02/08/2017
Big Summit #2 – Antisana – 5,704m – 5,500m reached
Why the f*ck did I sign up for this?! The thought of going up Antisana tonight is making me feel sick with exhaustion. Surely I could have found a less extreme way to spend my birthday?! Just think of the achievement at the end Kirsty. And as Sarah says, think of the cake and brunch. What will I think of when I’m freezing my ass off in the tent?! I know… a nice hot relaxing bubble bath!
We are at the camp now, and it’s actually quite warm inside the tents. I’m sharing with Estalin. There are pro’s and con’s to this – I don’t get my own space but I’ll be less scared and, as the boys like to make fun of quite a lot, I’ll be able to take advantage of some of his body warmth. The mountain is right behind us, and when it peeps out occasionally from behind the cloud it looks MASSIVE. It’s much broader than Cayambe, and we can see immediately a lot of it’s height. If we didn’t know this was going to be similar to the one we’ve just done, I’d be freaking out right now. At least I know it’s physically possible now.
I’m just talking with the boys about how there really is NO NEED to do three mountains. It’s totally excessive. Antisana feels like it’s going to be a lot of pain for not a lot of gain. Don’t sign up for 3 guys – two is enough!!
Back in my tent now after dinner and after so much pessimism I actually had a really nice night. We ate lunch at 2pm – cuppa soup. The boys and I played cards in their tent for a while after lunch and then we went again for dinner at 5pm. Eating so much food in such a short space of time with an already limited appetite could have been quite a challenge but the meal was so nice! It was basically Chinese prawn and pork fried rice. Probably my favourite meal of the trip so far! All the guides and chefs in the tent were speaking a lot in Spanish and I could tell they were debating whether to speak in English or Spanish. I thought that was odd – if they’re thinking about it surely English is obvious with two of us who can’t speak Spanish?! Anyway, a few minutes later Estalin appears at the door with a huge cake, and everyone starts singing happy birthday in English, and then again in Spanish. Oh! That’s what they were debating. Oops. This is such a nice touch, I’m so flattered that they went to this effort. And the cake was amazing, and they’d even gone to the effort of finding edible ‘28’ candles! So cute. This really cheered me up. THEN to top it all off – the cherry on the cake (get it) – the summit of Antisana came out from behind the clouds and we got some really great photos. So much fun. I’m excited now. But also seeing the top – it looks so big. It’s 7pm now and we’re settling down for an 11pm alarm. Not sure I’m going to get ANY sleep.
Also – Tim is being chased by a wolf right now. It’s not aggressive apparently. But it’s chasing him. I’m staying here.
I did end up getting some quality sleep. I went down pretty quickly at 7pm and was woken up by Estalin at 10pm – he couldn’t sleep so did the classic ‘Kirsty – are you awake?’ in a loud enough voice to wake me up. I spent the next hour watching him play tetris. Lots of faffing about later and we were on our way at 1am.
So… they key to Antisana is a clear day. This is because of the MASSIVE crevasses. I’m guessing 100mx20m and bottomless as far as I could see. So you need to be able to see where you’re going. The walk started out perfectly – really clear. No wind, no cloud. We could see all of the stars in the sky, it was amazing. We couldn’t see any of the mountain ahead mind you as it was pitch black. Antisana seemed much flatter than Cayambe, and almost a leisurely stroll by comparison. But the main difference was the fear – the head torches alone were enough to make us all very aware of the abyss lurking just ahead of every footstep. There were a few spots where a jump, or a run, was required to make it safely across our chosen snow bridge.
The weather started coming in a couple of hours into the walk. By this point, I was way too lazy to put my ski goggles on so I was getting battered in the face with shards of ice while relying on a head torch which was clearly more exhausted than I was to follow Estalin’s footprints. I think he had some sort of secret hover board built into his shoes or something. There was no trace of him in the snow ahead of me and I kept getting shouted at for not stepping in his invisible footprints.
With the weather getting worse and worse, Estalin was finding it increasingly difficult to navigate a route. He kept asking us to stay where we were while he wandered off out of sight to scout a route and jump on some snow bridges to check their strength. He told me if he falls down a crevasse, I’ve to dive to the ground, stick my ice axe in the snow and don’t get back up. I must’ve looked like a crazy axe wielding murderer most of the time as I was primed for my time in the heroic spotlight at any moment. Thankfully the time never came. At about 5am, we were told that we’d be pushing on for another hour until sunrise. If the weather doesn’t get better, we’ll turn back. As it happened, things did clear up and we arrived in a little basin/col thing in high spirits again. We stopped here for a break and I think this is the coldest I’ve been so far. I had to crack out the hand warmers. Cheap pieces of sh*t. Estalin used his magic powers to make them warm though so that cheered me up. All we had to do now was clamber up a couple of very steep snow slopes then the summit was a short walk away.
All we have to do… never think that again Kirsty. We made it up the first slope but then sadly the clouds came in again and we now couldn’t see more than a couple of meters ahead of us. Estalin was looking back to Mauricio who was asking (in Spanish so I didn’t know at the time) is he sure, is he really sure. He would have been focussed, so not paying attention to me also shaking my head at him. I could sense the nervousness and I could sense the danger. I’ve read too many Everest disaster books. We turned around with 200m to the summit. It was getting late so if we’d pushed on we’d have been descending too late with weak snow and rock slides etc. In the daylight descent, we got to see the crevasses in all their lethal glory. I’d have taken way more pictures if I wasn’t still being pelted by tiny ice machetes. I also had my big mitts on and I’d learned the hard way that loose gloves blow away in the wind, so I wasn’t taking the mitts off.
Overall, a very good day. A very different experience to Cayambe so it’s hard to compare. I’m shattered again now but it’s my birthday so we’re going out in Quito for some drinks now – woohoo.
