Snow Blind on Tunari

An excerpt from my journal about a hike in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Nathaniel and I climbed Tunari in Cochabamba. Some guide books said it is 5200 meters tall, but several internet sites (and my GPS) said it was shorter. I measured it at a height of 5045 meters (16,560 ft), on top of the ridge. There was one rock maybe 5 meters higher than where we were, but it was too snowy and slick to attempt, considering the consequences of falling would be serious. It was fun to say we climbed above 5000 meters, a good bit higher than any mountain in the continental United States.

We left Cochabamba at 6:30 in the morning, driving up the valley to another town, Quillacollo, and then up into the northern range of mountains. It was a tricky drive twenty miles up a cobbled road from the valley floor to the plateau between two sets of high mountains, climbing from 8,000 ft to over 14,000 ft. The road zig-zagged up the side of a steep river gorge. Because of the thunderstorms and heavy rains the night before, thick brown water was rolling through the rapids 1000s of feet below us. There were several places where mud slides had covered the road and even eroded the foundation under the road. Most areas had been cleaned with bulldozers, but one section of about 50 yards had several feet of fresh mud and was so narrow (just barely one lane wide) and so unstable looking that I almost didn’t drive across it. A little boy standing nearby motioned to go on across, that the road was stable—but I still hesitated, wondering why I should trust the advice of a 10 year old boy who doesn’t even know how to drive. Then I remembered passing several buses and heavy trucks that had just come through this section, so I decided to hold my breath and cross without giving it much more thought. Those tense few seconds got my heart beating faster than the actual mountain climbing to come later. If Vanessa had been with us, I’m sure that would have been the end of our trip. Between the two of us, she is a much more rational thinker.

We weren’t sure which of the many peaks around us was actually Tunari, the highest peak in Cochabamba, so we stopped in a small village and asked several men for directions. Armed with a mental map, we drove on up to the plateau, got even more confused and returned to the village for more help. Two campesino men offered to drive up with us and show us the trail head. Which was another 4 or 5 miles up the road. I asked how they were going to get back. The older man said he had to attend to his animals up that way anyway and the younger one said it would be no trouble to walk back down. We parked our car at the end of a dirt track but before we parted ways the older man made sure we understood the route to the summit. I offered each of them about one dollar. They both seemed surprised and pleased that I gave them a little something for their troubles. That wouldn’t have been the case in Cusco or some other area that sees more tourist traffic. In Cusco locals would probably not have agreed to less than $10 for providing such a service.

We parked at 14,490 ft, so the total climb was about 2100 vertical feet. Using my altimeter watch, I recorded a total vertical gain of 2950 feet (there was a bit of going up and down over a couple of passes and ridges). The GPS said we walked 5.8 miles round trip. We passed several campesino homes where the families were raising sheep and llamas, but not doing any farming. I think it is too high and cold for even potatoes to grow. We passed a beautiful lake, climbed a pass that was covered in snow and then made our way up the least steep face/ridge to the summit. On our way up the pass, we met a German backpacker on his way down. He pointed out the way to the summit ridge in broken English. He looked cold, hungry and a bit confused. Higher up we saw where he had camped during the thunder/snow storm the night previously. There was a little fire ring and an imprint in the snow the size of a sleeping bag, so I don’t think he was even carrying a tent with him. We offered him a ride back to Cochabamba later in the day, but he said he intended to go on further into the mountains. This was the highest Nathaniel has ever been, and the highest for me in over 10 years. The highest I have ever been is a little over 18,000 feet on the altiplano of Chile in 1990. Nathaniel and I had been acclimatizing in Cochabamba for 5 days and were feeling pretty comfortable at 8500 feet. On Tunari, Nathaniel had a more difficult time with the altitude than I did. He felt constantly out of breath and had to take frequent breaks. I can’t really explain my ease at altitude. I used my heart rate monitor a bit and saw that during rest breaks my heart rate would quickly fall back to about 55 bpm (pounding hard but slowly). With steady climbing it was in the 130s (compared with 150s and 160s on a long mountain bike climb). But near the peak of Tunari, my heart rate wouldn’t easily fall below 100 even during the breaks. The snow that fell the night before (between 3 and 6 inches) made the climb more tricky because Nathaniel only had running shoes. His feet quickly got wet and cold. The air temperature was probably in the 50s, so I wasn’t too worried about frostbite. I didn’t even put on a jacket until the descent. The slope we were climbing was not terribly steep, but I did fear that if one of us slipped, we would be in for a fast slide to the bottom. We were careful not to climb above an cliffs or rocks. From the ridge it was a shear drop of about 2000 feet off the opposite side of the mountain, but we stayed well clear of any slippery spots above this side of the ridge. It would have been safer to use crampons and ice axes, but I don’t think we were on a steep enough slope to have slid too far even if we had lost our footing (famous last words).

We took some great pictures and had a nice time up on top. The peaks and cliffs below us were all covered in snow. Beyond them we could see the broad Cochabamba valley and the urban sprawl of the city itself (at least half a million people). Clouds were climbing up the steep face of the mountain and swirling around our heads. One minute we would have clear view of everything around us, and the next we would be lost in a fog. The climb was both beautiful and challenging, the slope was not too dangerous, the weather did not seem threatening, and we did not push ourselves too hard or for too long—I did not feel I was putting Nathaniel or myself in any real danger of physical harm, as others would criticize me for later on. On the way down we stopped at a campesino house where I asked if I could take some pictures of the family. A young mother and father were raising about 50 sheep and llamas, and two little girls in two tiny rock huts with straw roofs surrounded by a rock walled corral. There was not a tree in sight. This high on the plateau, in the thin cold air, only brown grass and rocks grow well. The mother cleaned snot from the little girls faces for the formal picture. The five year old stood straight and proud between her parents, but the 3 year old began crying and wouldn’t show her face to the camera. After a few minutes of conversation, we agreed to take the father, the two girls, and several slaughtered sheep, back down the hill with us to Quillacollo. The road from here down to the valley sees little traffic, so I am sure transportation is a constant preoccupation for families who live up here. This family spoke Quechua much better than Spanish so we had some difficulty communicating. I said I would send them copies of the pictures via email if they had any family members in town with an email account, but they had never heard of such a thing. I don’t guess the internet has quite yet penetrated every corner of the globe. They wanted to know when I would come back to share the prints with them and how much I would charge. I promised that if I ever came back to climb Tunari again, I would bring the pictures, but of course not charge for them. I asked if they had a church in the community down the hill and if they were believers. He said there was not church but that they were Catholic. He asked about my beliefs and I said I was an evangelical and trusted in Jesus as my savior. He didn’t seem at all interested in pursuing this topic of conversation further so I let it die.

The problems—and there were many—started on the way home and continued to worsen as the night progressed. We both put on sun block and hats before the climb, but I didn’t think to wear sunglasses. It didn’t feel like we were getting too much sun exposure on the mountain. On the way home I had a piercing headache that I attributed to the altitude, to hunger, or maybe dehydration. We went home, cleaned up, and went to dinner at the McDonald’s house. During dinner, Nathaniel’s eyes turned really red and started weeping uncontrollably. He looked like he was in great pain, but he just waved it off as an insignificant consequence of the great adventure we had had. Then my vision started to turn cloudy. My eyes felt irritated and began weeping. After dinner we were looking at some travel pictures on the McDonald’s laptop, but I could barely make out the shapes of mountains, animals, and people. Ironically, without having the slightest idea that it was happening to us at that very moment, earlier in the day I had told Nathaniel about how some mountain climbers go “blind” from too much exposure to bright snow. It did not occur to either of us to bring sunglasses. Because it was partly clouding and cool, and we were only going to be in the snow for a couple of hours, they didn’t seem to be a necessity. It must have been a combination of the altitude and latitude (close to the equator) that caused the ultraviolet radiation to be much more intense than we have been accustomed to. Later, I noticed that Nathaniel had an intense sunburn under his chin and around his eyes and ears—on every patch of skin that he hadn’t manage to cover thoroughly with sun block. We had on hats, but the sun reflected off of the snow and caught us from underneath. My thermal underwear top was a bit too short at the waist and I even got a severe little sunburn were an inch of my fleshy white gut had been exposed.

So to continue the comical tale of our tragic saga, we cut dinner conversation short, excused ourselves. Once outside, the headlights of passing cars felt like they were piercing my skull, making it was impossible for me to even consider driving, so I asked Vanessa to drive. On the way back to the Lyon’s house we stopped at a grocery store for eye drops. After a few minutes of waiting in the car with the kids, I went in looking for Vanessa, but my vision was so cloudy, I got disoriented, couldn’t find Vanessa (she found me), and even had trouble making my back outside to the car. Back at home, the eye drops offered no relief and the pain intensified to the point that it was unbearable. I could not leave my eyes open because any amount of light was too bright, but when I closed them it was even more painful. With every blind of my eyelids, it felt like sand paper was scratching my eye balls. Four Advil did nothing for the pain. I wanted to go to sleep, but all I could do was pace the bedroom floor, weep, and moan quietly. Nathaniel was in the same shape I was in. Finally at 11:00 PM, I caved in and asked Vanessa to take us to the emergency room. The doctors knew immediately that we had snow-blindness and rather redundantly told us “we should have worn sunglasses.” They put some sort of gel in my eyes that gave me relief from the pain for about a minute. Through my tears, I asked them to repeat the process, but that said they could only give me a couple of doses, and that I would have to live with the pain for a while. They tightly taped cotton patches over both of my eyes and said I would have to wear these for probably 48 to 72 hours until my vision returned. They gave me some more powerful pain medicine, hoping it would at least dull the pain so I could get some sleep. I never really felt any positive affect from the pain killer. I felt dizzy and my legs felt numb, but my eyes continued to sear with pain all night long. I laid in bed wide awake all night, staring at blackness inside my head and trying to forget the excruciating pain.

The next morning Vanessa and Jack McDonald took us to see an eye specialist, who again proceeded to tell us “we should have worn sunglasses.” But he was gentle and kind, I appreciated that. It was comforting to know that he was quite familiar with our predicament and knew exactly what to do. He prescribed some more drops and advised us to keep the patches on continually. He said we would have to endure the worst pain during the coming day but that by tomorrow we should start feeling a bit better. And it was just as he said, pretty much unbearable all day long. Any little light felt like a search light was being shined right into my brain. The patches forced me to keep my eyelids closed, and if fact my eyes were so swollen, it felt practically impossible to open them. Vanessa changed our patches and was horrified at how disfigured our faces had become. Vanessa, Luciana, and the McDonald’s and the Lyon’s led us around all day—to the doctor, to the bed, to the bathroom, fed us one bite at a time. I felt pretty helpless, and silly. I was never really scared because the doctors had said it was temporary condition. But I was annoyed, and embarrassed, felt helpless, and a bit foolish.

We spent the rest of the day fumbling around the Lyon’s house. I’m not sure how many “life lessons” I will be able to draw from this experience, but I do know that if I had to lose one of my senses, I would not want it to be my sight. I have a new appreciation for the challenges blind people must face. I slept most of the day, trying not to concentrate on the pain in my head. That evening we ate Thanksgiving leftovers. It was my first attempt to feed myself blind. It is embarrassing to put what you thought was a piece of turkey in your mouth, only to find that the fork was empty. I think ate just about everything on my plate, but half of it could have fallen on the table and I would have not known. That night Nathaniel and I “listened” to some Disney cartoon movie with Isaiah and Luciana—too many sound effects and not enough words.

To shorten the story somewhat, the pain began to diminish that night and by the next morning, Sunday, we were feeling and looking much better. After another visit to the doctor (he came into his office on Sunday morning just to check on us), he said we could take the patches off and begin trying to get around on our own. It hurt to open my eyes, but I could see a little. Everything was hazy and I felt dizzy and uncoordinated. Both Nathaniel and I were improving at about the same rate. By the end of the day we were getting around fine, and by Monday morning almost back to normal, the pain was practically gone. After another visit to the doctor he said I would be able to drive the eight hours back to Santa Cruz (our trip had been delayed an extra two days because of our little adventure into blindness), if I didn’t drive for too long, letting Vanessa drive part of the way. We said our goodbyes to the Lyon’s and headed over the pass and back down to the heat and tropical vegetation of the lowlands. I was still not seeing too clearly, everything seemed doubled. I saw twice as many buses, trucks, buses, bicycles, kids, cows, and donkeys has I had seen on the way up and miraculously managed not to hit anything real, or its fictitious double. Today, as I write this on Thursday six days after our climb, and as I pull dead skin from my sunburned ears and eyelids, my vision is just almost as good as it was before the climb.

As a defensive postscript to the story, I would like to say that I do not feel that “I put my son’s life in danger,” as some of Vanessa’s church lady friends (missionary women from her Bible study group, and some of Nathaniel’s female teachers), seem to be implying with their gossip and judgmental comments. While I don’t think I would repeat the climb, knowing that if I did so my son or I would be blinded for three days following it; I still do not think we made any major errors in our planning for the climb, nor do I think I put my child’s life in danger in making the climb. What life lessons have I learned? To always wear sunglasses when in the snow at altitude. That is one mistake I will not make again. I can’t promise anything about the others.