In order to take advantage of the mainly good weather in the morning, Gerardo and I decided to leave no later than 9h. So, after a hearty breakfast, we set off in the sun. Well, it took no time until we got lost! All in good fun, there are so many trails leading to these popular summits that there is no one way of doing it. Still, it seems we managed to avoid all the trails!! Not finding what we were looking for according to the instructions we'd received, we decided to just scramble up one of the crests. It was fun, and I personally preferred it; the rock here is very unstable, and it is annoying how it gives way under your feet. Scrambling up made for firmer holds. When an entire small boulder did not just yank out of the walls, that is!
We'd been going up for nearly 3 hours when the clouds that had been gathering higher up started to come down lower. We stopped, assessed, decided that our summit was still free (no visibility is something we were trying to avoid) and kept going. Every time another scramble looked like it promised the summit and its cross, it just let another scramble into view! This multi-faceted ridge felt like an endless row of camel humps.
Fifteen minutes after our last decision, the thunder started. We looked around. We felt we were very close. We decided to go one last scramble, hoping the cross was behind that one.
Gerardo on one of our breaks for water.
It wasn't. And now the clouds were starting to cover everything and coming our way. We decided to go back down a more direct route to avoid being stuck with zero visibility, otherwise it would have been all too easy to get lost. Going down took longer than we would have liked because of all the loose scree, and we laughed a lot, especially when Gerardo fell on his butt right unto a bed of prickly plants, something that, amazingly, I managed to avoid. We soon left the cloud cover, and by the time we got back to the lodge, the mountain had completely disappeared, but we were in the sun.
This would feel like a great time for a beer, but as alcohol is not helpful to acclimatization, it is not part of the plan...
Katie and Jamie, the amazing Kiwis!
Comme tu écris bien Carmen, c'est agréable de te lire :)
ReplyDeleteT'es fin... et pour les photos, c'est rate, j'etais toute contente de les passer a un dvd, et les cafes internet ici ne sont pas equipes pour! Je vais essayer d'en denicher un, mais c'est plat, j'ai plusieurs belles photos...
ReplyDeleteTu ne peux pas brancher ton appareil photo directement dans le port USB d'un ordi? Ou encore utiliser un adaptateur dans lequel tu insères la carte mémoire de ton appareil, et qui se branche à son tour dans le port USB? À moins que les ordis soient trop vieux pour avoir des ports USB?! Héhé, j'espère que je ne t'ai pas perdue ;)
ReplyDeletePerdue?? Tu m'as laissee a des annees lumieres, Julien, parle francais ou anglais stp! ,)
ReplyDeleteJe verrai au retour de la montagne. De toute maniere, les tatas du centre de photo les ont effacees de mon appareil, apres que je leur ai demande de ne pas le faire. Alors ce ne sera pas une option tant que je n'aurai pas pris plus de photos!