In July, we spent a month in Peru with our climbing partners Pedro Galán and Manu Ponce, along with Luis Rizo and Lina Schütze as cameraman. Visiting both the Amazon and the Cordillera Blanca, we came away from Peru very happy with our three completed climbs: two new routes and a first free ascent (see linked report).

In the Chachapoyas province of Amazonas, in northern Peru, we established a beautiful route next to the upper waterfall of the two-tiered Gocta Falls. The approach to the waterfall takes approximately two to three hours from the village of San Pablo de Varela. Although our initial plan was to start climbing on the wall of the lower falls, decomposing rock there led us to focus only on the wall of the upper falls.

On July 3 we opened Yaku Mama (“Mother Water,” 185m, 7a+). The route ascends just left of the upper falls, offering adventurous traditional climbing up variable-quality sandstone cracks and face climbing for six pitches. For repeat ascents, we would recommend a machete, two sets of cams, and two ropes to rappel the route.

Since we had a number of days remaining for our expedition, we decided to reinvent ourselves and move from the jungle to the Andes, so from Chachapoyas, we traveled to Huaraz in 24 hours by bus.

– Iker Pou and Eneko Pou, Spain