ANDES EXPEDITION—II Main Objective Decapitated By Peruvian Earthquake

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32354, 21 July 1970, Page 8

ANDES EXPEDITION—II Main Objective Decapitated By Peruvian Earthquake

CBv foot, donicev and air-mail)

(By

HUGH WILSON)

BASE CAMP. June 20.

We had only 3000 ft of the virgin 20,000 ft Pucahirca Oeste to climb when the earthquake struck. Once the vast clouds of dust had settled after the cataclysmic shock, we saw we had been robbed.

The entire summit cone of Pucahirca Oeste, one of the expedition’s targets, had disappeared and all around the other peaks were scarred and battered.

Only six of the expedition membership of seven are here at base camp with me as I write. We are lucky to be here at all. The " leader of the expedition, Jim Jolly, ear. lier sickened with bronchitis at a high Andean town and before he had recovered and could join us, the earthquake struck, but he too survived. The other members of the expedition are John Stanton, Dave White, Peter Gough, Alex Buchanan and John Glasgow and myself. We had indeed survived and decided to go on with our climbing—all our easy routes out to civilisation were destroyed anyway. But for days afterwards, with nearly all communications with the outside world gone, and aftershocks keeping us on our toes, we were learning with horror that those three minutes, frightening and awesome to us, were an apailing disaster to the highland area of Peru round us.

We were to learn that in two beautiful towns we had visited, Huarez and Yungay, more than 30,000 people lost their lives, a tragedy I cannot express further. Flight To Lima Six weeks ago part of the expedition boarded a plane in steamy Panama and flew across Colombia Ecuador and Peru to the city of Lima. It was an extraordinary flight across forest and seas, lakes and rolling uplands which swelled up towards us, great ice-capped volcanoes that broke the clouds, then dreary expanses of deserts relieved now and again by green oases following the rivers down to the sea, and once or twice by acres and acres of perfect crescentic dunes. Out to sea now were occasional barren islands topped by guano as if by snow. Perhaps most exciting of all though, inland from the desert rose immense foothill ranges, and behind them, through the clouds, the icesheathed giants of the-Peru-vian Andes.

As I write this, days and days later, I am right in amongst these extraordinary mountains, ridge-poles - and roof-crests of a remarkable country. At 15,000 feet fresh snow fell this morning, and

across a blue-green alpine lake cascading ice, in apparent immobility but for numerous roars and avalanches, leaps down from the summits of the Nevaados Pucahircas. I blow on my fingers to keep them warm. Yet we are only 9 degrees south of the equator. Friendly People Our experiences travelling through Peru defy summary: you are subjected to such a barrage of impressions, contrasts, sights, sounds and smells that to make a generalisation is quickly to have it baffled and denied. Trite as it sounds, the greatest contrast to a New Zealander (to this one anyway) is at first between rich and poor. It makes a strong impression. Money and material possessions have to be looked on differently here, where they mean so much, perhaps even the difference between life and death.

All the people have been extremely friendly. They are immensely tolerant of our efforts at Spanish, and some who speak a little English are often keen to try it on us if they are not too shy. Our own shyness has disappeared from necessity. Contrary to advice we have seldom been fooled in our ignorance, and have had nothing stolen despite our ostentatious pile of material possessions in a land where poverty makes it embarrassing to anybody with a modicum of sensitivity. We have become accustomed to the name of “Gringo" which in highland Peru Is almost a term of friendly greeting to bearded “alpinistas.” To some Peruvian friends we owe the almost unheardof experience of having all our gear landed on Peruvian soil without even having to pay a customs bond. And in the highland capital of Huaraz to which we came a month ago on a loaded friendly bus after the first one had broken down, we had an immensely exciting festival day in the crowded central plaza. Indians from the hills and Indians in the town mingled to celebrate agrarian reform and progress in a great, colourful parade. The town sounded with beautiful Peruvian music and beyond the twin towers of the cathedral the mountains cleared from the clouds, showing a coating of fresh snow. To Base Camp Two days later we had finished with wheeled transport. Loading a little on to

ourselves, and a great deal on to patient horses and burros, we set off up a valley and over a high pass towards the Pucahirca mountains and our base camp, at Lake Pocacocha.

Two of the expedition, Dave White and John Glasgow, made it to the base camp that night Alex Buchanan and I, wandering along looking at the plants and the scenery and noting their similarities with and differences from those of New Zealand, were overtaken by exhaustion and dark two hours from Lake Pocacocha. We laid out our sleeping bags in a patch of blue lupins by a fast stream, and awoke next morning to find them crackling with frost The Pucahircas and Alpamayo gleamed with light as we dried out in the morning sunshine.

Later we staggered into a small cluster of rather neglected thatched huts of stone and mud-bricks. Dave and John had been directed into one of them by local Indians who had greeted them warmly and given them food. We decided that the unoccupied “campamento” with a few gradual improvements, was an excellent base camp and had several advantages over a tented camp, which we could have placed about 10 minutes away over a rise.

Superb Site The situation is superb. We ! are just above the outlet of : blue-green, ice-berg-studded 1 Lake Pocacocha at an alti--1 tude of about 14,700 feet. 1 Down-valley the new-born g Quebrada Tayapampa is en- ’ circled by steep, goldenj brown hills with ice-rounded rock surfaces. At the head ' of the lake, ice and rock, be- ’ ginning with startling abrupt- ' ness, soar with equal abrupt- ' ness to the summits of the j southern Pucahircas. The ice carves off as steep, white- ■ blue cliffs over red rock into ’ the lake. The second half of this dramatic backdrop is the ‘ great east ridge and north ' face of famous Alpamayo and , its attendant mountains to , the north-east. , Short, tentative exploratory I sorties and botanical collecI tlons occupied some of the . first few days. The weather I was reasonable and was geti ting better. Not many days after we had arrived we sallied up the bluffs behind the

lake and in dazzling sunshine found good routes on to two key glaciers, our first day above the Andean snowline. We began to push a bit after that, and a few days later towards the end of May had gained the high col below Pucahirca Oeste, our primary unclimbed objective. Up at that altitude, about 17,500 feet, our weak, tortured bodies clamoured protest that we were not giving them time to acclimatise properly. On Saturday. May 30, a climbing day, five of us set off with food and equipment to prepare a bivouac camp above the col. Above 17,000 feet one begins to wonder what one is doing up there anyway, and to think longing thoughts about New Zealand. From the col the scale loomed larger too. We still had more than 2000 feet, and difficult climbing, ahead of us. Nevertheless, we returned that night with our bivouac push which might take us to our first virgin Andean summit We discussed whether it would be better to go up in the cool of the morning on the hard snow and have the 1 whole afternoon to get cold ' for the night, or go up in 1 the heat and soft snow later 1 in the day, and freeze to i death after a shorter wait 1 We probably all felt part i nervousness, part anticipation. It was clearly going to I be challenging. I

The Earthquake Then next day, out of a fine sky and a solid earth, came the extraordinary, terrible, awsome event to change all our plans and by chance to leave us alive but thousands dead in the high Peru-

vian towns and mountains round us.

The day began as an ordinary, pleasant rest day. A little cloud began to obscure the summits as the hours went by. We caught up on the little things one has to do in a base camp—washing, writing, sorting gear, cleaning boots, sharpening crampons, reading, and so on. Suddenly, with no warning, the ground began to move vigorously underneath the straw, and the rock and mud walls of the building began to creak and sway. We departed rapidly through the door. Outside we gathered in the open space between the huts and there witnessed one of the most awsome sights that I, certainly, have ever seen. We were surrounded by abrupt mountains of rock and ice and snow. A few seconds after the shocks started they simply began falling down until the whole world was a tremendous roar of falling debris and avalanche.

Huge rocks leaped down the moutainside and exploded like bombs: probably my most vivid recollection is of a huge slab of rock, surely bigger than a New Zealand house, falling free through the dust-choked air seemingly right over our heads until it crashed into the lakes. Within seconds a dirty mass of ice was flooding across the water. As the seconds went by and it seemed that the chaos was never going to cease, the mountains themselves became further oi> scured by the clouds of dust and snow.

Our huts shook and shuddered and rocks popped out of the walls. Miraculously they stood, though some low walls collapsed and buried equipment under piles of rocks.

Finally the shaking stopped, and more slowly the roar of avalanche died away to the sounds of rocks falling through the silence. More slowly still the vast clouds of dust dispersed and settled. After a while we gazed in stunned awe through the shifting cloud at what the cataclysm had done. The entire summit cone of Pucahirca Oeste had disappeared. Then there was relief we were all in one piece. And greater relief when John Stanton appeared, somewhat pale and shaken, further down the track. He had been undertaking surveying work in the next valley for the Peruvian Government as part of the scientific programme, and walking back to Base Camp had the experience of seeing the track ahead demolished by rockfall as he wondered where to run on a moving bog.

“We live, we eat,” eried Dave White. We had indeed survived. Tomorrow we are to cross a high pass in an endeavour to get this article and letters out and to obtain news. Thus if this reaches you safely, it means we have been successful.