Ranrapalca, The North Face

Twenty-two hours is how long it took to climb the North Face of Ranrapalca. Climbing Ranrapalca is representative of my new understanding of what it means to be an "alpinist".

The climb started with 4 days in the Quebrada Ishinca base camp (14,500 ft) waiting for the rain and snow to dissapate. On the 4th day we shuttled a load of gear to the Ranrapalca high camp (17,000 ft) and returned to base camp. On the 5th day we carried the last load to the high camp in the rain and set up a hopefull camp there. On the 6th day, the sky cleared to a miraculously blue cloudless sky! Wonderful. This day consisted of us sleeping in until 10 - eating, napping, eating some more, drinking fluids, scoping out the approach to the climb, more napping, eating, and reading. Went to bed at 6 to get up at 11 pm! all the sleep and eating the day before was to charge us for meager 5 hours of sleep before the climb. we left camp at 12:20am, started climbing the 3,000 ft wall in the dark at 1:30. with headlamps we simulclimbed through some easy 50 degree snow, hard rock, thin ice (JJK, the ice was rotten and about 2 inches thick over rock) to about the half way point when the sun came up. we sumilclimbed some more through more ice and snow to the middle snow finger you can see on the pics of the face. just then the sun hit the face around 8 or 9 and rock and ice started falling down the face but we were tucked safely in the snow couloir by then. buy this time i got really exhausted as i hadn't fully recovered from my previous Shaqsha climb and subsequent fever sickness. so i slowed us way down. at the top of the snow couloir i led over the final rock band, which was loose 5.9 at 20,000. holy cow, that was scary. we summitted at 2:30. our rack consisted of 2 screws, 2 pickets, 8 nuts, 4 cams, 1 hex, and 4 pitons, and we protected the climb with almost exclusively the rock gear. Boy, i don´t won´t climb an alpine climb without those lovely pitons (two KBs and 2 baby angles).

On the summit ridge we post holed in deep powder toward the decent route, the north east face. AFter two long rappels on rock the sun set. We did 4 rappels in the dark on snow from rap stations of two snow bollards, a picket which we left, and a screw. We left the picket and screw without hesitation. then we had to navigate through a heavily crevassed glacier for hours, finding our own way as we were the first party on the mountain after the most recent storm so there were no tracks anywhere. we arrived at our high camp around 10pm. our Argentinian friends were camped next to us and had hot tea for us. most of which i didnt enjoy as i just passed out in my tent. 22 hours round trip. holycow, i am still tired.

Ranrapalca