Huayna Potosi 6088m, Bolivia

Al looked up at the snow capped peak and declared “Well its not going to climb itself, now is it ?!”.

Huayna Potosi stands at a daunting 6088 meters a.s.l.  (or 19973 ft) and we were just going to have to take a crack at it.

The idea came during a particularly festive evening on lake Titicaca with an Irish couple – as if any occasion with the Irish involved could be anything else – the first seeds planted somewhere between beers three and four.

Our new Celtic friend described it as the hardest thing he’d ever done but in fairness he also admitted to being heavily hungover at the time.

We’d been building up our red blood cells at altitude for nearly a week to acclimatise, but during our first night on the slopes sleeping rough and ready in a refugio at 4700m we already started to feel the altitude. Sleep in any other position but on your back is impossible and even then we’d wake in panic gasping for breath shortly after drifting off.

Dee already started to feel the first hints of the dreaded Saroche, the altitude sickness. It starts with a dull headache, followed by nausea and various other delightful symptoms that are best forgotten.

Up early the next morning we packed our bulky kit up for the ascent to the high refugio which at 5300m a.s.l.  it stands only a paltry 60 meters lower than Everest base camp.  We trudged up the side of the mountain, arriving at the refugio a little puffed out.

The fun was about to start – our group had only a handful of people who’d actually used crampons and ice axes before – so we kitted up and set out for the glacier for a day of ice training. Putting the crampons on and learning to walk up and down 45 degree ice faces was  fun, but climbing up the vertical ice face with the axes was  simply awesome.

Dee characteristically scampered up the face with the sort of ease that frankly embarrasses everyone else. Al resorted to the time honoured male tradition of just using as much brute force as humanly possible, literally bludgeoning his way to the top. Thankfully the glacier provided bountiful supplies of ice to apply to some very bruised knuckles!

We all turned in at about 4pm to try catch some shuteye ahead of our 1am summit attempt. With hindsight it was unlikely that Dee’s problems with altitude would improve 500m higher, and as the evening wore one she looked worse and worse.

As ferociously competitive as Dee she simply had to have a crack at the ascent, even though she looked like death warmed up. The two of us, roped into a line with our guide Silvio, got out onto the glacier face as quickly as possible as it looked like we’d need all the time we could get to make the summit before the morning sun began to melt the ice.

Both of us were devastated. A week of hanging around in La Paz to acclimatise and her climb was over. Al wanted to abort with Dee but there was no quarter given. Dee bluntly refused the offer and insisted that Al  should ‘get a bloody move on’ to rope in with the group in front.

It was with a heavy heart that Al continued the ascent, the dream of our glorious victory over the mountain together in tatters. It was the knowledge of the sacrifice Dee was making that provided the fuel to keep on climbing when all the physical energy was long spent.

Nearing the summit the pace had reduced to ten steps upward with a thirty second hyperventilation break. Repeat and repeat again until all that could be seen were the feet in front. The worst parts still lay ahead, an ascent up a 55 degree ice face, the repetitive swing and kick  of ice axe and crampon leaching the energy and resolve far quicker than one would like.

Finally, a climb and scramble over rocks (a task ill suited to crampon wearing climbers) and we were there. La cumbre, the summit. Looking out the morning light glittered from far off La Paz and the blue expanse of Lake Titicaca was a smudge on the north western skyline.

It felt like the top of the world, the mountains around us seemed like dwarves as the vista stretched on for miles on end. Looking down and seeing the path laid out for the first time was something of an eye opener. ‘We climbed up that ?!’ was the first coherent thought through Al’s addled brain. The sinking realisation that the next four hours would be spent going back down slowly followed…

Not much memory of the trudge down the mountain remains. A careless ice axe slipping followed by a slide down the ice face to a painful arrest as the rope bit in, and a jump across a neon blue crevasse stick out. As does the overwhelming emotion of seeing Dee waiting at the bottom.

Al quickly wiped the tears away from his eyes, just in time to save himself being seen and suffering the indignity of having his eyelashes frozen shut. Dee has to lend a helping hand as the last twenty meters across the rocks to the refugio become that one bridge too far.

After nearly three weeks spent at altitudes over 4000m, it was finally time to head to the lower lands in Sucre to give our oxygen starved bodies a well earned break.