After returning from the Cordillera Huayhuash, I met Jared Brown in Huaraz to climb in the Ishinca valley. We left Huaraz at 830 am on 27th June, hiked into base camp (3 - 4 hours), set up camp, and got ready to climb Ishinca the following morning. We planned to climb Ishinca and Tocllaraju during our four days in the Ishinca valley.

For the Ishinca valley, we hired a cook and a kitchen/dining tent since the premium of hiring a cook and dining tent over hiring just a camp guardian and obtaining tent for him was only about 20 or 30 dollars a day. In return, we had fresh (and pretty tasty) food and a constant supply of hot drinks and snacks, plus we didn't have to do any cooking or cleaning.

We got up at 2 am on the 28th, had eggs, bread, and hot tea for breakfast (another perk of hiring a cook), and started hiking up to the glacier around 240 am. It was initially quite warm and I hiked in my base layers. Once we hit the toe of the glacier at around 5, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped rapidly. We also turned off the trail too early and scrambled cross country on the left side of the valley to the glacier; later in the day, we realised that the trail leads directly to the toe of the glacier, which would have saved us 30 - 45 minutes if we had taken the trail instead. We spent half an hour putting on our boots (I hiked in running shoes all the way to the glacier, which turned out to be a great idea and I did the same for Tocllaraju), crampons, and roping up, all the time shivering and warming our cold fingers. On hindsight, leaving at 4 am would have been a better idea. Since Jared outweighed me by about 30 or 40 lbs, we agreed that he would be in front while ascending glaciated terrain and I would be in front for the descents.

From the glacier, the climb was quite straightforward with nothing steeper than 30 or 40 degrees except for 20 or 30 meters of the initial slope up the glacier and the final 25 or 30 meters to the summit, both of which were around 45 degrees. There was also a short 10 foot nearly vertical ice step that led to the summit slopes but that was relatively easy. Sunrise on Ishinca was quite spectacular; we saw the nearby summits of Ranrapalca and Ocshapalca gleaming in the morning sun with a pastel coloured sky as the backdrop.

We reached the summit at 8 am and spent an hour there alone before a guided group reached the summit, upon which we descended, getting back to base camp around 1140 am. From the summit, we also saw the new flight to Huaraz from Lima flying over us on the way to the airport. We had originally toyed with the idea of climbing Urus instead of taking a rest day while in the valley, but after seeing Urus on the way down from Ishinca and realising that it was 95% hiking on poor trails and only 5% glacier travel, we decided against it. Ishinca was a fun climb, great views, and a great start to our climbing trip.