Spring has historically been Alaska expedition season, but this year has been a strange one. I’ve been trying to get up there, but trips kept falling through. When Matt Primomo and I met up in the Tetons this year we talked about going someplace cool for the making of turns. He has to be in South America to guide a river trip down the Amazon. He threw out the idea of going down to the Cordillera Blanca of Peru to get an early jump on the spring season. After thumbing through this guide book a bit and googling some images, I bought a ticket.
We leave tomorrow to go pitch a tent and stare at this thing. Then, if things line up, we’d like very much to slide down it on skis and snowboards.
Artesonraju is the primary goal. We’re looking at either the South or Southeast Faces. The glaciers are melting out, so we’re hoping to enter the area while it has a thicker coat of snow, so we can cross crevasses and schrunds easier. That’s the theory anyway.
