"Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks. Great success shooting the knife into the piano. The woodworms are so bad and eat hell out of all furniture that you can always claim the woodworms did it."
--Ernest Hemingway
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Andinista - Mar 21, 2005 11:28 pm - Hasn't voted
Route CommentFrom Ishinca base camp, walk to left side of the valley, and follow a sparkling stream. Eventually, cross to the right side of the stream and follow a faint path through the bushes. Head up the small valley between the large moraine ridge on your right and the left side of the main valley. Continue up this small valley for about half of its length, until, you can see cairns leading left, up the steep hillside. Follow this steep trail to the top of the slope, where the trail traverses 100m right, through a boulder field, toward the obvious snow ramp.
This snow ramp is at the bottom-right of a large rock buttress. Don crampons and walk up the snow ramp for about 200m, to the flat glacier ridge. There are many places to camp along this ridge (ca.5, 000m, 3-4 house from base camp). Beware of hidden crevasses.
Some people might consider making their high camp at 5,300m, instead of on the flat glacier ridge at 5,000m. Doing so would make the summit day shorter.
Andinista - Mar 21, 2005 11:32 pm - Hasn't voted
Route CommentThe west face of Tocllaraju offers the rare opportunity to climb a beautifully smooth, high-angle ice face for over 300m, followed by steep snow up the final ridge to a perfect summit. They don’t get much better.
Elevation gain: 1,032m from high camp; 432m from bottom of face.
Grade: D+.
Time: 2-3 hours from camp to bottom of face; 8-10 hours from bottom of face to summit.
Star your climb early. From camp, hike up the glacier as you would to reach the northwest ridge. About halfway to the ridge, leave the trail and head up to the right, toward the bottom of the highest end of the bergschrund. Cross where feasible, and gain acces to the face. Climb 55-degree snow and ice, right of the mixed ground in the middle of the face, for 6-7 pitches. Find a way through the serac barrier at the top of the face, which involves 150m of 80-degree ice. Ascend lower-angled snow slopes and reach the summit via the south ridge (8-10 hours from bottom of face).
Descent: Descend the north west ridge.
rgg - Jul 2, 2011 7:41 pm - Hasn't voted
Out of condition - permanent?On July 1, 2011, I climbed the NW ridge. Had the west face been in shape, we might have tried that, but it wasn´t, and I fear that it never will be again.
High on the west face the ridge is corniced in various places, but that will surely change over time, and I expect there will almost always be places between the cornices to gain the ridge high up.
More seriously, there are some big seracs threatening the route at the moment. And, most importantly, not too long ago, one of these must have come down and wiped the snow of a sizeable part of the west face, which makes it now a very dangerous mixed climb, with a large steep rocky section - still with seracs hanging over it. I would be very much surprised if the route would be climbable this year, and, given the recession of snow routes in general, the route might be gone forever. Perhaps a new route, a little bit more to the right of the direct west face route, is possible in due course, but currently, that variation too was seriously threatened by seracs.
When I get a chance, I´ll post pictures showing the damage, but in the internet cafe´s here in Huaraz I cannot insert my sd-card, nor cd´s or dvd´s.
chrisc - Aug 13, 2019 4:35 pm - Hasn't voted
Summited 2019, in condition!I've been coming to the Ishinca Valley for the past 3 seasons to find this route seriously threatened by major seracs up high. As of 2019, the serac posing a significant risk to the face seems to have fallen off completely. (Must have been epic.). Climbed from shrund to the summit. Full trip report here!