From May 17 to 21, the Japanese Yudai Suzuki and Kei Narita opened Japanes Directo (1,100 m, 5c/WI6) on the north face of Ausangate, the highest peak in the Cordillera de Vilcanota in the Peruvian Andes.
© Kei Narita
Summit of the Vilcanota mountain range
” It is certainly the most difficult and beautiful climb of my life. “. This is how the Japanese Yudai Suzuki describes his ascent with Kei Narita of Ausangate (6,384 m, Peru), with the opening of Japanes Directo (1,100m, 5c/WI6).
Ausangate is the highest point of the Cordillera de Vilcanota in Peru, accessible from Cuzco. Its northwest ridge was climbed in 1966 by a German team, then repeated five years later by Frenchmen, including the late Frésafond. It was then necessary to wait until 1982 to see the Italians Fausto De Stefani, Luigi Mignocchi and Carlo Santus make a first attempt on the north-west face; they will reach the top of the face, but not the top. From July 27 to 1er August 1984, Louis Deuber, Harald Navé and Hans Zebrowski of the Swiss Alpine Club made the effort to cover the remaining few hundred meters, bivouacking at the summit before descending by the normal route to the south.
10 years ago, Edwin Espinoza Sotelo, Luis Crispín and Nathan Heald climbed this same line, bringing some variations to it, as noted by theAmerican Alpine Journal (yyy): “ Heald and his team made significant modifications to the many bergschrunds in order to negotiate highly altered terrain, which often involved steep ice and mixed climbing. » Like the Italians, the 2013 party didn’t go all the way to the summit, stopping where the north-west face leads to the ridge line (6,300 m). I’yyy note, however, that “their ascent was much faster than the previous ones, which required bivouacs along the way “.
© Yudai Suzuki
Safe rock and hard ice
The Japanese have chosen a mixed line (5c on rock, 6 on ice) to the left of the face. It took them four nights (at 5,300, 5,700, 6,250 and 6,360m) and five days of climbing to reach the summit, “ and every day has been hard enoughtestifies Suzuki. For example, we had to overcome climbing difficulties, slightly overhanging and quite hard ice, breaking soft snow at high altitude… »
Already on the first day, the Japanese described spindrifts similar to an avalanche: We were more than scared and defeated, but instead of a technical route, Narita forced our way down a relatively safe rocky route and we broke free. “.
The two climbers then gain an additional 300 meters of altitude until they find, at 6,000 meters thin ice cream » And “Ice as hard as that of Sounkyo (gorge located on the island of Hokkaidō in Japan known for its waterfalls, editor’s note) on a very cold day “. Not enough to discourage the duo, who then extricated themselves from the shadow of the seracs and the meandering ridges to emerge at the summit, and return to base camp, almost 1,900 meters below.
