The big climb!

So, we finally made it back to Caraz after the climbing expedition….what a trip! We finally met up with Duane and Aaron and the rest of the gang late the night before, and so we didn`t get the earliest of starts the next morning. Of course, in traditional Peruvian fashion, our transportation to the trailhead broke down halfway there, so we had to sit around and wait for a new combi…..long story short, we hiked in to base camp, and made it their fine….late and dark, but fine.

The boys headed up to high camp after a few days for acclimitization, and Forrest, Jazzmine, and myself stayed down at base and hung around and hiked. It was such a weird feeling to know that I was sleeping at 14,000 feet and hiking at 16,000 feet like it was no big deal….that`s higher than anything back in Colorado!

Long story short, the boys weren`t able to summit, but they sure gave it one hell of a shot! Out of the six of them, two turned around pretty early in the morning, but Steve, Aaron, Duane, and Bill kept plugging at it. We watched from high camp for six hours before we were finally able to see their tiny little bodies high up on the face of Artesonraju….just as night was falling. They ended up climbing for 20 hours, and didn`t return to camp until 1 in the morning….exhausted, I`m sure! Either way, they did good, but I think they are all excited for the break!

Now there is three of us traveling for the last month in South America since we have been joined by Aaron…it will be sweet to have company and we are contemplating going to visit the touristy part of Colombia–best beaches on the continent! We`ll see!