Tuesday 12 February 2013

Day 15  -  Descend to Pampa de Lenas

Another storm overnight, but mainly wind and little snow. The tents are now in a bad way and quite a few have holes and rips in the fly sheet as well as ground sheet.
Quick breakfast and then organize ourselves to leave Base Camp. After only taking small steps for the past week or so (due to steep or tricky ground, if not both, as well as heavy packs) it is a delight to be able to take large strides and we make good ground - there is also a surprising amount of oxygen at 4,000m!
The storms that we have suffered higher up seem to have brought the valley to life and there is green everywhere. In fact this turns out to be little more than a green mossy covering to the various thorn bushes - much to our amusement and Tim's discomfort when he tries to sit on one!
Rather than be boring and follow the main path we end up next to the river and have a great time scrambling and traversing various rocks as well as multiple river crossings to get down into the main valley.
This continues when we get to the main valley, carrying on down the side which the mules use - it looks a lot more fun and it is always more interesting to avoid retracing your steps on the return journey - but soon see the others on the other side of the valley. My journey is great fun; very flat and straight at first (so time saving) and then lots of traversing scree slopes (while being vigilant of the avalanche risk from above), bouldering, scrambling and little bits of climbing the rocks next to the river to make it down to camp just in time to see the sun descend behind the neighboring mountain.
It is a pretty solid 7 hour hike over tricky terrain and this is the most tired I have felt from exercise (rather than from a mixture of the cold and altitude)- glad we did not push on getting all the way to the road head today as the others don't arrive for another hour or so.

Food today:
Mixed breakfast of cheese, ham, cereal, melon. Pretty good spread again.
Packed lunch including ham, cheese and tuna sandwiches: one on white bread and one on brown. There is also a very acidic orange juice which leads to several sharp intakes of breath as it comes into contact with our burnt and chapped lips. Promptly followed by a second round as those laughing at the first lot split theirs.
Last camping dinner - pasta with tomato sauce. Not too bad once covered with cheese and a bit of lemon mayonnaise. Still, nice to think that this is last (until next time).

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