Backcountry Nomad: An Adventure Blog

Bolivian Altiplano Climbing at Peñas and Pico Austria Acclimatization

Looking out over the Altiplano from the wall

Rock climbing is not very developed in Bolivia primarily due to the summer also being the rainy season. I made several attempts (in person and on WhatsApp) to find climbing gear to rent and/or any guidebook but none exists. Everything is more focused on high altitude mountaineering by tour agencies and even rock guides are pretty scarce. However, I was super happy to connect with Jose through the Peñas Mountain Project admin to get out climbing and get his help with transport for an acclimatization hike.

The short two days outside of La Paz vastly exceeded our expectations with fun climbing, a top out view of Lake Titicaca, a full vista of the Cordillera Real range despite weather, getting up close with a glacier and a snowy summit above 17,000 ft.

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Huayna Potosi: A 6000m Bolivian Mountaineering Peak

Huayna Potosi tops out at 19,974 ft and is probably the easiest 6000m peak in South America. There are a dozen companies selling guide services up this and other peaks out of La Paz and most seem willing to take anyone. I was planning on using this lightly technical summit as a warm up to something more interesting like Illimani (6,438m / 21,201 ft) but despite my best prep, I got severe altitude sickness from the jump on summit day. I still struggled my way to the summit under extreme nausea but I’d call it a summit in very bad form.

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Flamingos in the High Andean Desert of Southwest Bolivia

After the Salar de Uyuni salt flats we quested out to explore SW Bolivia to an extent I didn’t expect. This “mostly driving” tour took us to so many unexpected environmental spots: salt flat lakes, eroded sandstone boulders, flamingos at 15.000 ft, colorful rainbow mountains with pastel flood planes that look like paintings, chinchilla-like animals, volanic outcroppings that are wind eroded in the middle of a sandy desert, lava flows, 19k peaks, snow, etc. It could have maybe been a bit more active, but it was a pleasure to explore this region of Bolivia and I was plenty entertained creating punny jokes and solving riddles with my travel companion.

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Salar de Uyuni: The World’s Largest Salt Flat

I was really unsure whether to visit the enormous 10,500 sq. km. salt flats given many of the promotional pictures looked primed for Instagram and I wasn’t really sure what there was to do there. However, everyone both first-hand and online raved about it being a unique and unmissable place. I’m not a staged photo person and I have had a lot of outdoor experiences… However, I’ll still say the staged photos were actually super fun playing with perspective, the salt landscape strange, the use of salt bricks for construction very novel and the SW Bolivian landscape of high altitude volcanic desert very wierd and interesting. In summary, it was worth the visit.

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Facing 4th Class Ridges on Mount Lyell and Clyde Minaret

I have generally been intimidated by 4th Class ridges in the Sierra. People like to sandbag and I’m afraid of these routes developing into something that feels really exposed, sustained and generally 5th Class. However, I’ve also been feeling really confident this year in the backcountry so I wanted to see if I could confront these apprehensions. As a bonus, I might have also set a new record for “highest vert-in-day” with 8,100 ft.

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Kings-Kern High Route: An 80 Mile Off-Trail Exploration over Twelve Passes and Up Six 13,000+ ft Peaks

The alpine of the Eastern Sierra might be the most special place in the world to me. It is my most reliable place where “the magic happens” for true mountain adventures. As with any real adventure, it requires some amount of uncertainty and typically struggle. So its with this in mind and inspired by The Sierra High Route, I played around with the idea, “what would it look like if I created my own off-trail route through the Sierra via obscure, untraveled terrain with the goal of staying in wild alpine for as long as possible?”. I thought creating my own route and not taking someone else’s would provided the best test-piece for my own mountain skills and physical ability.

I definitely got an adventure. I planned for seven days, but completed this 80 mile, 23,770 ft elevation gain route over twelve 11,000+ ft passes, up six 13,000+ ft peaks over five physically brutal days which often left me in an under-fueled, exhausted state of delirium. Doing it solo meant I was responsible for judgment calls and also meant I really pushed it physically, often in a Type 2-2.5 “fun” state of mind to prove to myself what I could do. It was so challenging enough mentally that I thought about naming this The Sierra High Pout. You spend enough time in complex terrain and unsettled, long boulder fields and you also can get a lot of close calls. It will mark one of the my most ambitious adventures in the Sierra in the last decade and probably the next.

Note: Click on the photos for the higher resolution galleries and helpful captions

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A Primer on Adventures while Traveling Morocco

Summary

I had a really good time in Morocco when I wasn’t in a city and an okay time when in a city. The mosaic, ceramic, rug art was really enjoyable and everywhere. Driving was mostly fine. Being a foreign tourist was, at times, taxing. However, the adventure climbing and canyoning potential was super amazing a huge highlight. I would definitely go back, with adventure partners.

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Filmy Fortresses at Ait Benhaddou

I figured the UNESCO heritage site of the Ait Benhaddou Ksar would be large and impressive given it is a major tourist attraction. However, my imagination was a bit greater than reality. I expected the scale of a Rajasthani Palace, but instead found a small and moderately aesthetic fortified village. I did find some fun here, had the most memorable accommodation of my trip and mostly avoided the large tourist bus groups, but you should know up front its more popular because it was a shoot location of media like Game of Thrones.

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Climbing the Steep Canyon Walls of the Todra Gorge

It was photos of climbing on the steep orange walls of the Todra Gorge that initially peaked my interest in Morocco. While Tafraout in the Anti-Atlas Mountains was more of a granite trad area, Todra is a grippy limestone sport multi-pitch area. I spent four non-travel days just outside the canyon with the hopes of doing some harder sport and some of the many multi-pitches. The rock was good and the climbing fun, but the guide book situation a bit lacking. Unfortunately a guide-issue kept me from getting in a lot of climbing, but I created an awesome side as a result from that!

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Climbing in the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Tafraout

TJ finishing the 5c crack section of Techno Trousers

While it was sport climbing on the steep canyon walls of the Todra Gorge that caught my eye to put Morocco on my map, it was the area of Tafraout that solidified my trip. The Anti-Atlas Mountains are closer to the desert, warmer, lower elevation than the Atlas Mountains so perfect for a winter trip. There is endless rock to be explored around this small town with an adventurous, trad-feel. You can find some continuous cracks here, but much of the climbing felt like trad protected face climbing on juggy, broken (but almost always very solid (quartize). I was hoping for more of a sure deal for climbing and didn’t want to bring gear so I partnered up with TJ, a US ex-pat guide from Jebel Adventures who is probably the only multi-pitch or trad guide in the area.

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