Trip Reports

Antisana 2003

Written by Leader Richard Gammage, January 2004

What a fantastic trip! A unique combination of climbing a rarely attempted peak by a challenging route and the charitable work in aid of the Happy City Orphanage. We also enjoyed the well-chosen acclimatisation peaks, the Hot Springs and benefited from a tremendous team. This was my third trip to Ecuador and my seventh to South America and as yet the best by far. This was partly because there were remarkably few other adventurous souls here at this time of year - most visitors to Ecuador prefer to visit during the North American and European Holiday times at Christmas and in our summer. From a mountaineering perspective this misses the point - seasons are largely a misnomer on Ecuador’s volcanoes. There were no other teams on Antisana (5,704m) during our visit - a sheer delight!

The acclimatisation programme arranged by Javier Herrera was perfect, featuring summits at approx. 4,200m, 4,700m and 5,100m in succession before Antisana, as well as sufficient opportunities to develop snow and ice techniques for those in need. The weather was ideal for climbers, with clear cold nights (other than early on the night of our summit push!) and sunny mornings in a predictable pattern throughout our expedition. The mountains of Ecuador have, as in many places, experienced rising snow lines in recent years, which would have made the undertaking of Illiniza Sur dangerous during the warm weather we experienced, particularly for our size of party. That said, the alternative we opted for, of a further day’s acclimatisation plus glacier skills on Cotopaxi, more than made up for this and proved very useful later on. The ascent of Illiniza Norte is always a pleasure - no more so than on this occasion, with snow and ice patches on the steep climb to the summit. The sight of condors - some 15 metres away - during our ‘active rest day’ (at 4,600m) will not be forgotten for a long time.

Of itself, Antisana was a fantastic mountaineering trip, despite some understandable and short lived frustration at not summiting. After the 3-hour walk to Base Camp high in its glacial moraines, the ascent began at midnight with 2 two members to each guide. Route finding up the glacier was especially challenging, notably through the steep serac zone at 5,500m where the guides combined efforts to push a route through some of the most picturesque and steep glacial terrain I have had the pleasure to move amidst. A steep ice pitch (about Scottish 2) was enjoyed by all the team, top roped from a snow stake, but quickly became but part of a relentless push for the summit. Regrettably an unclimbable bergschrund (largely overhanging) meant we were unable to climb the final 75m or so to the top, but we all knew we could have tried no harder.

All equated the 7 and half hours of ascent as perhaps their most memorable day ever on a hill - that is, despite having 3 team members that have been on peaks over 7,000m before. All of our tight-knit team reached a height of approximately 5,650m and learnt much from their own personal performances. The climb also revealed to us an alternative line to the summit, starting lower on the mountain and to the south... a challenge for 2004 that few mountaineers should resist!« Previous report | Next report »

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