Pisco Oeste

After having hiked to a very nice hut, we spent 2 nights and waited out bad weather until we had star filled skies at 2am. With a few inches of snow and a half moon to light the way, we climbed, usually with our headlamps, until the sun started to rise.

Dawn on Huandoy Norte and Huascaran.

Greg Crowell nearing an interesting "ice tower" that had lines of yearly snow deposits, plus icicles for decoration.

Yours truely finally basking in the sunshine.

Other groups started to stack up behind us as we (mainly Kurt) broke trail in the new snow.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by a loud BANG! The fresh snow settled and an avalanche went sliding about 40 meters away.

A couple peaks resembling Alpamayo were to the north.

From the crevasses we crossed, looking towards the summit and the avalanche we set off. Note how close the avalanche comes to our tracks.

One last look from the col towards the north.