Climbing Lascar and Lincacanbur

The idea of climbing Lascar, over 18,000 feet, and Lincacanbur,about 19,500 ft, with basically no acclimatization had worried me a little going into this adventure.  There are some serious things that can happen at this altitude.  I even brought some diamox, which decided not to use.

Both mountains are basically walk ups.  Lascar is class 2 and Lincacanbur is class 3.  The first day began with my guides picking me up at 4 am. We drove for several hours first on pavement, then very rough dirt roads.  With the first hint of light, we stopped for breakfast overlooking this amazing lagoon.  Usually there is enough wind so it is not clear but this morning was perfectly still so there was a mirror reflection of all the giant volcanoes.

The calm winds did give us one major problem. Lascar is an active volcano and has a constant plume of toxic sulfur smoke coming out of it.  Usually there is a constant NE wind that keeps the smoke away from the hiking route, but then it was totally shrouded in smoke.  We waited, drove to a couple other view points, and checked out the flamingos on the lagoon.

Finally once the sun rose some more the winds picked up and the smoke moved just enough that we decided to go for it.  The first 1000 feet of climbing is the steepest part of Lascar.  I could feel the altitude but did not feel very bad and just tried to go slowly.  On occasion the wind would die down and we'd get whiffs of sulfur.  The guide said put something over your mouth so I tied a shirt over my moth and nose but was having trouble breathing with the high altitude and restriction of the shirt.  

Fortunately, each blast of sulfur was only 20-30 seconds long so I was able to uncover my mouth and catch my breath.  The rest of the time, I felt pretty good.

It was a quick 1:14 up the mountain. The guides seem to be really competitive about time and I guess my time was amazing.  Most people take 3-4 hours. They kept talking about all day.  There were some amazing penitentes on the way up that were 4-6 feet tall.

There was a lot of smoke billowing out of the crater.  As we relaxed on the summit, the guide and I were talking about the volcano.  He said it usually erupts every 5.5 years and the last one was in the 2006 so it could happen any time.  I joked that hopefully it waits at least another few more hours.  Not long after that, there were several loud explosions.  My guide and I both jumped.  He said he had never heard that before and we both decided to head back down.

We went back to San Pedro to change transportation and go through immigration into Bolivia.  Lincacanbur is on the border of Chile and Bolivia.  The chilean side has a large number of land mines so it is climbed from the bolivian side.  We drove up to about 14,500 feet to the tiny shack that is the Frontera Bolivian customs.  From there we caught a ride to this cool little refugio overlooking Laguna Verde.  It didn't have fully running water or electricity but had propane, nice beds, a kitchen and was very nice.  I was expecting a little rock shack so it was great.  I went for a short run over to the lagoon.  We ate a big dinner and went to sleep early for the 2 am wake up.

We had a bolivian guide join us as well for the climb.  We drove over, off road, to the starting point.  It was a calm night and not too cold.  We hiked up in silence enjoying the tranquility of climbing up the mountain.  There was no moon and stars were unbelievable.  I felt great, even as we got higher.  The only time I'd notice the altitude was when I did something that required a quick burst of effort like pulling myself up a big boulder. I'd get out of breath then.  For the most part I felt great.  I'm not exactly sure why but I think some of it is that my asthma always seems to disappear above about 10,000 feet. Maybe that offsets the effects of altitude.

We were about 75% up the mountain when the sun started rising.   There were a few clouds off in the horizon and there were fire red.  There were about 20 giant volcanoes visible, plus the huge lagoon, and it was indescribably beautiful.  I wish my photos could capture it.   





The path was pretty easy to follow.  Towards the top there was more scrambling than hiking.  

Our time to the summit was 2:40, which the guides were very impressed with. Usually it is 5-8 hours for other travelers.  The summit crater was very pretty and the views were unbelievable. 



Shadow of the mountain

Getting down the mountain was a little more sketchy.  We took a different route, which the bolivian guide said was faster.  It was basically at 5,000 ft rock slide.  The top pitches were really steep.  The bolvian guide was about 50 meters down hill from me for most of the descent and it was tough to not knock any giant loose rocks down towards him.  Later, the pitch decreased enough that it was better going.





Half way down

We went back through the 2 hours of drivers and customs to get back to San Pedro.  It was a relaxing day after that and I went to bed early.  I probably should have stayed up for new years because the town makes all these effigies of robbers and drunks and then burns then at midnight, along with a crap load of fireworks.  Today I went for a 25 mile run in some really cool canyons and the valley of the moon.  It is funny how different a place is with no one there versus driving through it on a bus stuffed with tourists. Let's hope tomorrow I am going across to Uyuni...  I've decided that if the guide is still messed up, I am just going to take a bus from Calama to either Peru or La Paz and be done with it.  Flights for tomorrow are $1000 and take longer than the bus.