Huascarán Sur, Turbera, and Nevado Copa, Mostro Africano to southwest ridge. Upon returning to Huaraz in June, after climbing Siulá Chico, Oriol Baró and I decided to attempt something more. Having spent six days on our previous route, we wanted something on which we could move fast, similar to what we might climb in the Alps.

In 2005 I climbed a line on Huascarán Norte that snaked around the French Route on the northeast face. The French Route follows the most vertical and safest part of the wall, but as I was climbing alone and as rapidly as possible, I sought out easier, though at times more exposed, passages. From this route I had the opportunity to see the north face of Huascarán Sur (6,768m), upon which I mentally traced a potential line of ascent.

Oriol and I needed to make this line a reality. We climbed the l,200m-high north face in two days, with a bivouac spent sitting in the middle of the wall a la Mick Fowler. The route links huge snowfields on the right side of the rocky portion of the north-northeast face (just left of the hanging glaciated face) via short sections of rock. We bivouacked again near the northeast ridge, which completed our route, and then continued to the summit, which Oriol did not like because it required such a great deal of “walking.” We bivied again while descending the normal route (La Garganta), which we were neither familiar with nor did we enjoy, due to its exposure to serac fall. Turbera (1,200m, MD+ M5 Al).

In 2003, at the end of a course for young alpinists held by the Spanish Federation of Mountain Sports and Climbing, three of the participants—Elena de Castro, Roger Ximenis, and Oriol—headed to the south face of Nevado Copa (6,188m) intending to climb a new route. However, the apus, or mountain spirits, hurled the mountain down upon them as they were preparing for bed. They escaped from the avalanche of rock and ice mostly unharmed but plenty shaken. They fled in the middle of the night, wearing boot liners and with a single headlamp between them. Finally, a potato truck carried them back to Huaraz.

Oriol’s theory was that the mountain couldn’t fall on him twice in the same place. Operating under this illusion we returned to the south face of Copa via the Quebrada Paccharuri [Ruripaccha on the latest Alpenvereinskarte map], accompanied by Enrique “Kikon” Munõz, a friend from Madrid who works as a mountain guide in South America. We climbed the 800m wall (Mostro Africano, ED V/6) in a day, with small packs. [The trio bivied on the summit ridge at ca 6,050m, from where they then descended.] Oriol, of course, had divided up the pitches so that the nicest one fell to him, but we didn’t say anything, as it looked steep and difficult. It turned out to be one of the best pitches of ice that any of us had ever climbed, even with the packs and at altitude. One couldn’t ask for more happiness.

Jordi Corominas, Spain (translated by Adam French)