On August 30, Gregg Beisly (NZ), Robert Rauch (German/Bolivian), and I climbed an 800m ice line on an unnamed 5,400m peak above Totoral Pampa, near the south face of Mururata (5,864m). We left La Paz mid- morning on the 29th and, other than passing a corpse on the road, had an uneventful 2.5-hour drive to Totoral Pampa, from which we hiked for a few hours to a pleasant base camp by a small lake.

Snow beat on the tents at our appointed 3 a.m. start time, so we slept for a few more hours. Eventually, Gregg convinced us to go to the base of the route and see how it looked. We climbed most of the route unroped to save time, but did make five belayed pitches. Fortunately, we experienced almost no rockfall.

On the descent, we reversed our line for ca 150m, until it was possible to cross the ridge to descender’s right and drop into a subsidiary valley. This led back to the main valley, where we had camped. We packed out that evening, and after a few hours wandering along llama trails in the dark, we found our car. We reached La Paz just before midnight. We have named the route Itsy Bitsy Spider (800m, WI4 M4), because Robert thought the upper snowfield looked like the Eiger’s White Spider.

Chris Clarke, Bolivia