Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'I've found the Cordillera Blanca,' piped up my original inquisitor. 'It's in the
northern Andes of Peru.' He looked at me down his spectacles. I knew then I never
wanted to attend another panel.
Tut Braithwaite was in next after me, attaché case under his arm and full of his
usual knowledgeable enthusiasm. He told me later the first question they asked
him was 'Where is the Cordillera Blanca?' He got it exactly right. The upshot was
that Choe and Tut got a grant of £400 and Alex and I £200. I'd like to point out
they got better value for money from us with two new routes and two new des-
cents.
Indirectly, Alex and I owed British Aerospace our lives on Ranrapalca, but Choe
Brooks should really take the credit. It was he who somehow wangled the purpose-
made, state-of-the-art snow stakes from BAE for our Peruvian trip. They were
Choe's design, and the match of any of the titanium gear the Russians produced in
the Kazakhstan space factories - lightweight, strong and just the right shape. They
were about three and a half feet long, which made them awkward to carry, but
snow stakes were indispensable in the Andean snow conditions and much more
likely to see use than ice screws. Before each route you weighed up the descent as
carefully as any ascent. How many abseils down that face? How many on rock?
How many on ice screws? How many snow stakes to take?
'Four ought to be enough,' was the almost inevitable conclusion Alex came to.
'One on each side of the rucksacks.'
Like Alex, Choe was a bit of a designer. We were using his newly designed tower
stove as well. It was the best tower stove I had ever seen; incredibly compact with
an excellent windshield and pans big enough to actually cook in. The only serious
fault was that it didn't work. The jet bunged up after a couple of days. If there was
any flame at all, it took half the night to make tea. Of course, the upside of this was
you could throw all the fuel away to save weight when the stove went wrong if not
the stove itself. We had faith Choe would put it right if we brought it back. And
each time he did it would once again work for a few firings. I have a picture in my
mind of Choe, sat half-naked on the sunny roof of the Hotel Barcelona in Huaraz,
placing each tiny part carefully on newspaper in front of him as he deconstructed
the stoves and carefully cleaned them. Behind him, the great peaks of the Cor-
dillera Blanca studded the eastern horizon.
The best Choe design story involved one of his cars, a knackered Mini. On his
way back from the Alps, overloaded with gear and people, the sub frame collapsed
and Choe had to abandon the car somewhere in the south of England. In such cir-
cumstances, the usual plan was to take everything out, remove plates and all forms
