Huayna Potosi: The 6000er Next Door

Cordillera Real, La Paz Department · Bolivia

Challenging3 daysSouth America~£350 est.

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Overview

Nowhere else on Earth can you leave a capital city after breakfast and be roped up on a glacier by mid-afternoon. Huayna Potosi, 6,088 m, stands a two-hour drive from La Paz, and its normal route has earned the label 'easiest 6,000er' — true only in the sense that the climbing is straightforward. The altitude is anything but, and the final 45-degree slope to the summit ridge at dawn will empty your lungs completely. The classic itinerary is three days: a night at the Casa Blanca refugio at 4,700 m with glacier school on the Zongo ice above, a short day to the Campo Argentino high camp at 5,130 m, then a 1 a.m. start threading crevasse fields and climbing the ramp to a summit ridge with Lake Titicaca silvering to the west and the whole Cordillera Real saw-toothed to the south. The catch: the price attracts the unacclimatised — spend three or four days in La Paz at 3,650 m first, or the mountain will send you down. La Paz agencies run the climb for £250 to £400 including refugios, gear hire and a guide — insist on one guide per two climbers. June to September brings the stable Altiplano winter. It is the finest value first big summit in world mountaineering.