Written by Alex Moss
On January 19th, our team of four reached the top of the climb. We were greeted by a spacious ledge, running water, and a golden sunset. In the days afterwards, we remarked how we were in disbelief that we had even climbed the mountain. Memories of the experience were both crystal clear and distant seeming. For me, all the work beforehand and all the work that lay ahead of us to get back to civilization made our 4 days on the wall seem like a blip.
We approached the climb by fixing ropes up nine pitches, returning to our base camp each night. Once all our ropes were hanging, we waited out a few days of rain. The area is extremely rainy. While we were overall graced with sunny weather, we had a few multi day deluges to break up the heat. We chose synthetic sleeping bags as both on the wall and in base camp, as staying dry was not always an option. Finding lightweight synthetic bags can be a challenge, and Zenbivy’s new ultralight synthetic quilts helped keep us well prepared but light!
Kenya and Sebastian are excellent climbers, but had not climbed a big wall or put up a large first ascent. While I had big wall experience, approaching a huge first ascent was new for me as well. As we climbed higher, we learned more and became more and more proficient as a team.
Remarkably, all of us confronted hurdles and plot twists with great humor. When our stoves began not working, we all responded with, “This is awesome and hilarious! How will we solve such a critical gear failure?!” This group attitude is what carried us through. We became a unit- sharing meals, clothes, responsibilities, and thoughts and feelings. It was special to me that we shared all these so intimately without truly knowing each other or our pasts.
While we generally knew the line we would take up the wall, you can only know so much about how it will be from a scope on the ground. The climb had a varied nature that required many different skills and provided varied challenges. We rotated through leading pitches and hauling the bags. I was proud that we all, with varying degrees of experience, shared the roles equally.
As alluded to earlier- climbing the wall put us to barely half way through our adventure. The next task before us was to get all of our gear off the mountain and out of the hole we had lived in for 15 days. This required many loads back and forth through rugged terrain and dense foliage. Again, our attitudes made something that could be described as heinous pretty enjoyable. We did this over a week, with a few “rest days” to sample some already established climbs. A thirteen hour day of climbing wasn't exactly restful… Arriving in the main valley, our primary difficulties lay behind us. From there, we would have horses take out most of our gear, hike out 10 miles, and bus back to town. We figured all these things out in the moment.
As we walked out, we landed on naming our climb “Apprendiendo Volando AKA On the Fly.” This started as just word play on helicoptering in, the flies that plagued us, the last minute planning, and half of our team learning to big wall while putting up a first ascent. For me, this inspired an avenue for reflection. There is beauty in how we approached it all. There are also some negative effects of how we approached it. We created a lot of hurdles for ourselves from our limited research. We also dropped ourselves into a place that we didn't know about environmentally or culturally. It was only as we walked out that we learned more about the valley, it's history, and the culture surrounding it. Somewhat like traveling to another country without knowing much about the language or history, we bumbled along figuring things out and making mistakes. I think this approach can cause harm to us and the places we go, but also opens great doors to learning. In the end, the trip personified and exaggerated an attitude I often approach life with. It was an experiment that highlighted the beauty and flaws of living On the Fly.
-Alex Moss
