This is it: Huascaran 6768m!!

The Big One will be the Huascaran, or will not be. If you have read my last post, I have now found some suitable boots, and have booked a similar trip to Peru to attempt the climb of the Huascaran, Peru's highest mountain and South America's third summit. Maybe slightly less technical than the Alpamayo, but 400m higher than the Chopicalqui, that should be challenging enough. Apparently, 3 people who summited on the Alpamayo+Chopicalqui expedition last summer are now attempting this Huascaran, so it certainly is serious enough an objective!

I don't know a lot about this expedition, except that I have to go now. If I stayed home 2 more months I probably wouldn't get much fitter, but would have 2 months to create opportunities to get unfit. My girlfriend will be busy in July but free in most of August, so if I'm back on 2^nd August it works out perfect. At work there will be a whole new lot of things kicking-off in August and September, so probably a good call to be here in that season.

All-in-all timing is good, just a little bit unplanned and unexpected, but I have the luxury of flexibility, a rewarding prerogative. I'm also quite happy to just go, not think and stress about it for another 2 or 3 months. There's lot of fine-tuning to do before I go, keeping me busy enough to not overthink it.

The gear:

I tried my brand new Spantik boots on, learnt how to tighten them in such a way that they respond to the command of my feet, but don't squeeze the feet to death – the last thing you would want at 6700m of elevation. The rest of the equipment I either have or will borrow, mostly from Ulf my colleague from Mannheim who has a little palmares of 6000m peak climbs. Being my first one, I don't even know what I don't have but should have, so I'm highly relying on him for the equipment checklist, and for the equipment itself!! I thought my alpinism gear was starting to be decent, but I realise that 6000-7000m climbing is a whole different class. Not playing around in Chamonix any more, boy!

The organisation:

„Terres d'Aventures“ is the organisation I used in 2010 for the Kilimanjaro trip. I kind of trust them, also because they are well-known in France. When you spend those sums on a trip to the extreme, you want to be a bit wary of who you give it to. I had a shortlist of 4 organisations which I somehow had some trust in. Terre d'aventure is one of them. You can find the trip description at:

http://www.terdav.com/Produit/Fiche/ASC010/huascaran-6768-m

The costs:

All this is costing me a fortune in equipment, late flight booking, transfers to Paris and airports, leave time, but with the idea of „The Big One“ I knew it would cost a lot, so I try not to think about it when I throw a big part of my savings into various websites... International banking is not making this whole aspect easier: the german debit cards are useless, the german Visa card also happens to not work on most websites, the french Visa card sends you a text message with a confirmation code for internet transactions, except it only takes french phone numbers... It reminds me the time when I bought my car in Germany, or the time when I booked the Kilimanjaro trip in 2010... It's hard to earn money, and it's hard to spend it the way you want too!

Practically:

I am flying on Thursday, I will already go to Paris on Wednesday night. Of course communication will be difficult while I'm over there, and I don't think Terre d'Aventure have a page with updates from their ongoing expeditions. I'll try to keep my girlfriend updated, if you're anxious you can ask her what I'm up to, but I also suspect I might only be able to send a text message every 5 or 6 days! Unless you read in the news that some french people have frozen to death in Peru, I'm fine!