The Norwegian non-Ausangate-expedition 2002

All passengers are kindly requested to leave Ausangate immediately.

We're back in Cusco allready... Unfortunately, there were so massive amounts of snow, we didn't even get to basecamp. The weather has been weird around here, with much more than usual precipitation. Even the Inca Trail has been closed due to snow.

We used a bus to get to the village of Tinki, from where we started on Tuesday, with a horseman and three horses. Allready at Upis, a marshland at 4400 meters, we got the first snow. At the Arapa pass at 4750 meters, there was 15 cm of snow, and snowing quite a lot. Soon thereafter, it started to blow a light gale-force wind. All trekkers turned around, so we were alone on the mountain. The horses had trouble, and we realized that they may not be able to go all the way to basecamp (one of them even fell), so we started playing with the idea of ferrying the equipment ourselves. However, we realized that it would only be realistic if we reached Laguna Auzangatecocha. This lake is situated only 3.5 km from basecamp, just before the final pass. Wednesday night, we stopped at the first tip of Laguna Pucacocha, as the horses would not have anything to eat further in. This is 10 km from basecamp. It was snowing heavily. A particular bad moment was when one of the tent poles broke. Presumably, it had been damaged when the horse fell. However, we had an extra, light summer tent that we intended for basecamp. The winds were pretty bad, though, so we decided to repair the broken pole, which we succeeded in doing. After getting some food in our main tent, everything looked better. The horseman complained though; he kept saying muy malo, mucho frio (or something like that). We didn't understand what it meant, other than that he didn't like the situation, but we just asked a waitress at a restaurant who was eager to teach us Spanish:very bad, very cold.

Well, we didn't enjoy it that much ourselves. People doing the trek were our only life-line to civilzation, and if the weather persisted we would become completeley isolated, and while we had supplies for three weeks, it would be very frustrating. After all, Peru is full of nice mountains, but of course we had no idea whether they would have seen better weather.

That night, we woke to an incredible starry sky. Even saw gegenschein, a rarely seen astronomical phenomenon. We thought that finally, the weather has changed, but no... At five o'clock it started snowing again, and now more than ever. We decided to turn back to Tinki. It soon became clear that we made the only sane decision. Even the largest of the horses were shivering of cold, and at the worst places, it was up to its belly in snow. They were nevertheless highly impressive animals, how they walked through the snow on the narrow camins, we were impressed. As for ourselves, just a light backpack gave us a heavy breath, so the idea of shipping the equipment 3.5km in that snow would have proved bad. Nevertheless, we made it back to Tinki in one day.

Of course, it was with a very heavy heart we decided to turn back, after all this planning. But we are getting over the worst disappointment now. The weather in Huaraz has been said to be better, so we're flying there on Monday.