Ty and I woke at camp 2 to another stellar weather day. As I ate my oatmeal/chicken soup Ty thought out loud. "We've already skipped two rest days, but the weather says GO," he said, then asking "how do you feel?"
"I feel good. Ten hours of sleep. I'm rested. I'd rather carry a load than hang around camp all day. You?"
"Same," Ty said. We both knew there may be a price to pay for skipping rest days, but high camp was only four hours above us and we were anxious to check it out. If we got tired we could cache our loads next to the trail wherever we were and head back to camp 2. If the carry wore us out and we wake up tomorrow beat, we'll take a rest day then. It made sense. Enough sense, anyway.
As a two man team, our typical pace is brisk. A few hours into the carry we passed two teams that had left camp 2 an hour before us. As we began the high reaching traverse toward White Rocks and camp 3 (High Camp), Ty and I ducked inside a cluster of boulders to eat lunch sheltered from the winds. A lone climber passed on his way up the trail. He was staggering and I noticed his waist belt was not clipped. Looking back at Ty, I said "I don't like it." I could tell he had seen the same thing I had. From our place behind the boulders we heard the man place five more measured steps, then came the sound of a body landing hard on the broken shale trail.
We jumped up and ran to where the Climber lay in a semi-fetal position, his pack still attached. He responded when we rolled him over, smiling and giving us a thumbs up. Though his color was good, he seemed disoriented and giddy, completed Narked. I demanded that he drink from my water bottle while Ty and I tried to figure out where this man's team was. There were teams 500 feet below and above us. The Climber seemed to think they were both his team. While it seemed likely he was right in at least one case, the distance he had been allowed to separate by was unforgivable. "I'm getting truly pissed off," Ty commented, appalled that any team would allow a marginal Climber to go it alone at 19,000 feet. "This Guy's day is done," Ty pronounced. "I would dope him up with Dexamethasone if I had it with me, but it's back at base," I said. Then we noticed a Climber ascending away from the group beneath us. He was moving extremely slowly. We waited.
As the man approached it became clear that the afflicted Climber knew him. Though neither man spoke English, they communicated their thanks and waved us on to continue our climb. Satisfied that the second man would take the sick Climber down, we did so.
Arriving at High Camp, we cached our loads in a good level campsite and surveyed the circumstances we would soon call home. High Camp, also named Colera Camp on the maps, probably got it's name for all the reasons one might guess. Sanitation is non-existent, which would not be as big an issue if it weren't for the fact that all water must be generated by gathering and melting snow. Gather carefully. We immediately noted a scarcity of snow.
The plateau that forms High Camp is large enough for perhaps twenty campsites. It falls off sharply on three sides with breathtaking views looking down on all of the Andes. In an area noted for electrical storms, this anvil formation is an easy target for lightening strikes. The idea would be to get in, summit, and get out. At 19,400 feet a person's health degrades day by day. There is no recovery from fatigue. Wounds do not heal.
As we descended toward camp 2 Ty and I were shocked to pass the sick Climber and his companion a few hundred feet below High Camp. In spite of everything they continued up! That was the last we saw of either of them. I don't know what became of these Climbers. I hope they descended.
Dave, there was a climber who had hired a "local guide" who took him via short-roping to the summit after he'd sat down at Independencia Hut saying he was done for. The guide gave him a shot of dex there and another at some other point. The various groups talked of and filled in the complete story of this at Mulas.
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