Day 5 : Trek to Pisco Moraine Camp

Sophie at Moraine Camp front of Yanapacha

Very relax day. We woke at 7am, checked out our gear and chilled out for few hours before starting our trek to Moraine Camp.

Messy gear last checking

At the top of the first moraine, we looked at the Pisco Face and tried to figure out the way to :

• Avoid deep pack of snow, which are most of time close to snow hills with an angle >~45 degree
• Avoid crevasses: crevasses in the Cordilliera Blanca are straight lines and not in zigzag. That glacier is mainly broken ice with crevasses in lines and crevasses in eye shapes, which are fairly easy to identify. That is why we decide to walk on the glacier with a short rope (7m), to allow us to react quickly if accident and avoid to waste too much time on a rescue
• Find a snow bridge to pass the bergstrom. The bergstrom is a tremendous crevasse which is the breaking point between the face and the glacier of the mountain
• Find a way not exposed to avalanches
• Check how clean is the route we will use on the face

Moraine Camp:

View from our tent at the Moraine Camp

As we are not using the normal route, our camp was untouched. We slept close to a beautiful turquoise glacier lake with a stunning view on Chopicalqui. As surprising it sounds, we set up our camp on some glacier sand.

View of our camp place on the glacier sand

video: view from our camp : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i7QIn5XLGw

Food:

We ate our lunch at 1pm. When we arrive at the camp ~3pm, we ate a noodle soup to keep us hydrated and start stocking energy. Then we slept ~1h, to eat again at 4h30pm. We got a soup and a big plate of pasta. Then we went to bed to wake at midnight, and eat again some pasta before our climb. We start climbing at 1am ...