Hatun Machay

Ahhhhhh Hatun Machay... definitely THE rock climbing place since the beginning of the trip. Imagine a stone forest at 4290 meters in a remote wild place, a single refuge 15 minutes walk from the crags... Such a nice place that we all decided to stay there for the 12 days originally allocated for the Huaraz area !

The rock overthere is a mix of sandstone and volcanic rock creating featured rock with cracks, holes, crimps and even tufas. This place is kind of emerging, the first route have been bolted in the year 2004, there are now around 150 routes ranging from F4 to F8a grade. The potential is still massive...as the forest is _huge_.

Ernie, the refuge and our campsite

Nice rock features

Endless...

Nice overhang but not climbable... :'(

On top of that it is also an archeological place where many caves have prehistorical drawings.

Despite the fact that many of us and especially me got sick overthere (I highly suspect the supposed drinkable water from the refuge I was drinking until seeing small schrimps swimming in my water bottle) we all hardcore climbed for these 12 days. We did almost all the 3 stars climbs around the 7a degree and Tobby and I worked for a few days a nice technical 7c in a pure sandstone vertical wall on negative pockets and side one-finger holds. I was close to the redpoint and fell the last day at a few inches from the anchor...damn !

Remy flying !

One of our best climb a 7a corner called "Relato de un naufrago"

Myself climbing an amazing 3 stars 6b

7 of us stayed for the full 12 days without any shower but it was not that horrible thanks to the dryness of the

climate. At this height the temperature changes are impressive. In a minute you can go from climbing topless to

wearing a down jacket and a hat because the sun disappeared behind some clouds. However generally the temperature wasn't too bad except during the night when our tents were covered with ice... my zero degree Qechua sleeping bag was clearly not enough despite my nice silk liner...managed to sleep well with two additional blankets and my hat :)

HotRockers enjoying the refuge warmth

Hatun Machay morning...enjoying the sun

Inside slackline battle !

On top of that we managed with Tobby to bolt our first route in a newly developed area. The owner and main bolter of this area, Andreas, brought us to this new sector "Los espanoles" and showed us the new pitches he wanted to equip. A nice line caught our eyes and we decided to bolt a nice vertical wall finishing in a slight overhang. Andreas, Tobby and Calum spent the next hours finding a top access, myself staying down to help them to reach the top of the pitch. After that a static line was fixed from the top and we startd cleaning and climbing our new pitch. It took us the full afternoon cleaning this pitch which was full of moss and lichens. The next morning we made the bolting and did the first climb on our route, cool !!

Small break before going to set-up the static line, Andreas, Calum and Tobby

Tobby getting ready to go up on the stat

Myself bolting the route, the line goes between the black and red rock up to the top

We named it "Bloody Mary" and should be around F6b. For the little story we named it "Bloody Mary" for a sheep we bought to a nearby farmer and that our south-african driver, Chris, killed, prepared and cooked for full-day on a wood fire...Useless to say how good was the next stew prepared with this meat....yummy :)

Before

After

I think I could have stayed in this place for ages... nice people, incredible landscapes and awesome climbs ! What else ?

Escalar a la muerte, love that !

The 7s who didn't go back in the valley for washing up...

Bouldering in Cajamarca

Near the city of Cajamarca (mirror issue...) we went to a nice small boulder area to split the massive driving on the way to Huaraz. The place was very nice, we camped inside a kind of farming touristic place... some trees (pretty rare since the beginning) allowed us to put to slacklines in the camp, cool ! I still suck at it need to train ;)

The bouldering was interesting as not very frequented so we have been able to open lots of new problems after cleaning the boulders. We opened around 15 new problems up to 6b+ Font grade. I'll try to post a topo later of our openings.

One of the best problemes we found

Flowering cactus, they were absolutely everywhere !

View of the valley from the bouldering area

A nice overhang arete I opened. I named it "Fucking cactus" after topping out on a cactus.... Font 6b

Easy top-out on jugs ;)

Bad luck

After almost one month of seamless traveling bad luck finally has come to us :)

1. Ecuador-Peru border crossing

Ok it is known as one of the worst border crossing in the world... We completely confirm this, it took us more than half a day to manage our entrance in Peru. We first head to the main border, the policemen told us to go the custom office where of course we cannot get the peruvian visa because we hadn't the ecuadorian exit stamp. So you except the Ecuadorian office to be close...haha no go back 10km. We arrive in a brand new building where the officials tell us that their computer is not working and we can't have the exit visa(yes instead of using the regular old fashion stamp the ecuadorian one is printed with a computer). They explain us that we have to go to a border town 10 km from there. So we head to a crazy town half Peruvian, half Ecuadorian...we go to the border inside the city with people everywhere, big families with crazy luggages and again the official at the border tells us we have to go back 5km....This time we manage to have our exit visa go back to the original border and everything is fine except for the truck papers...and we have to go back again to a different office handled by militaries 10 km back again.....

The crazy border...we had to make a u-turn with Ernie in the middle of this crowd....tough :)

2. Hostages

In the city of Cajamarca, our driver hit the mirror of parked truck on the side of road. Thinking there was no damages he doesn't stop and a few minutes later a car comes to the truck with a few locals. They want us to go back because the truck mirror in fact has been damaged a lot...So of course they want us to pay for the repair but this would only possible the next day. So they first ask for a 2000$ guarantee but we were not keen to give 2000$  like this so we we arrange that 3 of us would stay at the locals' place. Tom (the leader), Tobby and myself stayed at the locals appartment for the night while the truck found a bush camp near the city. We had a full appartment for ourselves and ended-up eating chicken and fries and watching climbing movies...not so bad for hostages. The next day we went in town with the son of the truck owner to get a quote for the repair which was of 1200$...

The three hostages, myself, Tom and Toby 

The truck we hit and the building where we had to stay for the night !

3. Flat tire

Not a big deal but just happened a few days after...Not so easy to change a tire on a big truck...

Chris trying to change the tire with two smalls jacks...

Yeah...definitely flat

4. Battery down

On the way to Huaraz near the coast the truck primary battery went down after visiting Chan-Chan...again not a big deal but stuck for hours...

5. Truck stuck in the mud

On the way to Hatun machay on a dogie road the truck got stuck in the mud...After a few hours of trying to get it out (in fact it even get worse and worse). Tom and I went to the nearest town to find a crate to get the truck out of the mud. Hopefully some people where heading back to Huaraz and the driver brought us to the town and found for us...a diggar !

I never ride a diggar and this was a unique experience...2 hours and half to go from the city to Ernie sitting on the top of the diggar at less than 10km/h... Useless to say that when the night went it was kind of freezing on this diggar !

Stuck

Chris loves to play in the mud

Yeah baby, our savior

Enjoying Inca Cola on the diggar...we're not gonna smile for a long time

YES saving Ernie :)