Rumi Mallku, North Face, Mindfulness; Jakoceri, Variation to South Ridge

Bolivia, Cordillera Real
Author: Enrico Rosso. Climb Year: 2016. Publication Year: 2017.

Jakoceri (ca 5,800m; ca 5,900m on Google Earth) is a southwesterly outlier of Chachacomani (6,074m) and is characterized by a long, corniced summit ridge. Pietro Sella, Antonio Zavattarelli (Padre Topio), and I learned about this mountain by chance, through our friend David Vitale, a great Andean climber and English teacher at the missionary in Peñas, where we stayed throughout most of our trip to Bolivia. Davide had climbed a new route on the west face earlier in the year, and a few days before our arrival, after consulting with Davide, two young Frenchmen climbed the south ridge and continued to the summit of Chachacomani.

In Aymara dialect Jakoceri has various meanings, not all of them positive: "he who lies down” or “collapses” or “tumbles". Let’s just call it a mountain with plenty of avalanches and rockfall. Thanks to an extremely dry season, the west face appeared to hold no real objective danger, but the bergschrund was huge and retreating snow had revealed smooth slabs that prevented access to the wall. There was a possible line in the center of the face, but the finish was uncertain. Since this would be our first route at altitude, we opted for a repeat of the south ridge.



The three of us plus Davide climbed the ridge on June 5. It rises about 500m and is 800m in length. There was rock to 5c and ice to 60°. [This team climbed a steep snow slope to reach the ridge crest, farther north than the French first-ascent party did.] From Jakoceri’s south summit we rappelled and downclimbed east to reach the high glacier basin between Jakoceri and Chachacomani. Then, almost at sunset, we climbed to the col between these two mountains and descended the west-side glacier, convoluted by the hot dry season, to reach our tents on the moraine.

Later, Antonio, Pietro, and I moved to the northern end of the Cordillera Real and made camp by Laguna Glaciar, between Illampu and Ancohuma. Our plan was to try something in the Yacuma Group, but we were impressed by the huge bastion of Rumi Mallku (Stone Condor, 5,982m), which lies above the lagunaand northwest of Ancohuma. The right side of its north face holds three pillars leading to a long west ridge, which rises directly to a shoulder beneath the summit.

On June 10 we made a reconnaissance of this face and stashed some gear. We decided on the left-hand pillar, as it seemed the easiest, and from its top the way rightward toward the ridge appeared obvious. We set off next morning at 4 a.m. and returned to camp at 9 p.m. The granite on the pillar was generally good, but on the more compact sections the cracks were blind and the climbing consequently difficult to protect. From the shoulder we descended, without continuing to the summit, by downclimbing ice slopes on the south face to reach the Ancohuma Glacier, which we followed back to our camp. We named the route Mindfulness (500m, but around 700m of climbing, 6a). Various unclimbed objectives remain on the north face; perhaps most notable is the right-hand pillar.

Enrico Rosso, Italy



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