Editor’s Note: The Cordillera Blanca is known for its gorgeous white-capped peaks and also its ease of accessibility, so it’s no surprise that the Peruvian range has seen an increase in visitors over the past few years. With its increase in traffic and a lack of infrastructure, human waste has become a concern to backcountry water sources.

In this piece from Jo Bulmer and Heather Lightfoot, they head to Peru to climb in the gorgeous Cordillera Blanca range, specifically focusing on the granite tower “La Esfinge”. While sampling the local climbing scene, they immerse themselves in the mountains and the community, increasing their understanding of why it’s important to protect these special places.

This is a trip supported by the Jen Higgins Grants for Young Women. If you’d like to learn more about the award and apply, see the link at the bottom of this post.

A waste problem

The original goal of this trip was to use climbing as a vehicle to experience a new part of the world and highlight some ongoing sustainability issues within the outdoor community. The primary climbing objective was a 950m granite monolith, aptly called La Esfinge (or The Sphinx), topping out at 5,325 meters in the Cordillera Blanca, located in Peru’s Huascaran National Park. While researching the area we stumbled across various articles outlining environmental concerns due to water contamination, something that’s addressed by many non-profit organizations in the area, but often seems ignored by the climbing community itself. The park is a favourite for trekkers, climbers and mountaineers, however it lacks adequate infrastructure to keep up with the generated waste. We were hoping that in addition to climbing La Esfinge we would be able to open up a dialogue about these issues.

Acclimating in-and-around Huaraz

We based ourselves out of the bustling mountain town of Huaraz, located in a fertile valley beside the world's highest tropical mountain range. The town is the ideal gateway to the mountains, with plenty of local hikes and a small crag named Los Olivos, made up of somewhat loose, scary and slick conglomerate.

As we both hail from the small coastal town of Squamish, we needed some time to acclimate to Huaraz’ elevation of 10,000ft - some moody weather in the mountains also gave us the perfect excuse to explore the nearby crags while fine tuning our lung capacities.

We found the most enjoyable sport climbing just south of Huaraz, nestled beside the Cordillera Negra mountain range, the majestic stone forest of Hatun Machay (Quechua for ‘Big Cave’). Renowned not only for its rock climbing, the caves here are decorated with paintings of petroglyphs dating back to 10,000 B.C. We spent four days enjoying the unique pocketed rock features and had the opportunity to chat with local guides and climbers about some of the ongoing environmental issues.

Though the climbing and scenery were beautiful, it became quickly apparent that our expectations in terms of temperature had been slightly optimistic. As it turned out, climbing above 4,000m in winter was chilly, even in Peru. The sun set around 6pm and temperatures would drop quickly, leaving us scurrying for our sleeping bags and the relative warmth of our tent.

After meeting local climbers and looking at topos, we were somewhat nervous about jumping straight into our proposed objective on La Esfinge, the climbing was technical and run-out, and the wall was notorious for getting climbers lost and forcing horrendous shiver bivies. Instead we decided to attempt a one-day ascent of The 1985 Route 10d/11a, which is about 18-22 pitches with a somewhat fearsome reputation and many parties have gotten lost on the upper half.

The route is often done in two days, with a bivy on a big ledge on the top of pitch 9. The other option is to commit to doing it in a single day, but once past pitch 9, backing off becomes much more difficult, and that’s where the route gets hard to follow. Many parties have been spent unplanned bivies up high, off route and unable to rap off.

We decided to not bring bivy gear, confident that we would be able to move fast enough to deal with the climbing and any potential route finding issues. Having fuelled up on an unhealthy number of avocado sandwiches and feeling somewhat more acclimatized to 4,000 meters, we headed in to meet the granite massif.

Climbing the granite Esfinge

A long bus ride along a dusty mountain road and a rather breathless vertical approach took us into the Cordillera Blanca, where we caught our first glimpse of La Esfinge; a striking wall of golden granite silhouetted against a perfect blue sky and surrounded by jagged snow drenched peaks and car-sized boulders. She was breathtaking.

The upside to the bone chilling cold was that it was impossible to get on the wall before the light hit it, meaning we got to sleep in until 5am, and with a somewhat casual approach across the talus and boulders, we were on the wall and climbing by 7am. The granite was perfect and the climbing in an amphitheatre of 6,000m mountains was incredible. Everywhere one looked were ridgelines, monstrous looking glaciers, summits and snow fields. As we worked our way up and the sun began to warm the wall, the mountains around us began to shed their icy layers, reminding us constantly of exactly where we were and our insignificance.

The climbing went quickly and the movement was ear-to-ear grin-inducing with laser-cut cracks, small chimneys, dihedrals and burly roof encounters that led us to the Repisa de la Flores ledge at the top of pitch 9. It was around 11:30am then and we were ahead of schedule, but the sun was moving fast and it looked like the climbing was about to get significantly less pleasant.

The upper half of the wall, though not as difficult, was run-out and the route finding was challenging. We lost the sun a little after 1pm, and though the rock remained great, the cold was impossible to ignore. Climbing in layers of puffy jackets and socks stuffed into climbing shoes, our movement became somewhat less dreamy, but we kept making our way upwards, generally climbing full 70m rope-lengths before stopping to build belays. Around 4pm we could see the summit and were somewhat excited at the prospect of being back in sunlight. It was enough motivation to hustle up the last few pitches and spend a minute de-thawing before finding our line of descent. Three double-rope rappels led to a hike down a steep slab and some scree sliding before joining up with the main approach trail. By 8pm we were back in our sleeping bags, hungry, tired, but fulfilled and buzzing from the adventure.

Fighting cold on Cruz Del Sur

After a few days rest and a somewhat unsuccessful trip into the climbing area of Antacocha, we re-stocked, re-packed and headed back into La Esfinge. The rock quality, and overall beauty of the mountain range was hard to resist and we were excited to try our hand at some of the more difficult climbing. This time we had our eyes on our original objective, the hardest free line on the wall, Cruz Del Sur, a 16 pitch route of engaging granite face climbing on natural protection. The route was originally graded at 13a, but general consensus puts it at 12b.

We had been able to connect with two parties who had climbed the route previously. One party taking three days on the wall to ascend, another fixing the crux pitches to make the route in a day. Our experience on the 1985 route was enough to know that sleeping on the wall was not an option for us. Even with warm sleeping bags, we were cold at night - with the added wind exposure of a shiver bivy, it was not something we were willing to take on. In terms of climbing speed, we are pretty aware that it was not our strength, but going quick seemed like the only option, so we decided to go for it in a day.

On our first attempt we retreated after the first pitch due to dizziness and lack of breath. The altitude meant a sleepless night and the two-hour hike to the base of the wall felt like a marathon. After a quick discussion, we retreated back to base camp for a long evening watching the headlamps of other climbers bobbing in the dark, zigzagging their way across the upper pitches of the 1985 route.

The day had brought hot weather, leaving the mountains crumbling, and our nightly soundtrack was loud enough to have us jump out of our tent on a few occasions to ensure that we weren’t in the path of trundling boulders.

The following day we returned to the wall and were again met with brilliant climbing: seamed-out dihedrals, technical face climbing and interlacing crack systems that took us up the first five pitches of the wall (including the crux pitches). Polished granite and hard climbing between spaced gear meant that our usual pace came to a sluggish crawl as we worked out the moves and tackled the heady run-outs. It became evident that we would need to fix the lower crux pitches to have any hope of climbing the route in a day, and as the shade began to creep down to our position on the wall, we made the call to back off.

The hike back to base camp felt long. Though we had climbed well and made good decisions, it was hard not to be disappointed; the climbing felt well within our ability but the cold was limiting our options.

Later that evening, as we scarfed our way through our chocolate rations, the disappointment began to ebb as we reflected on our decisions. We felt grateful for a partnership that allowed us to make decisions that weren’t compromised by pride or ego.

Bring in the Biffies

The other aspect of our trip was to focus on some of the water contamination issues facing the area. La Esfinge’s basecamp is an idyllic grassy spot situated beside a small run-off stream, serving as both the area’s only water source, and unfortunately the washroom. The more we spoke with local guides, climbers and service providers the more we became aware of the problem’s scale. In relation to the trekking routes and the more popular base camps, La Esfinge actually seemed pretty clean and respectfully used.

It became clear that in many popular areas there was a serious disconnect between users of the park and the local population who relied on the booming adventure tourism industry. Though we had intended to build a biffy bag dispensary at La Esfinge basecamp, after talking to locals and spending time up at the base, it didn’t seem like that would be the smartest use for the bags. Instead we met with local organizations, cafes and hostels that had a strong trekking and climbing client base, who were active in promoting leave no trace ethics, and we discussed the best way to distribute the bags.

In conjunction with these organizations and businesses we put up posters drawing peoples’ attention to this issue and notifying them where they could request free biffy bags for their trips into the mountains. While this was by-no-means an ideal solution, it seemed to be the most realistic. We felt that although everyone may not be receptive to using biffy bags, seeing the posters would open up a dialogue and make people think about their current mountain ethics.

The organizations and businesses where you can currently find free biffy bags are: La Casa de Zarela, Californian Cafe, Cafe Andino (courtesy of the American Alpine Club), The Lazy Dog Inn and Casa De Guias.

What the mountains bring

We may not have climbed the line we set out to do, but after coming home and reflecting on the trip, we had no traces of disappointment.

Our partnership was supportive, strong and kind - we listened to one another and we tried hard. We got to experience some of the most beautiful mountains we have ever have had the opportunity to explore.

Would we have loved to not feel cold so much and have the fitness to run up the rocks like Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold on El Cap? Sure, but at the end of the day we brought other things to the table and we’re pretty proud of that.

We met people from all walks of life, journeying to Huaraz to be among those monumental mountains: a young family with two preschoolers living in their tiny turquoise van named Rainbow, a French father and teenage son who could map out the Cordillera Blanca from memory, Alex Huber and his team of strong Bavarians attempting the intimidating Jirishanca, and two Basque families juggling five kids so they could run half marathons at astonishing altitudes.

It became clear that the joy people experience from these places, along with the opportunity for self-exploration which is evoked from both the physical and mental demand of the journey, is much more important than the objective itself.

We would sincerely like to thank Jen Higgins’ family and The Alpine Club of Canada for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The Jen Higgins Grant for Young Women

The ACC is dedicated to helping young women pursue their adventure dreams with annual cash grants from the Jen Higgins Fund. Teams must include a young woman who is central to conceiving, developing and leading the trip.

The Jen Higgins Fund was established by friends and family to honour Jen Higgins after her death in 1997. Jen’s enthusiasm and generous spirit continue to live on by supporting young women in creative, self-propelled mountain adventures with this grant.

2020 Deadline: Jan 31st

Apply now

The Cordillera Blanca | A trip supported by the Jen Higgins Grant