A little more mountain climbing

Tuesday May 19th I headed again to the Hampaturi area for some more climbing. I wanted to climb a 5500 meter peak between Serkhe Kollu and Hati Kollu. Unlike those two, this one doesn't appear on any climbing website, and it doesn't seem to have name according to online maps. I drove to the same spot from where I started the walk to Serkhe Kollu less than two weeks earlier. The drive felt a little nicer now because there was already light when I got to the dirt roads. From the road's end, instead of heading toward Serkhe, I headed to the right. First a little bit down, across a stream, and the it was a pretty steep slope; first grass, then sand, and higher stones and rocks. I had been suffering from a mild flu for a week and a half, but now I noticed for the first time that breathing heavier hurt a little bit in the lungs. It made me think of maybe doing something easier and shorter. So I went slow and soon felt better. After about 1hour 15minutes I reached the top of the hill or the mountain or the ridge. The other, shady side had plenty of snow, starting from about 4800 meters. I was at well over 5000. This area is all narrow valleys that have mountains on each side.

I put on boots and crampons and went down about 100 vertical meters to find easier terrain to get closer to the peak I wanted to climb, which looked like this from a little closer.

I was not on a glacier yet, so it felt safe. There was some fresh powder on top of the hard snow layers. But as I was not having my best day, I didn't feel very motivated and didn't have the energy, and slowly gave up on the idea of going over 5500m. So, instead, I just chose a nice slope to climb.

I was at 5300 meters. The views were pretty cool and I took some really good photos. 

Climbing Hati Kollu

Thursday, May 14th I climbed a mountain called Hati Kollu. Like Serkhe Kollu one week earlier, this mountain is in the Hampaturi Group which is very close to La Paz. Hati is only about 15km or 10miles from the center of La Paz, but or course the roads are not straight and they are very bad, so it takes about 1,5 hours to get to the road's end. Here the road ended at an elevation of 4400 and a little bit. The mountain is 5420meters high.
 I started walking from the car at 6.21 am. After one hour I arrived at a lake. After another hour I reached the low end of the glacier, which ended almost to another lake at 4870 meters. This lake has some sandy beaches that could be nice for camping.

 The climb certainly looked nice from the beginning of the glacier, and the snow was perfect. The slope was not too steep, but I think over 30 degrees all the time, and the steepest section was around 50 degrees. Of course in the pictures it looks less steep.

Here I took the right side, climbing close to the rocks on the right. The middle of the picture would have been steeper, but this time after a difficult climb on Serkhe one week earlier, I wanted to avoid all difficulties. The right side also looked safest; there were some crevasses on my left although right now after the rainy season is over they are mostly filled up with snow. That's why this is the best time to climb, especially alone, and also now there is less ice on the mountains, which is good. 

After the steepest section, it was quite long snow field at about 30 degrees. The last 50 vertical meters to the top were a mix of rock and snow at a steep angle. From the start of the glacier until the beginning of the mixed rock and snow it was about 490 vertical meters that I covered in 60 minutes (not including one short stop) which I think is really fast. I didn't think the last part would have been difficult, but at first I climbed up a little bit, but had to go back down because it was too difficult. Then I tried another route, but had to come down again. I traversed more to the left and tried and failed again, thinking that maybe I could make it if I took my crampons and boots off and tried in running shoes, but I was not going to do that. Finally, I went back close to where I did my first attempt, and found a way through to a steep and narrow snow couloir that leads to the top. The top was rocky with a little bit of snow. I'm glad that this time it was not foggy I had good views.

Serkhe Kollu zoomed from Hati Kollu:

Mururata zoomed from Hati Kollu:

On the drive back to La Paz, on a narrow one-lane road, 3 men were doing maintenance. They had a tractor and a truck on the road and I had to wait about 15 minutes. Then they wanted me to give them "at least 30 bolivianos" (about 4,5 dollars) to buy soda. I didn't pay, and only had 20, but they insisted. I still didn't pay, saying I had nothing. They left saying they wouldn't let me pass until late in the evening because I didn't pay, and got back to their work. I drove closer to the tractor that was working but blocking the road, keeping the engine running, and after another 15 minutes they let me pass. Soon, the back door of my car just opened, and I stopped. This was closer to the city, and police appeared in a pick up truck. They talked to me a lot and then found out I was missing an inspection sticker, and that they could give me a ticket of 80 bolivianos, or I could just pay them 20 bolivianos. I kept saying that nothing was missing, everything was ok with the car, and they could just give me a verbal warning, etc. A lot of talking, but a long story short, eventually I kept insisting I wanted the ticket of 80 bolivianos, and not pay them 20 bolivianos, and they just left. So they just invented the whole thing to get some money for themselves. 

Climbing Serkhe Khollu solo

I didn't do or attempt any climbs for 2 months, mainly because I wanted to wait for better weather and snow conditions, and because there were some triathlons and bike races. The day after the latest race my back was hurting until the next Friday, which was the worst day, so I spent 6 days doing no training.

  On Thursday May 7th I went for a mountain called Serkhe Khollu (the name has other variations too) because I had seen on Google Earth that it's possible to get pretty close to the mountain by car. I left home at 4.37am. After 15 minutes of driving higher to the mountains it got really foggy for a moment and I had to slow down and was really disappointed thinking I'd be climbing inside a cloud again. But, as I got higher the sky was clear and there was no fog. The moon was still very bright since it was full moon just 3 days earlier, and the light helped a lot when I turned onto some very narrow mountainside  "roads". The drive was the worst of my life. Terrible, terrible roads and near darkness. It was a road that lead to and ended at a dam at a lake in a deep and remote valley. This mountain is not climbed often. I'm almost sure it's only a few times a year. There is light at about 6.30am and I started the walk at 6.38. The altitude at the lake is about 4810 meters. I followed some llama paths toward the end of the valley where the mountain was waiting, but I was impressed by the peaks on both sides of the valley too. I thought I should come again and stay 2-3 days because there is plenty to climb and explore. It was a very nice walk. Just trekking there would be fun too and it's possible to reach some really high altitudes without any equipment.

   It took about 1 hour 30 minutes to reach the snowline, where I had decided to see where to climb. I had seen online that the easiest route would be the left side of the mountain, but hadn't paid attention to other alternatives. I wanted to see and feel how the snow was, and then make a decision. Early in the morning on the lower slopes the snow was perfect; hard with great rough surface for a good grip, and I was able to get pretty far wearing my running shoes before putting on climbing boots and crampons. Because the snow was great, and because the easiest route looked too easy from below, I decided to head straight on to the steep main face of the mountain that was rock, snow, and ice. There were thin lines of snow and ice going up after the lowest snow slopes, and some sections had like steep rock ladders, so I thought it was not going to be too extreme.

Soon, however, the snow got softer. I didn't like it anymore and I spent a lot of time thinking about my next move. As a solo climber my every move has to be secure and perfect. Of course when you are on the wall, it feels a lot steeper and higher than from below. I mostly avoided the ice falls where possible, but the mixed rock and snow climbing was still hard.
  About halfway up, there is a section with more space, and from where it is a very steep snow slope. And there the snow was perfectly hard again for about 150- 200 vertical meters, so I didn't mind the steepness much. Higher up, there were more and more spots where the snow was soft. I didn't worry yet, but then it was all soft snow, and I was in trouble: steep slope with soft snow is not a good place to be. That's when I really regretted not having taken the easy route up. I didn't think going down was an option and I was maybe 150 vertical meters from the top so I kept going up. It was really slow and I had to kick good steps and make holes in the snow for both hands for each step. My ice axe just plowed through the deep snow. From afar I had seen that there was a pretty big cornice on the top, but somehow I also believed that just below the cornice there was a narrow ledge where I could rest a little bit, but once I was on top of the steep snow slope I saw that there was nothing else but the overhanging cornice. I was standing on a steep slope, in the deep soft snow, not sure if it would hold, with an icy cornice over my head. It was not fun and again I had great regrets taking this way up. Now I wish I had taken pictures of the situation, but I didn't take any. It took well over an hour of standing there and digging to make it through the cornice. My worst hour on a mountain. I don't climb mountains because I like the dangers of it, nor do I really want to climb the hardest routes I can. What I always picture in my mind is sun, snow, great views, and moderate difficulty but still something enjoyable.

   It was a great relief to make it through, and once through, there was a gentle slope of perfect snow again. An easy walk to the top. Unfortunately it was now foggy and there were no views from the mountain. The highest point is 5545 meters or 18,200ft. On the way down I found out that the easiest route to the top is not as easy as it looked like from the valley. In fact, I thought it was almost perfect: quite steep, good snow, and no crevasses or other dangers in sight.
   Afterwards I saw online that my route up was a variation of 2 named routes, both rated TD+, which surprised me a little bit. It's fun to see your gps track on google earth. The satellite images have a lot less snow than there actually is on the mountains, even though the imagery date was almost exactly the same, one year earlier (one year, one day earlier).

Llama path:

Bike race

This past Sunday I participated in another cycling race. It was held just outside the city of El Alto, at the same 4000 meter 13,000ft altitude than the city; once you go up from La Paz until El Alto, there it's pretty flat. La Paz has literally nothing flat for riding or running except the trainer, so it would be great to go ride on the flats regularly, but on a bike it takes over an hour of terrible urban riding to get out of El Alto. So, I never really go there. In a car the trip is faster, but still feels pretty long.

Anyway, in my memories from that area and on google Earth the race course looked pretty easy, but in person it turned out to have constant rollers. Not steep, but a lot of long hills. My goal for the 60km 38 mile long race was to make sure that I wouldn't miss any breakaways, not even by a single rider, because in my last bike race a single rider got away pretty early and did ride away. Quite early a good rider I knew broke away a little bit, so I decided to ride hard and catch him, which I did, but then after maybe two minutes the whole group was together again. Then a really skinny rider took off super hard going up a hill but was caught in a few minutes. Soon there was another hill and the same dude took off again. And again it looked like he was sprinting his absolute maximum, so I didn't think he was going to make it very far but he did. The front group still had about10 people, but it took at least 20 minutes of really hard riding to catch the skinny guy. Pretty much the entire first half of the race I was waiting for a small group of maybe 2-4 to drop the rest of the pack, and I felt like it was going to happen because so many times I was sprinting so hard to keep up. I put out 928 watts just 14 minutes into the race, and averaged 404 watts for one minute just after the first 30 minutes.

 But when the skinny guy was caught we were still 8. For some time everybody was taking it easier, until the hard riding started again and I had to make some huge efforts, but the group was together until the last long hill before the flat finish. In the sprint I got 6th, the next 2 being a little further back. I should practice sprinting and maximum peak efforts to do better in cycling races.

The next day I did 3,5 hours of training, but after that my back started hurting a lot like something's not in place. Hopefully it goes away soon, but today I was not able to do anything.

National Championship Triathlon

Bolivian olympic distance (1,5k-40k-10k) nationals were held on Friday April 3rd near the city of Tarija. The altitude there at the lake is about 1870m or 6,100ft. It's the best place in Bolivia for triathlons. There are not many good lakes at good altitudes in Bolivia, but Tarija's climate is very nice, and the race site is at the end of a quite quiet road and it was closed to the traffic. The run is completely flat. It's a paved pedestrian path that has no pedestrians. However, there were cows on the side of road and some on the road, and all competitors had to maneuver their way around them. They didn't move very fast, but one fast pig cased me to panic for some seconds during the race. In 2012 I won the nationals held in Tarija. Now I was not in quite as good shape and I knew it would not be easy to win again.
  I was shopping for flights only 2 days before I wanted to fly, and went to 3 different airlines' offices, but all of them were sold out. Because I didn't want to take the 17-18 hour bus trip, I still checked online, and found flights at a fair price.

  The elite categories were the only ones to compete that day; age groups from 7 years up would compete during the next two days.The swim was a non-wetsuit swim. I was in the water a couple hours before the start, and the top of the water was nice and warm, but just a little bit deeper it was cold. But it was ok, and the air temperature was around 28C or 83F at 1pm when the race started. I thought I swam pretty well, but there were two really fast swimmers who got a huge lead out of the water. After the swim I was fifth.

 In 2012 the bike was 4 laps, but now 8 laps out and back, which was not a good change. The two leaders were really far away, maybe 30 seconds apart, and during the first 3 laps I was not able to get any closer. I knew them and believed they were riding at least a little bit too hard, at least for each of them riding alone,so I kept my rhythm until I caught the 3rd place, and we rode together for over 2 laps (draft legal race) until he got tired. Slowly I could see the 1st and second place riders changing their faces and getting a little bit closer, and by the end of the bike I was about 3 and 1 minutes behind.

 I started the run quite fast to reach the 2nd, stayed with him for a while before going all out for about a 1km to drop him, while the leader was getting slower and slower. The run was 4 laps, and at the end of the 3rd one I got the lead and I didn't have to worry about losing it.

 I got really bad blisters on both feet. Should have taken the time to put on socks, because after 5k it was pretty difficult to run the second 5k with my feet hurting.
  I didn't have time to hang around much after the race, but had to ride back to the hotel, put my bike in the box and hurry to the airport. The return flight was first 40 minutes to Santa Cruz, then 35 minutes to Cochabamba, and finally 28 minutes to La Paz.

First triathlon since November 2013

This past weekend there was a triathlon here in La Paz. It was a regional championship race, an ITU- distance sprint 750m swim, 20km bike and 5km run. The swim was a pool swim in a really nice 50 meter pool at an an altitude of about 3450m/11,300ft. That's over 400 meters lower than where I live and mostly train, and I could feel the difference. The bike was 8 laps and run was 2 laps on a course with plenty of curves, and a u-turn at both ends. The first half of the lap was very easy and mostly downhill, and then the second half was hard going up. People watching the competition could see the racers two times each lap, which was nice too.
  My race was supposed to start at about 12.15, and I think it was about 1pm when it finally started. Not bad for Bolivia. I was glad we didn't race at 8am when it's cold outside. There were three others on my lane and they were younger and two of them quite slow. I don't think I was able to push as hard in the swim as I wanted, and while getting out of the pool I was told there were three people ahead of me. It was warm and sunny outside, and I didn't notice any wind that day. The leader during the first lap was really far ahead, maybe 1.5 minutes. He was an Argentinian. I don't even remember passing the two others because I was focused on going really hard and chasing the leader. After 4.5 laps I reached him, and for two minutes we took it easy and chatted. He was visiting from the city of Salta which is at moderate altitude, but really not much compared to La Paz. Some people were cheering for me, and as the race progressed, more and more people learned my name from them and the support was really good! Apparently they wanted me to beat the Argentinian. Also, just before the race when there is the speech (I can't remember how it's called) I was officially "welcomed back to Bolivia" hehe.
 I accelerated two times in an uphill and dropped my competitor (it was a draft legal race). During the last three laps I kept going pretty hard, and had a pretty good lead when the run started. It was around 1 minute, or close at least.
  The run went really well too, a lot better than I expected, just like cycling. Nice cruising. The Argentinian didn't run very fast, and I couldn't keep track of others because there were so many people on different laps.I was given a 15 second penalty for having left something on the ground in the first transition, so I had to stop 50 meters before the finish line. This was my second triathlon ever in Bolivia, second win, and both times were a first triathlon after about 1.5 years of not competing. There is a good triathlete in La Paz who has won several national championships, but didn't compete now. There have been no results available though, which is a real problem here. After the race I rode 42 minutes uphill to get home. Then in the evening I went back in a car to participate in the awards ceremony.

Cycling race

On March 15th there was a cycling race in El Alto, at over 4000 meters/ 13,100ft. It was a version of a criterium: 20 laps on an out and back course, totaling about 45km/28miles. I had never raced a criterium before, but I assumed it was going to be harder than a regular road race, and I was right. After every turn there was a severe acceleration, racers trying to break the pack and drop people. After just 4 minutes I saw my heart rate reaching anaerobic levels and I was trying to hang on to the leaders at every turn. I knew there were a bunch of really good riders, but while suffering, I was sure that not many would last until the end. As the race wore on there were less and less people trying to be at the front. Many times a few riders broke away for maybe a minute or less, but didn't get away. Then at some point, I think just after the half way point, I didn't really even see 2 getting away because I was a few places back. They got far away, but after maybe 15 minutes one of them dropped the other and rode away solo, until the finish. I would have been impressed, but I was busy still chasing him taking turns with basically just one other racer, pulling 2-4 others behind us. Luckily those 2-4 were not being "smart" by not taking any pulls, but they were more like dying. At the last turn I was quick and had only one guy ahead of me, then I sprinted away for a moment, but soon the dude who was in the breakaway with the eventual winner but got dropped, easily passed me and kept that 5 meter lead until the finish. So I got 3rd overall. Pretty good. Cycling has been my priority but I'm running and swimming too. After the last turn I peaked 866 watts and averaged 398 watts for one minute. When doing a normal or an easy ride, the wattage is not so different from sea level, but when doing hard intervals, everything seems to be about 50-60 watts lower here at these crazy altitudes. It also looks like that when going hard, the heart rate is lower than at sea level. It's very different riding, running, and swimming here.