June 30, 2006 - A Special Day on Sajama

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It’s a beautiful morning here on Sajama, the Andean sun glistens on the penitentes from where I sit at 5500 meters (18,045 feet).  I can see west across the Atacama desert into Chile, I can see north back towards La Paz, Ilimani, Apolobamba, Huayna Patosi and Condoriri where we spent a lot of our time on this trip.  I can see south towards Quimsa Cruz in fact I can see the entire Cordillera Real. You know its special days like this that makes the high Bolivian Andes so special.

In the pre-dawn the team made ready for our climb.  Steve and Jerri, who have been battling a stomach bug, were not able to recover from their effort it took yesterday to reach the high camp here on Sajama as they had hoped.  And after a strong start this morning Opus, Alex and Julie realized it would not be their day for a summit on Sajama.

For Philippe it will be a special Andean day.  At 9:20 this morning he and Oswaldo, one of our Bolivian guides made the summit.  Good job compañeros!