Peru 2024 Pt 6: Nevado Pisco Trip Report

This is part of a series. You can see all the post and catch up here.

After acclimatizing, we finally set out for our first mountain! The group decided to get a cook for the eight days we had planned to climb two mountains in the same valley, which was a luxury but it also feeds the local economy and gives us more energy. At the end of this blog series, I'll write about what we learned and how we would have done things differently. The cook was one that will come up in that post but suffice it to say, it was hit or miss. A definite hit was that the cook himself was really cool and we all had fond memories of our Peruvian chef friend. Thanks Amador! We also decided to hire donkeys and a donkey driver, which was always a hit, never a miss. We wouldn't be able to do what we've done if we were hauling 50 lbs everywhere.

Nevado Pisco (Pisco for short) is a mountain with a summit elevation of 18,871 feet (5,752m) and a relatively low technicality which makes it a great choice to get some high elevation before moving to higher mountains. As far as technicality, it's somewhere around the Disappointment Cleaver on Rainier, with crevasse danger, some short steep climbing sometimes, but mostly just vertical gain over glaciers. There are a few hard parts that require either luck, scouting the route ahead of time, a guide, or a combination of those. We went unguided and didn't want to rely on luck, so we added a day to acclimatize and scout out the higher route. We wouldn't have been successful if we hadn't.

Hiking from Base Camp, climbers immediately begin a steep ascent trail with a short plateau that cliffs out on the other side. There is a chain that helps climbers downclimb into a massive rock band with loose boulders and trails that end or lead the wrong way all over. The chain itself is hard to find and is not marked, so you have to know where it is, or else risk falling off the cliff looking for it. This is the first reason scouting made sense. We found it within 5 minutes and made mental notes to relocate it in the dark the next morning.

Crossing the rock band, we placed reflective flags so we could cross in the dark and know we were heading in the right direction. Having twice as many flags (20) would have helped a little more but they gave us a lot of confidence the next day knowing we were still going in the right direction. After the rock band, there's a short climb up the other side that you have to move quickly to cross due to near constant rock fall. After this, though you are greeted by a very beautiful lake with a few small camp sites. A ridgeline trek another 20-30 minutes brings you to some forks in the trail that head either to Morraine Camp (L) or directly to the glacier (R). We went left and stashed our heavy climbing gear, ropes, boots, and basically anything we needed higher on the mountain at Morraine Camp. Coming back, you do everything in reverse, including climbing the chained section, which is a real forearm burner.

So after 2 nights at Base Camp (with our cook Amador making great food) we got a 1 am start up the mountain. We made good time going down the chains, crossing the rock band, and making it to Morraine Camp. From Morraine Camp, we headed left up a Ridgeline that would get us higher up when we crossed to the glacier, avoiding having to navigate around or across many large crevasses and just generally making the climb safer and more efficient. It meant climbing more loose rock, so I can't say if it made it any easier. Still, we made it onto the glacier in good time having roped up into two rope teams: Me (Josh), Alan, and Matt on the lead team and Nate and Mile on the other team. From the chain section to the glacier, we were also able to see lights slowly making their way up the face of the mountain. We had talked to these climbers the day before and were eager to see them have a successful summit doing perhaps the most badass route on Pisco.

On the glacier, we had to navigate around some obvious crevasses, often stepping over small cracks in the ice, until we found "the highway". Pisco is potentially the most climbed peak in the Cordillera Blanca primarily because of it's relatively low technicality, it's hight, its refugium (see note below) and its ease of access. This means there is a well worked boot path up the main route to the summit. We slow-stepped up the mountain on this path for hours. The views were phenomenal, with Artesonraju (the Paramount logo mountain), Alpamayo (said to be the most beautiful mountain in the world), Huascaran (the K2 of the Cordillera Blanca), and many more.

At around 18,000 feet, there was a short (~20 foot) steep section that needed to be climbed. At the top of this, we met a couple of Peruvians just hanging out. One of these guys was a local mountain guide who we would meet at a different mountain later on the trip. Alan decided he didn't have the energy to keep moving up the mountain and safely come back down (the summit is the halfway point afterall), so he found a spot protected from the wind and hung out while we continued to the summit. We switched the orders of rope teams for the last push to the summit, with Miles and Nate in front and Matt and I following. We slowly worked our way up, taking a few steps at a time before stopping to take breathing breaks. While on our way to the summit, we ran into the people who had climbed the face of Pisco. They had stopped to take a break before heading to the summit, so we ended up sharing the summit with then, which was awesome.

Just before the summit, there was the largest crevasse we had to cross, leading to some sweet jumps in full mountaineering gear to get across. The summit itself is pretty large, with room for 12 people to be on comfortably. The views were amazing, like what you see I'm magazine's or in movies, the mountains cutting the sky through the clouds. We took pictures, high-fived, exchanged Instagram info, and then headed down to go check on Alan. Luckily he was in good spirits and ready to head back down to camp.

The way back was tough, with everyone super tired. The rocky sections both coming off the glacier and the rock band really took a lot out of us. The chain was hard to climb up with heavy packs and Matt and I set up a rope to belay Alan, just in case he didn't quite have the energy to get all the way up, but he climbed it like a champ! We headed down the steep hill to base camp and had hot soup waiting for us and some mediocre Lomo Saltado for dinner. Pisco was amazing and not a mountain to underestimate. We had perfect weather, made good decisions, took our time, and were allowed access to the summit. Many people don't get that, so we're all thankful.

A note on the refugio

There are many refugios in the Cordillera Blanca, and four of them were built by Italians and partnered with the vast network of refugios across the Alps. The Pisco refugio sleeps over 40 (some sources say 80), has a restaurant, bar, bathrooms, and showers. I've read that the prices were outrageous and we heard similar things from Peruvians in Huaraz. The running joke is that it's for Europeans, or more specifically, Italians. The prices were actually pretty reasonable, the accommodations not bad, and the water was nice and hot. It cost 2 soles for the restroom (about $0.60) which is totally worth it. If I had it all to do over again, the refugio would be an awesome option, saving us the money for the cook and mules to get up to base camp. At the very least, planning meals at the refugio would make sense.

Read more about the refugio and our next adventure in the next post!

All photos taken by myself and members of the group, used with permission.