Tres Cruces Central (6629 m)

Bah. I think one of the biggest problems with going in long holidays is the loong stories you have to write afterwards. Just two more people and we're done. Then I can start talking about my ordinary [boring] life again.

After we so narrowly escaped being stuck in the wintery desert for like three months, we had to replan our moves. First, we arrived in Putre only to find that Dan had fled to Arica leaving a tearful note to me trying to justify his flee. And I quote "I was feeling devoid of friendship and marginalized", this coming from a 40 year old man. I mean give me a break!! We were having a bit of a problem figuring out what to do next. We had to return the car on the 11th of January and proceed to Aconcagua from Santiago. Apart from that, we had not yet summited any serious mountain. To say nothing of the fact that they had attracted sponsors (I had none, of course) by promising some Romanian premiere some 6000 m peaks. So, we decided that the best thing to do was to go the Tres Cruces National Park and climb a mountain there. Marius and Catalina had been there before when they climbed Ojos del Salado (68 m), also being the first romanians to do so.

Our target was Tres Cruces Central in the Tres Cruces Massif, with the height of 6629. This is the second peak in the Tres Cruces Massif, but the first one, at about 6700m, had already been climbed by another romanian. For me, I really don't understand the point of being the first one to do something. I think that what should matter is the difficulty of the mountain and the struggle of the climber, not who gets there first. Ah well ...

We caught up with Dan in Arica. He already had his plans made up (including a change in plane tickets) to go back home. He would later come to say that we abandoned him and that he felt that we only wanted him in the expedition for the money his sponsors gave him. (sheesh) Although we ended up paying a whole lot more on things (the price was now being divided by 4 instead of by 5), I am so glad we got rid of that little weasel that no amount of money that i subsequently spent is going to make up for it. In Arica we saw a beautiful church built by Gustave Eiffel (yes, of the tower) before he became famous. The church was built in France and all the pieces were sent to Arica by boat and assembled there.

To climb Tres Cruces, or any other mountain in the National Park, you have to get a permit (free) from the national park authority of Chile (DIFROL), from the lovely (not!) town of Copiapo. Unfortunately, we arrived to Copiapo on a Saturday, and, even though we could apply for a permit, we could only get in the following Monday since the Difrol office in Santiago does not work on Saturday. Thus I think there are still permits in our name uncollected from the office in Copiapo. :) Marius knew a way into the Tres Cruces park that bypassed the permit official. Instead of going by Laguna Verde (Green Lagoon), an absolutely lovely lagoon, you have to take the road towards Laguna Santa Rosa. We stayed at Laguna Santa Rosa for one day. Unfortunately for us we did not drink as much water as we should have and also did not spend as much time as we needed there. The view at the Santa Rosa Lagoon faces the three Tres Cruces peaks. Together with the lovely lagoon populated by flamingos it was stupendous!!!

From Laguna Santa Rosa we moved to the base of the Tres Cruces Massif. Before that, Marius and I had a lovely bath in the Rio Lama Waterfall, with Catalina and Lili not wanting to get their feet wet. Too bad for them, the water was great! To get to the Tres Cruces Massif you have to negotiate hills and valleys full of boulders. Again, thanks to Marius for his extraordinary driving! [When going towards Tres Cruces, our green salad bowl jumped from the back of the car. We saw it when we returned, because it was the only spot of green in that desert]. We camped for one day at the base of the massif, at around 4800. Lili grew so tired of sleeping in the tent and decided to sleep in the car. This was a bad call because the car was extremely cold during the night.

The plan was to move camp from 4800 to around 5700 the next day. We got up early again and had to face a horrible cold which exhausted us before we even left the camp. We only managed to leave camp in about two hours because we had to wait for the sun to come from behind the mountain, otherwise we could not move. Our backpacks were extremely heavy since we were moving an entire camp. We had not had proper breakfast, only two low calorie cereal bars (stupid Dan had bought the low calorie ones which only had 87 (tops!) calories - how on earth is that supposed to nourish you?!?!?!) - for those who could eat that is (me, me!). We ended up stopping every other 10-20 minutes for long rests. I think we only managed to climb about 200m difference when we decided to set up camp again. It was horrible, we were very tired but we should have continued, but it was already about one o'clock and the weather was getting cranky (yes, here too!)

It was a good thing that we stopped though. This way we could hydrate and nourish ourselves properly, which we did throughout the day. It was good that we were close to a penitentes flake and we could get snow from there. The next day we would have to move camp to 5700m, if we wanted to get to the summit, that is. Of course, here too, we were running out of time.

During the night Catalina had an attack of asymptomatic paroxystic tachycardia (i hope i got it right!). In other words, her heart is beating VERY fast and she couldn't breathe. It seems she gets these things sometimes. She was ok now but she really had to get down and so she descended back to 4800m. This left only the three of us to climb. We attacked the horrible slope ahead of us and succeeded in about 8 hours to get to 5700m. Here we found a lake which saved us the trouble (and the gas!) of melting snow for our tea and food. Lili and Marius could not eat (again) but I enjoyed my freeze-dri sweet and sour lamb to the max!! The bad thing about that was that my meal had 1400 calories which got me so warm that at first I couldn't sleep. We prepared our gear and food for the next day. I was relieved that Lili had offered to carry the camera (until sunrise), as she had nothing else to carry.

Come 4 am we got up and started to get dressed and go. Lili had not slept a wink because she was feeling nauseous, same as Marius. I had slept like a baby. We left camp at about 5 in the morning. It was dreadfully cold, even though we were wearing down jackets and down gloves. I hate down gloves, even though they keep my hands so warm! However, you feel like you have tennis rackets for hands! You can't even hold your walking sticks, to say nothing of pressing the camera button! At around 05:30 am Lili nearly fainted (she told us later) and decided that she could not go on. While I was taking care of her Marius started puking his stomach out. Lili went back to the high camp to take a rest and proceed downwards from there. Marius and I decided to go on.

I wasn't feeling cheerupy either. The thing with my body is (I guess) that it does not like to exercise in the wee hours of the day. It likes to sleep i guess. I was having severe palpitations, that only allowed me to walk for a little while. I made myself walk for either 8 or 16 paces then rest for 8 or 16 heart beats. The first slope was incredibly hard, both for Marius and I. I was feeling dizzy and extremely sorry for myself. Marius was still puking and could not eat any of the powerbars or powergels that we had with us. I was so sorry for myself that when we got to the end of the slope and I saw another one exactly as hard as the first I started crying. Literally.

About two hours after sunrise things started to change for me. I don't know if it was Marius's support, the powergels or my body finally waking up (or a combination of the three), but I was allright from there till the summit. Marius was still feeling extremely bad. However, he did manage to make the right call when I was lobbying for the wrong call. You see, we were faced with a huge snow slope that could be tackled either directly - on the snow - or to the left, on some rocks. The climber in me chose the rocks. Marius said it would be better to go on the snow because we didn't know the conditions of the rocks. I was convinced the summit was towards the rocks, but that proved in the end to be a false summit.

Thus we tackled the snow slope. It was a very abrupt slope. Marius was cutting steps for the both of us, but he was so weak that I had to take over. This was a first, and only shows how bad he was feeling. So bad that at one point, with our last powergel, he was drinking tea first to see if he pukes it, and then take in the powergel.

We finally got to the top of the slope and there found the summit ridge. The problem was now determining what point on that ridge was the summit, since there was absolutely no sign there, not even a cross or a stick or something to show us the highest point. We spent the next half hour measuring and comparing rocks, until we finally decided on the tallest one. Yey!! We were on the summit at last!!! And the first romanians to do that, too! We could see Ojos del Salado in the backround and a lot of other 6000m peaks around us. Since the local guides had said that the peak had no name, only Tres Cruces for the three of them, I actually named it, "Trei cadane" or "Three odalisques" because one of our favorite jokes was that of Marius being a sheikh and the three of us his wives :))

The descent was even worse than the climb. We were dead by the time we got to the advanced camp and even deader when we got at 4800m. Even so, by 12 am we were eating a delicious lomo alo pobre in Copiapo (yes, restaurants in Chile stay open until 2 am). We could not find a place to stay and so left Copiapo and camped three hours later by the highway (actually only Marius did, the rest of us slept in the car).