Enjoying Bolivia 205really start feeling the lack of oxygen. Climbing up slate
outcrops, it gets steep in parts.”
The second night of camp, climbers melt snow for a water
supply. “You sleep cradling your jar of water to stop it from
freezing. If you left it exposed, it would freeze and the hour
or two it took to melt the snow would be wasted.
“The second morning we woke up at 2:00 am to avoid
slush and fragile ice. I had muesli for breakfast. Unless there’s
a full moon, you have to use a head torch. You don’t sleep
very well because of the altitude. The lack of oxygen causes
eerie dreams.”
Peter’s guide was able to take deep breaths that would
switch his body off for fi ve to seven seconds at a time. “I
thought he was about to die, but it’s a way for the body to
conserve energy by breathing less.”
On the night prior to the third and fi nal day of ascent, one
can see La Paz, 57 km (35 miles) away as “a little hole in the
ground, bursting with light.” There is awe in Peter’s voice; he
is right there on the mountain, reliving the experience.
The third day is called Summit Day. It’s snow on the ground
from then on, but the dry season, from June through August,
pretty much assures that there will be no blizzards. No one
should climb Illimani in the wet season.
“Both of us were struggling with our mental state,
especially after we reached what we thought was the
summit, only to discover it was a false summit: at 6,462
m (21,200 ft). One hundred more metres (328 ft) to climb
doesn’t seem like much in the abstract, but they were the
longest 100 m of my life.
“The brain is still thinking on the basis of what the body
is capable of doing, but physically your body is no longer
capable. The brain is groping to come to terms with a body
that can’t respond.”
There must be a great degree of masochism among
mountain climbers, I suggest.
“Mountaineers in general may have some degree of
masochism, but primarily it’s the pure and simple challenge.
We had both nearly given up, so it was a good test.
“We stayed on the top for between 10 and 15 minutes.