Bolivia - Dispatch #8

Bolivia Trek and Climbing Program May 29 – June 19, 2010

Guides: Danny Uhlmann, Alasdair Turner, and Juan Churra

Climbers: Danny Griffith (Bellingham, WA), Alfred Kwok (Claremont, CA), Diccon Westworth (Sacramento, CA), Jim Bonadonna (Poughkeepsie, NY), Raymond Gregory (Marquette, MI), Nancy Burke (Dallas, TX), and Margen Burke-Karr (Missouri City, TX).

Danny called at 5:30 pm Bolivia time (Eastern time in the US) on Saturday June 5th with the following dispatch:

We left La Paz this morning, drove up onto the Altiplano, and crossed it to Lake Titicaca. We took a nice boat ride out to Siriqui island, and after checking out the reed boats, hiked up one of the high points on the island. From it we got great views of the lake but it was pretty cloudy over the mountains. It made the drive up to the mountains exciting because they were gradually unveiled as we got closer.

We met our transport animals and their arrieros at the trailhead, and made the hike in. We just got established here, it’s dark, and we're getting ready to eat a big dinner.

We will ill climb Pico Austria tomorrow. It's about 16,5000 and not technical. It will be an excellent warm up peak for us. It was a little windy and cold today but it has cleared and there's a good view of the mountains, with a little cloud above Pequeno Alpamayo, but it's super clear right now aside from that.

Global warming continues to have an effect. Glaciers look like they have receded more just in the last year. We’ll see a lot more detail when we start climbing. That's it for now. We'll call again in a day or two.

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