Colombia Expedition Reaches Laguna Grande de la Sierra

Jere­my and Mark called in on the satel­lite phone tonight from Lagu­na Grande de la Sier­ra in El Cocuy Nation­al Park of Colom­bia. They had just fin­ished a deli­cious din­ner with wine and dessert and every­one is feel­ing great! 

Two days ago, the team left Bogotà at 5:30 in the morn­ing and had a long, wind­ing 13-hour bus ride through some wild, moun­tain­ous ter­rain along the riv­er. They passed sev­er­al bridges that had been blown up by the FARC gueril­las. They made it to the lit­tle town of Cocuy perched on the moun­tain­side at 8,530 feet (2600 meters) and checked into a beau­ti­ful lit­tle hacien­da. Yes­ter­day, from Cocuy, the team took a bus ride for about an hour and a half up to their jump-off point, which is Esper­an­za, a famous moun­tain-climber’s hos­tel. After check­ing in, the team took off on an acclima­ti­za­tion hike. 

Today, after a rest­ful night at Esper­an­za, the team set off on a 4.5 hour hike to their cur­rent camp a the beu­at­i­ful lake nes­tled between their peak objec­tives. Their base camp is at about 14,600 feet sur­round­ed by Con­cav­i­to, Con­ca­vo, Pul­pi­to del Dia­blo and Pan de Azu­car, three of which the team will have a chance to sum­mit. The team used five hors­es today to car­ry their loads to camp, where they set up their tents quick­ly in a short snow and hail flur­ry before din­ner. Every­one is feel­ing great and enjoy­ing the breath­tak­ing scenery at their lake­side camp. Tomor­row they will go on anoth­er small climb to fin­ish their acclima­ti­za­tion and head off to the sum­mit of Con­ca­vo the day after tomorrow. 

Wish them luck!

The beau­ti­ful Lagu­na Grande de la Sierra