty much worked from the climb and sort of delirious from the views and the altitude. It was pretty wild, but all in all, it was a great day. Today, Friday— I'm pretty sure it's Friday, Friday is a rest day, and that's exactly what we're doing. We're relaxing, we're taking it easy, we're eating, we're drinking lots of water. Although I probably shouldn't say this, I really enjoy these rest days. I'll go boulder for a while, take a nap, stare at the immense west face of Toqllaraju for a while. east some more food, take another nap and dream of Milarjis in Lima—probably the prettiest girl I've ever met— friend of Porter's, just beautiful. Anyhow, tomorrow we start up Toqllaraju. I'm really psyched to get on some steep slopes, though the altitude definitely makes me a little nervous. I definitely feel it when we get up high, like around 17, but I think we all do. But we're all feeling really good. Everyone on the team is feeling great, we're all getting along great, lots of laughter, lots of good times, food's been good, no one is sick, I kind of have a cold but I'm definitely not sick. We're definitely going to try to send a dispatch from the summit of Toqllaraju in two days, and we'll let you know our progress. I want to thank the sponsors for this trip, I don't know if that's been done yet, but thanks MountainZone.com, Mountain Hardwear, Powder Magazine, and thanks to my personal ones, Rossignol and Scott USA, and I'd like to say hi to my parents, hello Mom and Dad.
Alright, and just a few random thoughts on Peru: warm day, starry nights, beautiful granite, great for climbing, solid surf, we saw some big, big waves on the bus ride up to Huaraz. Colorful people wearing cool hats. Huge vertical, cheap beer. Crazy fluted faces holding snow at 60 degrees —it's unreal. And great times with great friends in the high alpine. And pretty girls—they're not here at Base Camp. Alright, good night, have a good one, happy fourth [of July]. Bye, this is Bissell, see you.
|
|
Listen to Bissell's Call 
Email this story to a friend