Mountain Adventure In Chachani

Un séjour: ascension du Chachani très bien organisé: très bonne nourriture, matériel fourni de qualité, possibilité de louer du matériel supplémentaire. Carlos, notre guide, est très compétent et à adapte le rythme et les pauses aux besoins de chacun. Un grand merci à Carlos pour nous avoir guidé jusqu’au sommet! Mélodie et Benjamin

I did Chachani with guide Carlos on June 16/17 as a one day private tour. We started in Arequipa at 11 p.m. Thanks to the excellent driver it took us only about two hours with our 4WD to get to the pass where the ascent begins. We had a little breakfast (coca tea and rolls - very fine!). We reached the top roughly five and a half hours after we had started from the car, at 06:50. This sounds pretty nice to you? But there is a lot of criticism to add, I want to pick out 3 points only: (1) After a first pause at the base camp we had a second break at an altitude of slightly below 5500 m at 03:56. Here the guide told me that he was going to sleep for a while. He lay down and started to snore. The pause took 23 minutes according to my GPS track; it was freezing cold as it is always at these heights during the night at this time of year. The only one who wanted to have such a long pause was the guide. This kind of behavior is absolutely unacceptable. (2) Poor planning on behalf of the agency: If I had not objected to a start in Arequipa at already 10 p.m. at the Zarate booking office, we would have been on top of Chachani in the dark, long before sunrise, in the cold, and in very windy conditions. Nobody in the office cared to ask me about my acclimatization (I had been in Peru for more than three weeks before) or for my experience with high mountains to choose a sensible (much later) starting time. There were other climbers with another agency who started at least two hours later, I am sure they had much more of a pleasant and memorable experience on the mountain. One does not only want to have been up there in the dark in order to tick Chachani off from a list! (3) On the way down (the way down is easy) the guide just turned round a few times to see whether I was still following him, in the end he was at least 500 meters in front of me waiting at the base camp (with his head between his legs). I am an experienced climber myself so this did not bother me, but as a guide he should have informed me about his intentions (in Spanish or English), but nothing of the sort happened. I simply wanted to descend slower to enjoy the mountains around. So summing up, on the basis of my experience on Chachani I cannot recommend the Zarate Agency. I got the impression that, once they have your money, they just do what is absolutely necessary.