Huascarán, Anqosh (North) Face. Boštjan Ložar, Tomaž Petac and I made a new route on the Anqosh face, well to the left of the Buhler-Wood route. We climbed alpine-style 1300 vertical meters on the buttress on the left side of the face to reach the east ridge, which we then followed to the summit. We had much steep ice and snow and a few pitches of excellent, compact granite. After acclimatizing on Pisco Oeste and Artesonraju, we approached the Anqosh face on July 16. The beginning was very hard: a difficult overhang and then hard, vertical ice. We climbed a few pitches to the first rock band, which had icy cracks in excellent granite. On the afternoon of July 17, we climbed the most difficult rock pitches on our route in the second and third rock bands. On July 18, we spent all day on steep ice and snow where it was impossible to belay properly. We bivouacked a second time on the buttress at 5900 meters in wet sleeping bags. On July 19, we climbed steep and in two places vertical snow to reach the Spanish (east) ridge at two P.M. On to the sharp, corniced ridge, we climbed slowly and bivouacked twice more. We reached the summit of Huascarán on July 21, after 46 hours of actual climbing. We rate the climb as UIAA VI+, Al, 90°. We call it “Pot v Pekel” (The Road to Hell).

Marjan Kovac, Planinska zveza Slovenije