We enjoyed an overall very successful trip to the Paron Valley in 2004 and our ascent of Artesonraju capped a great trip to this spectacular valley in an extensive mountain range, one of the grandest in the world. 

Eli Helmuth returns every year to lead a climbing expedition to the Cordillera Blanca range to scale the great peaks of the range. Check-out the trip details here or contact us at guide@climbinglife.com for more details or to join our climbing team on a fantastic two-week trip to South America’s greatest peaks.

When you first drive into the Paron Valley and see this view of the southeast face of Artesonraju in the afternoon sun, you feel the desire and fear simultaneously in your belly as your pace quickens to reach it’s flanks.  This is what you came here for- now what?

Arriving in the climber’s mecca of Huaraz is a dream come true of adobe and brick buildings, the sound of rooster’s greeting the sunrise and the Tambo-paxi keeping us up until dawn.  I’m actually pedaling the bicycle and the owner is assisting in our efforts to porter my “light load”.  Luckily for us it was a very short ride.

After we loaded up on enough peppers to fuel us up our intended goals, we headed to the peaks which are just a short drive and easy hike to basecamp.

We did have to fit in one more bouldering session before departing to the hills as the nearby rock in Huraraz is some of the finest on the planet.  Here Narisuan demonstrates the dance.

And with basecamp so accessible, why not bring it all including a big box of herbs (for flavoring up the soups and dishes) as well as eggs, bread, and of course some live chickens which will soon be dinner.

The local farm girls were content to dance in celebration of the potato harvest and we enjoyed our share of mashed, roasted, and fried spuds along with the muy importante; salsa de tomato.  

The approach into base camp and then high camp is relatively short and with the help of our team of porters, only a few hours of climbing from one camp to the next.

The outrageous southwest face of Pyramid and west face of Chacraraju (L-R) sitting above the Lake Paron.

The 3500′ vertical wall of the south face of Huandoy South (20,205′) guards the entrance into the Paron Valley.

A perspective of the east and south faces of Huandoy South (20,205′) from up high on Paron Peak.

Finally up high on the glaciers and into the heart of the mountains near the base of Paron Peak (18,368′).

The southeast face of Artesonraju (19,762′) is the climb of choice as it follows the left-hand skyline from this up-valley perspective.

The climb of the southeast face of Artesonraju is a big one- over 3,000′ of frontpointing.  With our 70m rope, we stretched out the route into 11 long pitches off of snow and ice anchors on this slightly steepening face.

The last two pitches were the steepest as we climbed through 75 degree ice terrain onto a relatively flat summit that was reached in 9 hrs. of climbing.

The summit is only half-way and we still had many rappels to get down the face and back to camp.  In the background, Chopicalqui (20,841′) is far left with the two summits of Huascaran (22,200′ S. Summit) in the middle and with Huandoy South (20,205′) and it’s immense south face on the right.