The Hard Way

From:
"Ego Trip: Mountaineering
in Bolivia" by Mark Jenkins.
Outside Feb 02

"At the 11th hour, the day before departure, my partner bailed. Something hadn't been right from the beginning—the tone of his voice on the phone, the odd nonchalance toward planning our gear and food. I felt it in my gut but ignored the signals. We almost always know what's really going on, we just don't want to admit it....

The plane ticket was in my pocket, pack packed, time carved off the calendar. I could have canceled, but I was itching for another expedition. Besides, I'd told my friends I was off to Bolivia to climb. I boarded the plane early the next morning and ordered two beers to toast my resolve....

In the afternoons I traipsed from one pension to another hunting for a new climbing partner. I was certain I'd find one. Expeditions are always falling apart---illness, injury, or attitude will knock out two or three people and pretty soon the whole trip is in shambles. I figured I'd have my pick of alpinists. But it wasn't so. The few Americans I found were either aimless, dreadlocked pilgrims or eager but inexperienced clients of guided climbs....

Down a cobblestone alley in a shabby hotel I found a three-woman, two-man Slovenian team going to 18,531-foot Condoriri to attempt a new route. They were confident and relaxed. They pulled me into their cramped room to drink wine with them while they loaded piles of Russian ice screws into their worn packs. Their leader was a tall, svelte woman named Ada. She wore a tank top and purple tights. You could see the muscles in her thighs as she moved around. She had flaming auburn hair, prominent cheekbones, and eyes so ravishing I was too self-conscious to look straight at her.

“So, where is partner?” Ada asked me.

“I came to Bolivia alone.”

“Ahhh, I see.” She pushed her hair back and lowered her Cleopatra eyes on me. “You come to solo. Very good.”

The other four members of her team nodded at me in respect and admiration. One climber, a towering guy with stringy hair and a nose that had obviously been broken, gave me the thumbs up.

“Stefan also solos,” said Ada, smirking at her teammate.

I'd never intended to solo anything on this trip. I intended to find a partner, preferably one stronger and more experienced than myself. Although I had soloed mountains in the past, soloing was something that took a stronger head than I had. Soloing required gravitas. No backup, no net, no nada---one mistake and you die. I didn't have the screwed-up childhood or soul-wrenching angst or any other usefully twisted motivation for soloing. I also didn't have the cojones. But now I had this instant reputation.

“And what are you going to climb?” Ada continued.

My erstwhile partner and I had talked about a dozen different mountains but hadn't settled on anything. On my morning runs I'd studied the two peaks just outside La Paz, 21,201-foot Illimani and 20,340-foot Huanya Potosi. The trade routes on both were known to be interesting and not too technical.

“Huayna Potosi,” I declared.

Ada arched her razor eyebrows and a shadow of disappointment crossed her face.

“The east face,” I heard myself say, and they all broke into toothy grins and shook their heads in approval and my tin cup was refilled with red wine.

“To your climb,” said Ada, winking and batting her eyelashes.

I sometimes think back and wonder if she actually knew, somehow, that I'd made it all up on the spot. Nah, of course not. She was just winking at me because she knew she was beautiful and because beautiful women always like bold mountaineers, particularly beautiful women who are bold mountaineers.

That night I went to a good restaurant, La Carreta, ordered myself a big Argentinean steak, and drank one cold beer after another until I was convinced that climbing the east face of Huayna Potosi was indeed exactly what I'd come to do. Although, having no guidebook and no topo, I had no idea if such a route even existed."