Lessons from Illimani – Part 1

All in all, it was a good experience. I didn’t make the summit (stopped at about 6000 m, 400 meters altitude and 4 hours hiking/climbing from the summit), but I made it back to my wife and kids (although the pain in my legs almost made me cry when my son hugged me) and I learned a lot.

In November I was introduced to a whole different level to hiking. A friend who was passing through Bolivia suggested we try to summit Illimani (6400+ M). I had never done anything with crampons and ice axes before, other than a bit of climbing on a climbing wall. In fact, being in Bolivia I hadn’t actually brought any gear except for an icebreaker merino wool base layer. That exercise showed me very clearly the importance of quality gear, travelling with people you can trust and the importance of being in good shape.

I should have paid a bit more attention to the gear when we were given it, rather than get lost in the prospect of doing something I never had done before. We borrowed our climbing and sleeping gear from the guide, including backpacks. The packs were made by high sierra (a Chilean company whose gear looks expensive, but who hasn’t quite gotten the comfort level right). Even with reasonably light packs, after three days my shoulders, back and waist were killing me. There wasn’t enough padding on the waist belt and the shoulders, even though they hardly carried any weight. It would have been nicer to take my regular Swiss army daypack that I got for carrying my laptop around with me.

Next came the down sleeping bag, It was North Face (or so it said). It would have been great, except for 1 thing: it was old and overused. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a snob that won’t use old gear. There’s just one thing, it needs to do what it’s supposed to do. The “sleeping” (Spanish name for sleeping bag… no joke) was missing more than half its down. That just doesn’t cut it at 5400 meters (high camp).

 

As for clothes, I wore my tatoo ripstop nylon pants until the actual ice work and almost exclusively wore an Icebreaker 150 base layer wool shirt with a t-shirt overtop (review coming later… of the icebreaker gear). My friend wore katmando’s version of the same and was absolutely fine (although being used to a New Zealand climate he needed a second layer).