Tocllaraju was a really cool climb. For it, you need to setup a high camp at the foot of the glacier. We decided to bivy outside since we were only going to "sleep" for few hours, and going up the morain was not going to be super fun.
Interestingly, as you learn in the mountains, the sources of information tell you different things..."Oh, you will encounter a vertical wall..." ah, not so bad in the end... very fun walking around the glacier and seracs. Unfortunately, near the top (really about 200m from the summit), the winds really picking up (i.e. it had been windy for a while) and some of the members of the expedition were cold, so we decided to turn around. It also turns out that going down is much easier than going up.
Funnily, we bumped into the author of the guidebook and we told him about bivouack, and he was like "you crazy, what would of happened if it had rained"... we were like, but it never rains here... well, actually it does, but very sedomly. The day we came down, it rained and snowed a bit. Only one other day we were in Peru, it rained again. So the weather there is really good.
Statistics:
- 16/7 Base-Moraine Camp: 685m elev. gain. 3h30
- 17/7 Summit day: 725m elev gain. 9h00 roundtrip. Turned around 200m? (vertical) from summit.
