Author: neil

The Peruvian Andes have no shortage of big climbs, but we’re currently in a 350-mile stretch where the elevation profile does little beyond climbing 6,000 to 7,000 feet to a pass, and then descending the same amount. We’ve completed two such ascents, and will finish with two more, but this middle one we’re climbing the…

The violent storm ended at 8:30 last night, and perfect calm reigned after that. So calm that we woke to the inside of the tent being soaked, and a dense blanket of fog deadening the outside world. Before I could even get out to get started on breakfast, rain returned with exquisitely bad timing, and…

We exited our hotel in search of breakfast before most of the rest of Chincheros had roused themselves (again leaving through a locks-from-the-inside door and hoping someone will have unlocked it by the time we want to get back in!) But one worker had stumbled out to open up our new favorite D’Mabeli, probably just…

It was time for another of our early mornings: awake at 4am, breakfast in our hotel room, and rolling by 6:30am. And the reason was the same as usual: we would be dropping further into the valley, to a level where it becomes hot and buggy, and then climbing back out, so the earlier we…

Despite our 13,000 ft. wild camp being slightly-warmer than our previous 14-15,000 ft. camps, it was still far from “warm”, with the temperature dropping to 36°F by bedtime last night, and apparently down to 32°F when I got out of the tent at 6am (the thermometer inside the tent read 43°F in our still-windless shelter).…