2 of 101: The Pinnacles

Over Easter, Jason, Juliet, Karl and myself attempted, and conquered, the mountains collectively known as 'The Pinnacles'. We started in good spirits early on Sunday morning and within 30 minutes and only a short way up the 759 metre climb I was wondering what the hell we were doing! Manning it up however and leaving the pain barrier behind we made reasonable time besides the fact that after a week of perfect weather, in stark opposition to our spirits, slowly deteriorated through till lunch at which time it had begun to rain.

We battled on however and made it to the hut a short time later and could view the machu picchu like peak despite the low cloud cover and decided to leave the final climb till we had had a spot of afternoon tea. This turned out to be not such a great decision as by the time we had afternoon tead, climbed the nearly 600 steps, climbed ladders, boulders and made the final ascent the view we should have seen was nowhere to be found, and in fact this is exactly what we saw, if you look closely you can see some variation in the shades of grey. Hmmm well worth all that effort!!!














What was worth all the effort however was the effort involved in taking almost an entire pack of food including a banana cake, wine, morrocan lamb, bacon, crepes, maple syrup amongst other things which sure beat baked beans and porridge. Luckily it wasn't too cold that night as I realised I had somehow forgotten to pack a spare t shirt or jersey! The rain had ceased by morning, however the view was almost no better when myself and Jason climbed the peak at 6:30am for a non existent sunrise though by the time we had made it halfway down the weather had cleared up nicely, grrrrr. Jolly good time though and only 99 to go now...