Misti - The Volcano (Peru)

About 6 months ago, we went on a trip to southern Peru. We had an amazing time but there was one item on our list that we did not manage to tick off: climbing the volcano Misti near the city of Arequipa.

Misti's peak stands 5822m above sea level. This means that trekking to the top is not for the faint hearted and also that even seasoned trekkers will need to plan some acclimatisation to minimise the effect of altitude sickness as anything above 5500m is considered extreme altitude.

The first time we were in Arequipa we were not well acclimatised to attempt such a trek... however, this time we had the opportunity to spend a day and a half at 4000m before stopping at Arequipa so it seemed too good a chance to let it go to waste!

There are several routes to climb Misti, we decided to go with a guide on a new(ish) route on the northern face. We left on Saturday morning at 8am from our hotel in Arequipa and stared our trek roughly at 11am (it is a bit of a drive on a 4x4).

The start was at 4400m above sea level (asl), many people will feel the altitude at this point. This normally means headaches, dizziness and generally being slower (both mentally and physically) than you usually are. We were both feeling great and had no symptoms. We even stopped along the way to do some jumps! (see slide show at the bottom!).

We started climbing with our gear to base camp, located at 4860m asl. It took us roughly 2 hours through volcano ash covered hill sides and we were both very fresh at this point (one of us almost felt like telling the guide to get the ascent over and done with on that day!). We had some lunch and then got ready to camp. About 2 hours later, we started feeling the lack of oxygen (mild headache and generally slow and tired). Neither of us felt like dinner (which if you know us, you will know this is really not like us!). We had a little bit of soup and went to bed. The night was long and full of very strange dreams (this is also fairly typical of sleeping at height!)...

At 3:30am we got up and got ready for the ascent (from 4860m to 5822m). The night sky was absolutely stunning but neither of us was feeling particularly fresh to fully appreciate it. We got climbing with mild altitude sickness symptoms (mainly a slight headache, being quite tired and a little slow not to mention not feeling like eating anything).

The climb lasted roughly 5 hours and it is probably one of the hardest things either of us has ever done... sometimes needing to stop every minute to literally just catch our breath or rest... we could see the cross at the summit after 2.5hours (I had the impression it was a roughly 1m high cross... but reality taught me a lesson... see cross on the images below at the right hand side of the peak)

Surely only 10mins to go, I can already see the cross!

30mins later... I can't believe the cross is still that far... I can't move my legs...

Yet again another 30mins later - breath...

1m tall cross? not quite...

7m and 1 tonne of steel... donkeys and mules brought it here... 

 It was quite demoralising to see how slow going the ascent was and how much effort was required for every step! Still, we had fun in our pain and enjoyed the views and the feeling of reaching the summit and looking into Misti's crater.

The descent was incredibly fast as Misti's hill sides are sandy and covered in ash so we could almost run downhill. Once we reached 4000m, we both started feeling lots better. Mental note: trekking above 5000m is not to be underestimated!

Some photos below or in high resolution here: