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Dec. 2: The
team dropped down to 19,200' and began working
around the areas we'd completed before, but
without finding anything. They then began
the excavation of the platform the Incas
had made. Meanwhile I'd had an interview
with NPR and made a call to, Mr. Domingo Palermo,
the Minister of Education of Peru, who had been
so helpful to us in the past. I also
advised the Director of the National Institute of
Culture (which provided us with our
archaeological permit) to inform him of how our
work was advancing. Ignacio had gone down
to our Advanced Base camp and brought up the last
of our food, leaving just enough to get off the
mountain. In short, it was a day of laying
the foundation for the last task on our Ampato
agenda: Insuring that we had left little or
nothing behind for future looters.
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Joe
Reinhard in tent with PC & Satellite
phone
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Dec. 3: I had forgotten how steep and
potentially dangerous the climb down to the
19,200' plateau was, especially this year with
sections of icy terrain to cover. Crampons
were a necessity this time. And the
rockfalls stayed small until we were all
down--then a huge avalanche swept the face and
would have made short work of any party in
its way. We established that the tent structure
had indeed been used as a place for
sleeping. The grass layer and then sterile
soil, plus remains of a fireplace made that
clear. Meals were becoming rather meager as
supplies thinned out. Lunch consisted
mainly of a piece of cheese and a slice of
salami, plus crackers...there was no
bread. The platform gave no
sign of having been used as a burial place, and
this came as a surprise to us. Why make
such a large platform if nothing was to be placed
in it? It was aligned with the December
solstice. Perhaps the Incas had made so
many offerings at the high ground of the plateau,
they made the platform as a place to make simple
offerings on the surface. Then again,
although we had reached ground level, perhaps
they had dug yet deeper. In any event the
frozen ground put a stop to more digging for
today, and we began clearing out areas that had
not yet been excavated near where other offerings
had been found. This seemed our last hope.
While climbing back up to our camp, we had the
unusual sight of a large waterfall coming
out of a break in the ice. Frozen in the
morning, the sun eventually caused several other
less large waterfalls to form.
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Wooden
spoons which probably belonged to the Ice
Maiden
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Dec. 4: Another beautiful day, and we
meant to make the most of it. Jose examined
the grass summit again, then climbed the snow
free northern summit. The team kept
excavating around the previous uncovered burials
and eventually came across some ceramics.
Only more excavating would give us the answer,
and we only had a day's food, really only enough
to get us off the mountain. So we decided
to call Arequipa and hope that one of the few
people who knew the route into the mountain could
bring more food for a few more days of excavating
if necessary. We were pushing our luck with
the weather, food, health and safety, but we were
determined not to leave the mountain until we
felt confident we would not have reason to return
again.
|
Breakfast
at 20,300' camp
|
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Men
excavating Inca platform with remains of
tent structure in foreground
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Joe
Reinhard's tent in camp with solar panels
in foreground
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Previous updates:
NOV.11th
NOV.24th
NOV.27th
DEC. 1ST
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