Hatun Machay
“A world without huge regions of total wilderness would be a cage..." -Edward Abbey
I've always lived in smaller towns, or in the case of my first year of life, a microscopic dot in the middle of nowhere. Google "Barrow, Alaska" and you will find that at the time my family lived there the population was a whopping 200 and dropped to to 152 by 1990. I'm not talking thousands, two-zero-zero. This means that when we left, my family, of four, accounted for 8% of the decrease in population over that decade! Fast forward 24 years and now I am 6,500 miles away in a city of around 9 million. A lot can change.
To be honest I hadn't really felt the impact of moving to this large metropolis. Sure its different, but it doesn't feel strange. Maybe its the fact that I mainly stick to a few districts that aren't so hectic, or maybe I'm a serious chameleon and can adapt. I hadn't realized how different it feels to live in the city, that is, until I was completely removed from it. It hit me when I was hiking down the Cordillera Negra range by myself, watching a hailstorm come in across the valley that separates two of Peru's most dramatic mountain ranges. I'm not much of a poet so I'm not going to try to paint you a picture but it really was one of those amazing moments where you're completely calm but you have that tingly sensation. Bottom line, Mother Nature has it right. I don't mind living in the city, but now I know it's absolutely necessary to get out from time to time. Lesson learned.
I have to give my friend Tree credit for getting me out. I had met him right after he came back from a trip to Hatun Machay, and he was buzzing about it. "It's unreal! I'm going back in two weeks, you have to come!" he asked. Awesome, count me in.
I took advantage of the flexibility in my schedule, pleaded with my students to change things around a bit, and we were off late on a Thursday night with a couple packs and a ton of excitement. There was a lot for me to be excited about:
1)I have been climbing in the gym for about two years now but my experience outdoors is very limited.
2) We would be sport climbing. Even in the gym, I had only bouldered(climbing very difficult but short boulders without a rope) and top-roped( climbing while attached to a rope anchored above the climb) When sport climbing, you must clip in to the face of the rock as you climb and it is very different because you don't see a rope in front of you which gives it a very "exposed" feel.
3) I would be learning the PROPER techniques from serious and experienced climber. I don't like risk, I can accept a certain degree of it, but I don't pass up opportunities to eliminate it where I can.
4) All this new climbing would take place above 13,000 feet, in the middle of Peru's raw and dramatic Andean landscape.
An overnight bus ride put us in Huaraz at 7am, only leaving a 1.5 hour shuttle up to the climbers refuge we would be staying in. That, and the taxi ride from the bus station to the departure point for the shuttle. Tourism is a major in-flow of money to most of Peru and especially to small towns like Huaraz. You find out very quickly that the people here are really good at taking advantage of what money comes in. At the terminal a taxi driver struck up conversation, and wouldn't you know it he worked with the company that would be taking us up the mountain. Turns out he took us to "a" company that "could" take us up for twice the price. This was a small and benign detour, the guy was probably getting some commission to bring climbers to a different company, but it just shows you what you're up against.
A van, with a passenger list that would make you think it was heading for a U.N gathering, bounced us up another 3,000 feet to the climbers refuge and the amazing rock forest(pictured above) I would be climbing in for the next three days. It's very convenient that English is more or less the international language, although in the climbing community you might be as well off speaking German. There were climbers from the U.S, Germany, Austria, France, the U.K, Argentina, and Canada. Pretty cool crowd, and the breeding grounds for some interesting discussions. I couldn't help but notice that the Britt and I were outgunned when it came to being multi-lingual, I really wish we would take a more multi-lingual approach in our education system. The amount of opportunities that open up when a country encourages its people to be multi-lingual is huge. I think a serious multi-lingual education would significantly impact our economy, our politics, our desire to travel rather than just vacation, and our general understanding and interest in the world.
The climber's refugio was perfect: bunk beds with warm sleeping bags and thick wool blankets, a huge common area with a wood burning stove, a large fully equipped kitchen, and flushing toilets. The land is actually owned by a collective of Andean herders. Their brush-huts could be seen here and there around the rock forest, and their herds wandered around you as you hiked from climb to climb. Half of the fee to stay in the refugio goes directly to the local collective in return for letting climbers use the area.
Another bonus that Hatun Machay offers is its abundance of cave carvings and paintings. In Quechua "Hatun Machay" means large cave. There are several large caves that must have been providing shelter to the people since the cave paintings first appeared as long as 10,000 years ago.
From the paintings and carvings it seems that not much has changed for the people inhabiting this area. Many drawings of herds (possibly sheep?) can be seen in the main caves. Makes you wonder why some places in the world have managed to stay the same for so long. The herders that live there now know of the modern world, they sell their wool and other things in Huaraz. It's not that they are simply isolated. What keeps them content when so many of us are drawn to fancy electronics, cars, running water, television, etc? I didn't ask, so maybe they aren't content...who knows?
The journey home was just as adventurous but I will leave that for another post. Here are a few more pictures from the trip:
I have to give my friend Tree credit for getting me out. I had met him right after he came back from a trip to Hatun Machay, and he was buzzing about it. "It's unreal! I'm going back in two weeks, you have to come!" he asked. Awesome, count me in.
I took advantage of the flexibility in my schedule, pleaded with my students to change things around a bit, and we were off late on a Thursday night with a couple packs and a ton of excitement. There was a lot for me to be excited about:
1)I have been climbing in the gym for about two years now but my experience outdoors is very limited.
2) We would be sport climbing. Even in the gym, I had only bouldered(climbing very difficult but short boulders without a rope) and top-roped( climbing while attached to a rope anchored above the climb) When sport climbing, you must clip in to the face of the rock as you climb and it is very different because you don't see a rope in front of you which gives it a very "exposed" feel.
3) I would be learning the PROPER techniques from serious and experienced climber. I don't like risk, I can accept a certain degree of it, but I don't pass up opportunities to eliminate it where I can.
4) All this new climbing would take place above 13,000 feet, in the middle of Peru's raw and dramatic Andean landscape.
An overnight bus ride put us in Huaraz at 7am, only leaving a 1.5 hour shuttle up to the climbers refuge we would be staying in. That, and the taxi ride from the bus station to the departure point for the shuttle. Tourism is a major in-flow of money to most of Peru and especially to small towns like Huaraz. You find out very quickly that the people here are really good at taking advantage of what money comes in. At the terminal a taxi driver struck up conversation, and wouldn't you know it he worked with the company that would be taking us up the mountain. Turns out he took us to "a" company that "could" take us up for twice the price. This was a small and benign detour, the guy was probably getting some commission to bring climbers to a different company, but it just shows you what you're up against.
A van, with a passenger list that would make you think it was heading for a U.N gathering, bounced us up another 3,000 feet to the climbers refuge and the amazing rock forest(pictured above) I would be climbing in for the next three days. It's very convenient that English is more or less the international language, although in the climbing community you might be as well off speaking German. There were climbers from the U.S, Germany, Austria, France, the U.K, Argentina, and Canada. Pretty cool crowd, and the breeding grounds for some interesting discussions. I couldn't help but notice that the Britt and I were outgunned when it came to being multi-lingual, I really wish we would take a more multi-lingual approach in our education system. The amount of opportunities that open up when a country encourages its people to be multi-lingual is huge. I think a serious multi-lingual education would significantly impact our economy, our politics, our desire to travel rather than just vacation, and our general understanding and interest in the world. 
The climber's refugio was perfect: bunk beds with warm sleeping bags and thick wool blankets, a huge common area with a wood burning stove, a large fully equipped kitchen, and flushing toilets. The land is actually owned by a collective of Andean herders. Their brush-huts could be seen here and there around the rock forest, and their herds wandered around you as you hiked from climb to climb. Half of the fee to stay in the refugio goes directly to the local collective in return for letting climbers use the area.
Another bonus that Hatun Machay offers is its abundance of cave carvings and paintings. In Quechua "Hatun Machay" means large cave. There are several large caves that must have been providing shelter to the people since the cave paintings first appeared as long as 10,000 years ago.
The journey home was just as adventurous but I will leave that for another post. Here are a few more pictures from the trip:
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