Nevada Paron, North Face, Bartonellosis, New Route. Owen Samuel, Mike
Pescod, Tony Barton and I set off up the Santa Cruz Valley on June 2,
two days after arriving in Peru. We set up camp at 4700 meters on the
moraine ridge below the northeast face of Artesonraju in the Arteson
Valley. After checking out both the unclimbed northwest face of
Millisarju (5500m) and the north face of Paron (5600m), we chose the
latter because the former was a very complex, serac-laced face. We
watched the face for two days, during which two potential “ice” lines
melted away in the hot summer sun. Believing our line would last, we
planned a night ascent to avoid encountering too much falling rock and
ice.
On June 5 at 9 p.m. Owen, Mike and I set off for the base of the route
(Tony was not acclimatizing well). The glacier proved easy to cross and
we started up the first chimney pitch (“Samuel’s Cleft”) before
midnight. We found excellent ice of about Scottish Grade 4/5 with
occasional loose rock steps and some easier-angled snow-slope
traversing. Dawn broke as we entered the final funnel directly below the
summit. We completed the ten-pitch ascent to just below the final summit
snow mushroom (which we did not attempt due to the conditions) at 10:30
a.m. We then rappelled the west face to the Paron Glacier, where we
traversed through some “interesting, serac-riddled terrain before
climbing back up to the Artesonraju col and making an easy descent to
camp. The entire trip took twenty hours. We named the route
Bartonellosis (Scottish Grade 4/5, 400m), after a disease common to the
Peruvian Andes, and for Tony Barton, who was the driving force behind
the climb.
Nick Carter