Posts Tagged ‘rock climbing’

Another extreme location, another extreme vacation…

The Cotahuasi Canyon in southern Peru is the deepest canyon in the world – 3501m or 11,488 ft. It is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States, but the canyon’s walls are not as vertical as those of the Grand Canyon.

The Canyon is covered with unexplored Incan and Wari ruins. In antiquity, this canyon was the most direct route from Cusco to the Pacific and was used by the Inca for trade with the coast. There are many Inca and pre-Inca terraces remaining, and still cultivated, along the less precipitous canyon walls.

Over the years the old Inca trails have deteriorated and now the best way to explore the canyon is by rafting down the class 3-5 rapids that separate the ruins – this will take 6 days.

You can drive down to the village of Cotahuasi, an extreme journey in itself with its torturous switchbacks, but, since we are into extreme sports and extreme vacations – we would prefer to hike down – following old Inca trails where possible. It is about a 10-hr hike down to the bottom of the canyon and be prepared for the heat – 40 degrees at the bottom.

The large network of ancient trails that connect all the villages makes a wide variety of day hikes or multi day loop hikes possible, depending on your interests and style of adventure. There are challenging climbs up steep ridges, craters and 16,000 to 17,000 ft peaks. And then of course, there’s the opportunity of white-water rafting.

Very little was known about this area and even less about the canyon until a kayak/raft expedition first ran it in 1994. It is considered one of the most dangerous rivers in the world with its combination of icy cold waters and Class 5 rapids.

Very few people have rapided this river, which makes it that much more of an extreme vacation and an extreme challenge. The river flows from 12,000 ft in the Andes, West to the Pacific Ocean. The Canyon was the only link between Cusco, the ancient Inca capital, and the Pacific Ocean.

The adrenaline rush experienced during a 6-day Class IV-V white water rafting trip on the rapids of the Cotahuasi River will be an experience indeed – a non-stop, heart pounding descent, through 80 miles of continuous class 4 technical whitewater. The class 5’s are scouted before running them and some are walked around.

An added bonus is that the canyon is a place of great natural beauty. As stated above, it is the deepest canyon in the world and yet, just 24kms (15 miles) to the southeast, the Nevado Ampato, a snow-capped extinct volcano, rises to 6,288m (20,630 ft). It is also home to the endangered Andean Condor.

This challenging expedition encompasses real adventure with the natural wonders and fascinating ancient history of the region. If I have given you any ideas for an extreme vacation – bon voyage!

“The beauty of the Andean landscape is sublime because of the extreme simplicity of its forms, the classic stillness of its lines, the vastness of its immensity, the profound gravity of its balanced coloring, generally of dark hues, and its infinite solitude.” wrote scientist, Hans Meyer

Ben Fogle and his team have finished their Mount Chimborazo expedition, and it made very interesting watching.

If you don’t know who Ben Fogle is – he is the man on British TV who has a programme called ‘Extreme Dreams’. He takes a team of 5 people and together they conquer, or try to conquer, something extroadinary and extreme. The team of 5 will not have done the challenge before, and most times will have done nothing in the extreme adventure line before either.

Anyway, I’m here to tell you more facts that I gleaned about Mount Chimborazo, and not more about Ben Fogle… much as I enjoy the programme!

Having said that I have to tell you quickly that Fogle said that Chimborazo was one of the most extreme journey’s he’s ever been on – and he has done some incredible things, so it is a mountain worthy of a challenge, but also a mountain which can exact it’s revenge on you – so please beware if you are thinking of summitting it.

The mountain and surrounding countryside are a hostile environment with some seriously punishing terrain and climatic conditions. It is absolutely necessary to focus on the final challenge – the summit, but admit defeat if the summit becomes impossible. Summit fever is a dangerous thing and can make people obsess beyond their body’s capabilities, thereby endangering everyone they climb with.

You can either hike in to Chimborazo, which is a good opportunity to acclimatize your body, but can take up to 7 days – quite a hike. Many people choose the easier and quicker option of catching a cab to the first refuge! After all, it’s easier to climb a mountain when the guide drives you to 4574m (15,000 ft) .

However, catching a cab or a lift with your guide does not make the last 1,708m (5,600 ft) or so any less difficult. It’s the fact that the air is missing half of its oxygen that makes it difficult to move up there… it’s a hard slog and the glaciers start a short walk from the hut, so hiking soon becomes mountaineering.

This mountain, in its exposed and brutal landscape, will test you to the limit. Not only do you have to contend with altitude sickness, but, from the first base camp, you need to break the altitude barrier of 5,488m (18,000 ft) before the final challenge of the summit at nearly 6,403m (21,000 ft) above sea level, and traverse one scary 30m ridge with a 1,000m drop on either side… in the dark! and these are just some of the challenges you have to face.

The summit is only a few hundred metres below the death zone where a body cannot survive. The extreme cold and the altitude are a double whammy.

Remember in my last article that I told you that Chimborazo, at it’s peak, is the furthest point from the center of the Earth. Our planet bulges at the equator, making Mount Chimborazo even futher out there than Everest. It has the distinction of being the closest point to the sun on the planet, and yet still the coldest place in Ecuador.

The graveyard, near Base Camp, is a testament to the unpredictability of all high places. Chimborazo is very high, it randomly drops large rocks on you, and has weather that changes by the minute.

It is advisable to leave for the summit – almost 1km vertically above High Hut – at about 10p.m. You want to watch the sunrise at the summit and then GET OFF the mountain ‘before she wakes up’ – and she wakes up at 9 a.m.

You need to be OFF the summit by 7 a.m.

This means you are making your final challenge on the mountain in the dark, so your challenge is not only against achieving the summit but against time.

If you achieve the summit, you only have time for a quick handshake and a couple of photographs before returning quickly – as soon as the sun comes up it starts melting the glacier and you can actually hear water running under the ice and the ominous sounds of cracking. As you descend you can hear rocks falling out of the ice above as the sun melts it…

Not a pretty thought as you scramble down!

If you want to climb Mount Chimborazo, your cheapest option is to wait until you get to Ecuador to make arrangements. Talk to almost any hotel owner or manager in Riobamba, and he or she will find a guide for you. It will be cheaper, too, if you are part of a group, of course.

Ever heard of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador?

I hadn’t, until I happened to catch Ben Fogle’s Extreme Dreams last night and realised that here was a mountain that had escaped my notice and that was definitely worth taking a closer look at.

At 6,268.2 m (20,565 ft), Chimborazo is Ecuador’s highest mountain. Its other claim to fame is that, as it is virtually on the equator, it is generally considered to be the spot on Earth that is at the same time closest to the sun and farthest from the center of the Earth.

Chimborazo is located in the Cordillera Occidental of the Andes of central Ecuador, 150 km (93 mi) south-southwest of the capital Quito. It’s neighbored by 5,018 m high Carihuairazo.

On a clear day, and standing on the summit of Chimborazo, you can see the Amazon basin, the Pacific ocean and the curvature of the Earth.

As Ecuador’s highest mountain, Chimborazo is a very popular climb and can be climbed year round with the best seasons being December-January and July-August. It must be remembered that it receives high precipitation and has a large summit ice cap – conditions are glacial and windswept.

The easiest and most climbed routes are the Normal and the Whymper route which are a Class 4 climb. Both are western ridge routes starting at the Whymper hut and leading via the Ventemilla summit to the main (Whymper) summit and include route finding and crevasse crossing. There are two refuges on the mountain at approx. 5000 meters and most of the parties do their summit bid directly from the huts. It is a 6-9 hr climb from there, with slopes up to 60 degrees. People usually start their climb around midnight and return to the hut in the late morning.

There are several other less used and more challenging routes on the other mountains faces and ridges leading to one of Chimborazo’s summits: Main (Whymper, Ecuador), Politecnico (Central), N. Martinez (Eastern). These involve mixed rock/ice climbing.

Our ancestors were an adventurous bunch. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century it was thought that Chimborazo was the highest mountain on Earth, and such reputation led to many attempts on its summit during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

As early as 1802, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, Aimé Bonpland and the Ecuadorian Carlos Montufar attempted to reach the summit. From their accounts it seems that they got to 5,875m before having to retire because of altitude sickness. In 1831 Jean Baptiste Boussingault and Colonel Hall reached a new “highest point”, computed to be 6,006 m. But it was in 1880 that Chimborazo was first summitted by Edward Whymper and the brothers Louis and Jean-Antoine Carrel. There were many critics who doubted that Whymper had reached the summit, so, later in the same year, and just to prove a point, he climbed to the summit again choosing a different route (Pogyos) with the Ecuadorians David Beltrán and Francisco Campaña.

You will be glad to know that, although a volcano, Chimborazo is considered to be extinct. It’s last known eruption was in 640 AD – give or take 500 years!

The top of Chimborazo is completely covered by glaciers with some north-eastern glacier arms flowing down to 4,600 m. It is because of the ice-cap on Chimborazo that the summit needs to be attempted in the very early hours of the morning – the danger being that if you leave it too late, the sun will get up, warm the ice causing melt conditions which in turn increases the risk of an avalanche. Many an attempt has been aborted for this very reason as you will see here from mounteverest2008 Team Condor’s attempt.

The European sport of canyoneering — a blend of rock climbing, rappelling, hiking, swimming and scrambling — attracts a growing crowd of adventurers to the Zion area in Utah, acclaimed for its red-rock slot canyons and soaring monoliths. The activity is most popular during the summer, when temperatures topping 100 degrees send people off the ledge in search of a cool splash. However, with its semi-arid climate and average winter highs in the 50s, Zion never hibernates. Nor do its hardy visitors.

We are indebted to the Washington Post’s special correspondent, Kristin Harrison, for bringing us this this report on her visit to Zion National Park.

Last year the park received more than 2.6 million guests, with most folks arriving June through September. From December 2007 through February 2008, attendance was only 63,000 per month. Some of the park’s higher elevations in the northwest become difficult to access in the colder months, but the main attractions in Zion Canyon stay open year-round.

“In the winter,” said Ron Terry, the park’s chief of interpretation and visitor services, “you can avoid the crowds. You’re likely to hike a trail and not see anyone else.” The wildlife, though, will be out and about, including bald eagles (which appear only in winter, during their migration), desert bighorn sheep and mule deer.

Located 160 miles northeast of Las Vegas, the nearly 150,000-acre national park sits along the Colorado Plateau on what geologists call the Grand Staircase, a massive series of sedimentary uplifts that runs from Utah’s Bryce Canyon to Arizona’s Grand Canyon. Zion’s sculptural rock formations, including the 3,000-foot-high Navajo Sandstone walls in Zion Canyon and the beautiful rock arches at Kolob Terrace, have long inspired mankind. The Paiute Indians called Zion Canyon “Mukuntuweap” (sacred cliffs), the name used when President William Howard Taft declared the site a national monument in 1909. In the 1860s, according to historical lore, Mormon settler Isaac Behunin said, “A man can worship God among these great cathedrals; this is Zion.” Through lobbying by the Mormon Church, Zion became the area’s official name when it was designated a national park in 1919.

My Zion foray left me similarly awestruck. My boyfriend and I started our visit on a rainy morning, at the park’s south entrance just north of Springdale, Utah. At the visitors center, we received tips on the best trails to hike based on weather conditions. Snow rarely sticks in Zion’s valley, where most visitors spend their time, or in the southern region, so hiking options are numerous year-round. Terry recommended the desert trails of Chinle, Coalpits and the Huber Washes, all of which are usually dry and provide scenic canyon views. Rangers also divulge one of the park’s deepest secrets: the locations of the Anasazi petroglyphs (rock carvings) and pictographs (rock paintings), created an estimated 1,000 years ago. (Directions to the artworks aren’t widely publicized because of past acts of vandalism.)

In Zion Canyon, we started with an easy stroll down Riverside Walk, a paved, stroller-friendly trail that rambles along the Virgin River and ends at the start of the Narrows, a well-known hike that involves more wading than walking. (Although recommended for summer, the Narrows can be explored in the winter, depending on the weather. It’s essential, however, to wear a dry suit and talk to a ranger first.) Afterward, we tackled Emerald Pools, a 2.6-mile loop that winds behind a roaring waterfall. Thanks to a downpour earlier in the day, a handful of other falls cascaded over nearby cliffs, making me glad we had hiked in spite of the rain. Depending on snowmelt and storms, waterfalls also can appear throughout winter at the lower and upper pools.

Soggy after a day of hiking, we stopped for hot chocolate and snacks at the Sol Foods Market, just outside the park’s gates and a short walk from our hotel, the new Cable Mountain Lodge. All lodge guests receive free tickets to the Zion Canyon Giant Screen Theatre, so that evening we attended the 40-minute film “Zion Canyon Treasure of the Gods,” shown on a six-story-high screen, the largest in Utah. To be honest, the narrative was a bit cheesy, but the film provided dramatic bird’s-eye views of Zion’s canyons and made us wishful for clear weather the next day.

Prayers answered: We awoke to sunny skies and 50-degree weather. In these perfect conditions, we decided to tackle Angels Landing, one of the park’s most challenging trails. Constructed in the 1920s, the five-mile route follows a series of steep switchbacks, known as Walter’s Wiggles, that march nearly 1,500 feet up to the top of an exposed, narrow rock pinnacle with a jaw-dropping panorama. The final half-mile is bare and exposed, and it is sometimes closed due to ice in the winter. But the lower portions still provide grand overlooks and a strenuous workout.

Hiking Angels Landing prepared me (a little) for our canyoneering adventure ahead. Guided canyoneering trips are not allowed inside the park, so we booked a trip in a nearby canyon with Zion Adventure Co. Our guide, Lynn Unger, told us that we’d spend the day “problem solving” as we traversed the canyon by rope or foot or any other body part that might prove useful.

After five hours navigating our way up a steep, narrow trail, scrambling over boulders and rappelling four rock faces, I started to feel confident; just call me Indiana Jane. So, when we arrived at the final drop-off, my early-morning anxiety was gone. Until Unger said, “Getting down this cliff will require all the skills you’ve learned today, as well as the experiences you brought with you.” That sounded like psychoanalysis.

The rock plunged at a steep angle, making it impossible to see the ground or my boyfriend, who had just disappeared down its face. Just to get to the edge, I had to squeeze between two large rocks. I must have looked slightly terrified, because Unger attempted to assure me: “You’ll be fine.”

I climbed halfway down the face and did not encounter anything scary or tricky. I started to think Unger had been joking. “What’s the big deal?” I wondered. Then I found out: I had to navigate a slot just a few feet wide. My knuckles touched one wall and my backpack scraped the other. I started to panic, envisioning myself permanently sandwiched between two cold slabs of rock. With no other way to go, I squeezed my way down, hoping the space wouldn’t slim any further. I’d never been so happy to drop, once again, into cold water.

Heart still thumping, I swam to land and looked at what I’d just scaled down: a nearly 100-foot cliff that angled into a narrow, miniature canyon. An experience, indeed, and I didn’t have to wait for summer to have it.

Below is a great video from hyner49 of what you might expect in reality if you decide to go canyoneering in Utah’s Zion National Park.

The air is so frigid in my office that I can’t tear my thoughts away from ‘ice’, which is why this morning I am exploring the ice climbing subject more thoroughly.

To the uninitiated, (that’s me), ice climbing sounds like a very extreme version of rock climbing. Just coping with the cold is a challenge – a subject lying heavily on my mind right now.

So what’s it all about?

“Ice climbing is what I live and breathe for. It’s so much fun that I can’t just do it on the weekend. I have to do it all the time,” 29-year-old ice-climbing instructor, Andreas Spak from Sweden says.

Usually, ice climbing refers to roped and protected climbing of features such as icefalls, frozen waterfalls, and cliffs and rock slabs covered with ice re-frozen from flows of water.

Alpine ice is frozen precipitation whereas water ice is a frozen liquid flow of water. Both types of ice vary greatly in consistency according to weather conditions. Ice can be soft, hard, brittle or tough.

Alpine ice is found in a mountain environment, usually requires an approach to reach, and is often climbed in an attempt to summit a mountain.“If you can bang a pin in with your ice axe without anyone yelling at you and you packed the whiskey ’cause it is the only thing that won’t freeze, you’re probably alpine climbing.” — Christian.

Water ice is usually found on a cliff, or other outcropping, beneath water flows. Remember the other day I talked about Ouray Ice Park in Colorado where they manually create the ice flows by switching on a complicated system of pipes, tapped into the City of Ouray’s water reservoir, resulting in long steep flows of crystal blue ice on previously blank rock – ‘farming’ ice so to speak.

What 3 attibutes do you need to become an ice climber?

“1 – High pain threshold
2 – Bad memory
3 – I forget the third.”

… says one wit.

Your equipment depends on the slope and texture of the ice. For example, on flat ice, almost any good hiking or mountaineering boot will usually suffice, but for serious ice climbing, double plastic mountaineering boots (or their older stiff leather equivalent) are usually used, which must be crampon compatible and stiff enough to support the climber and maintain ankle support.

On short, low angled slopes, one can use an ice axe to chop steps. For longer and steeper slopes or on glaciers, crampons are mandatory for a safe climb. Vertical ice climbing is done with crampons and ice axes or ice tools; climbers kick their legs to engage the front points of the crampons in the ice, and then swing the axe into the ice above their heads – this is called ‘front pointing’.

Ice is surprisingly strong. Even if the axe goes in only a centimeter or so it can be enough to pull up on.

A lot of the techniques and practices common in rock climbing are employed in ice climbing – rope systems, tying in, belaying, leading, abseiling and lowering, to name a few. It is essential that beginners learn these techniques before attempting to ice climb. It is highly recommended that one acquire knowledge from experts and experienced ice climbers.

The Canadian Rockies is widely recognised as the centre of the Ice Climbing universe, due to the vast amount of excellent ice within easy access. However, some consider the tiny Norwegian village of Rjukan, 170 kilometres west of Oslo, to be the best place in the world to climb ice, with routes between 50 and 300 metres high.

“Norway definitely has the best climbing conditions in Europe,” says Will Gadd, a world champion ice climber from Alberta and co-author of Ice & Mixed Climbing: Modern Technique. “It has the same quality and dependability of ice as Canada, but you don’t have to ski four hours to get to a waterfall. Rjukan is exceptional. You can literally start climbing from your car.”

Some of North America’s best known ice climbing regions are:

• Banff National Park, Alberta
• Ouray Ice Park, Colorado
• Lake Superior region, Ontario
• Northern New Hampshire
• Hyalite Canyon, Montana

But this discussion will end in Alberta, Canada – Banff to be exact. The colossal ice climbs in and around the park are arguably the best on the planet. Skyscraper-size routes like Polar Circus, a 600-metre ice climb on Cirrus Mountain that takes a full day to ascend, are lifetime goals for many climbers. Thanks to mikebarter387 for this video of a classic grade three waterfall in the icefields area in Banff.

If you’re really into an adrenaline challenge and find rock climbing not extreme enough you can always take time out when arriving at the top of Stanage Gap to do a bit of slacklining. Extreme sport indeed. Remember I did an article on Dean Potter doing just this but across the Grand Canyon with no protective back-up apart from a small parachute if things went wrong! Thanks to northtrials for this video of slacklining (some call it baselining) at Stanage Gap in the Peak District.