One year after a serious accident, and still needing crutches for walking, German Isabel Suppé has climbed a difficult, partially-new route on 5,546m Serkhe Khollu in Bolivia's Cordillera Real.
Suppé joined long-time Bolivian resident and experienced mountaineer, Robert Rauch. The 53-year-old German has made many difficult first ascents on Bolivian mountains, on both rock and ice.
The two did not make a high camp, but completed the climb in a round trip of 22 hours from the car. In order to protect her injuries, Suppé used crutches to reach the base of the South West Face.
From there the pair climbed their partially-new line in 10 hours, descended the Normal Route, regained the bottom of the face in the dark to collect Suppé's crutches, and then returned to the car.
The 500m route follows discontinuous ice gullies and smears through the rocky left side of the face, and with a section of 95° was thought by Rauch to be at least TD+.
Serkhe Khollu is the main summit of the Serranias Serkhe and Murillo, situated east of La Paz, midway between the Chacaltaya (5,395m) - Khala Huyo (5,324m) Group and the broad, flat-topped 5,864m Mururata.
In June 2010 Rauch, with Stefan Berger and Florian Hill, climbed a three-metre-wide ice runnel through the lower rock barrier on the left side of the face to reach the edge of the steep central ice slope above. Working left up the slope they finally emerged onto the North West Ridge and, after a total of 10-hours and 600m of climbing, the summit.
This route was named Chamaka (Aymara for darkness) and featured ice pitches of 75-85°. The South West Face was probably first climbed by Austrians via a route named Durch das Nasenloch, but this has now largely disappeared due to glacial retreat.
The Rauch-Suppé route appears to start up the same gully system as Chamaka, but then continues direct through rocky terrain, left of the central ice slope, to join the 2010 route near the top.
The last year has not been an easy one for Suppé.
At the end of July 2010 Argentinean resident Suppé was close to the summit ridge of Ala Izquierda (5,532m), the West Peak of Condoriri, having nearly climbed the c600m South Face (a D- snow and ice face that rises to 60°). Her partner was 50-year-old Australian senior constable, Peter Wiesenekker, who was travelling and climbing in South America.
Wiesenekker is reported to have fallen, dragged off Suppé, and the two fell c400m to the bottom of the face.
Amazingly, both were alive, though Wiesenekker's leg was broken and he had taken serious blows to the head. Suppé had a compound fracture to her right ankle, and was losing a lot of blood.
Bolivian night's are cold in July, and their clothes were wet from the fall, so inevitably they spent a miserable night, partially hallucinating, on the glacier.
Next day Wiesenekker was incoherent, and Suppé realized she would have to cross the glacier and attempt to signal local helpers at base camp with a torch.
She couldn't walk, and crawling through typical Andean penitentes was too painful, so she made laborious progress inch by inch on her bum, lifting her injured foot with a trekking pole looped through a crampon strap.
Suppé made it through a second night and was eventually found by a rescue team. It took another 18 hours to get her off the mountain and down to the main city of La Paz. Sadly, the team was too late for Wiesenekker, who had died of hypothermia.
Suppé returned to Germany for medical treatment, and after 11 months, and 10 operations, she is free from a cast. In May this year she celebrated with an ascent of 6,380m Nevado de Cachi in Argentina, before moving to Bolivia, where she hopes to complete further climbs this season.
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