We arrived in Huaraz early on Saturday morning after our overnight bus from Trujillo. Huaraz is located in the middle of the Cordillera Blanca mountain range which is the 2nd largest after the Himalayas, it is surrounded by peaks of up to and over 6,000m and is the central town where trekkers etc acclimatise before setting off into the really spectacular mountains. There is so much to do here and we've already realised we'll end up here longer than we had planned. There are a few multi day treks and we are planning on doing the Santa Cruz trek tomorrow which is a four day hike. Be3fore doing it you're advised to do a days activity to get used to th altitude, we decided to do ice climbing and this blog is written from our bed on Monday morning as we lie here recovering from our exertions.

We were taken up to Quebrada Llaca on Sunday morning along with Lars and Louise who had chosen to mountain bike back down to Huaraz. We were dropped off at 4,400m and had to do a short 40 minute walk to the foot of the glacier, we could certainly feel the altitude which leaves you a little breathless.

At the ice wall our Guide Samuel set the ropes up before the 1st climber, Miss Alison Wildig, was kitted out with her two ice hammers, helmet, gloves and crampons. Off she went speeding up the wall, a natural ice climber if ever there was one. That brought our 2nd climber Mr Steven Evison to the foot of the ice wall, there was a little less speeding and a lot more slipping and hanging. I'm sure most of you will enjoy the photo of me hanging from an ice cliff by two hammers when both my feet have slipped. I really struggled to begin with, I could get the ice hammers in, although I did seem to remove a fair bit of ice, but I couldn't get my feet to grip and fell a few times. I did manage to get up to the top and then having watched the master Ali and the other climber we were with I identified my main problem which was that when the guide was screaming at me to kick the wall I was actually giving it a real boot rather than making sure I got a good toe poke in to stick the crampon into the ice. I then did manage to get up the 2nd and 3rd climbs pretty well.

We all attempted the last climb which was much more difficult but none of us made it very far, this was partly due to the snow, soaking wet and freezing gloves and the fact that I fell and banged my already badly bruised knees and Alison removed the ice hammer from the wall and hitting herself in the face (no damage caused). We then walked back through the snowfall to be picked up and taken back to Huaraz. We've not done anything since and will be spending today preparing for the Santa Cruz trek.