The accurately named 'Snow Penitents' are
a sight to see. They are a cluster of ice and
snow pyramids up to two metres high formed
through uneven melting in direct sunlight
and low humidity. They were however quite
burdensome to get over.
As we moved on, the fine gravel of the
mountain side became coarser and the
rocks continued to grow bigger. Pretty
soon we were balancing back and forth
on huge boulders. A tough endeavour
with our bikes in tow.
At 5600m I was done for the day. The path
further up became steeper and the boulders
bigger. Above that a huge snow field followed.
Pato, Frederico and Nico continued to fight up
a few more metres in altitude.
I hadn't slept well the night before and
didn't feel acclimatised well enough and
felt the ascend was too fast for me. I would
have liked to spend another night at 4800m
to better adapt. The rest of the team felt well
under the circumstances so we stuck to our
timetable and descended to the cars to
drive down to base camp. A rest day was
planned before an attempt at the summit.D-Day
Understandably, everyone slept in the next
morning. Martin and I wanted to spend
another night higher up. I had the feeling of
not being acclimatised well enough whilst
Martin felt the push to the summit was too
long so we packed our things at noon to set
up a night camp at 5300m while the others
stayed at base camp.BIKING IN CHILELeft: Setting up base-camp.Left Below: The so-called
'Snow Penitents' made
progress slow.Below: It may be the most
efficient way of getting the
bike up but by no means
the easiest.