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Venezuela 2002

Andreas Mayer
2005-12-06 08:02:14

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crampons falling off caused further delays. When we eventually reached the end of the glacier, form where it is a 50 meter scramble up the final rock face, the guide told us that we were too late and had to turn around. This was gutting, we were so close, but I was quiet dizzy at that stage and did not object too much. We retraced our steps on the way down, again hard as it was steep and we had run out of water, and by the time we eventually got back to the tents at 7:00 p.m. we went straight to bed, having dinner in the tents.

Day 4

The original plan was to hike across a mountain range to Pico Bolivar, the highest mountain in Venezuela at 5006m, and then climb it on day 5, however the camp for day 4 would have been at 4700m, and we felt that with our poor sleeping bags we could seriously freeze to death, so we decided to head back to Merida that same way we came up, and try to take the cable car up the following day and climb Pico Bolivar that way.

The way down was amazingly quick, hard to believe that a 6 hour up hill can be down on 2 hours going down, and early in the afternoon we arrived at the Park Range station, where we got a lift back into Merida.

The trip was OK then, the mountains beautiful, the walking challenging, but the equipment and food were really a problem, and we failed to get up the final bit of the mountain I guess the lesson is to check more carefully who you are going with, and to make sure that the equipment is decent before you set off.

Back in Merida

The next day was rest day and we just hung out and slept a lot. Our plan to take the cable car was somewhat flawed, as it was not possible to get tickets for the day, and it was also looking bad for the day after. So we booked ourselves on a canyoning trip for a 2 with two Canadian guys.

It was the first ...