The snow beneath him still stained with blood from Peru's worst climbing accident in memory, mountaineer Chris Reinegger trudged past rescuers, took a deep breath and began the same perilous ascent.
Undeterred by the deaths of eight foreign climbers just two days before on July 21, the Austrian policeman and his climbing mates could not resist the beauty -- or sheer thrill -- of the now notorious Alpamayo mountain in Peru's Andes.
"It was not a good omen ... It was not a good feeling. You just have to close your mind and climb -- fast," recalled Reinegger after climbing the mountain and making a two-day return trek back to this remote Andean hamlet, the last staging post on the climb to Alpamayo.
"I will always be prepared to take the risk because climbing is our life," the 30-year-old added. "Mont Blanc [in France] is nothing compared to this ... and the danger is a kick."
An unpredictable climate which many blame on global warming and El Nino and a steady stream of often ill-prepared climbers have led to a rash of accidents in this dramatic stretch of Andean peaks 500km north of Lima -- some of the most challenging climbing in the hemisphere.
Since June, 11 people, nearly all foreigners, have died in the stretch of peaks known as the Cordilleras Blanca and Huayhuash. And more than a month remains in the June through September climbing season which draws about 5,000 climbers yearly.
Climate changes
The accidents are getting bigger and more frequent. In the past five years, 35 climbers have died in these mountains. Global warming is melting glaciers, making avalanches and ice wall collapses increasingly common.
Around 50 climbers died in accidents over the same period in the Nepalese Himalayas -- including nearly a dozen deaths on Mount Everest. The Himalayas are higher, making them theoretically more dangerous, and Peru's accident rate ranks high by comparison.
Guides in Peru's Andes feel they are having to take risks too and want the slopes made safe by having dangerous ice slabs pre-emptively broken off to prevent accidents.
"There shouldn't be this many people dying. The trouble is El Nino is heating up the ice and causing collapses and avalanches," said trainee mountain guide Aldo Sotomayor, who was just a few hundred meters behind the victims of July's accident on Alpamayo.
Four Germans, two Israelis, a Dutchman and an Argentine were killed in the July 21 accident when a block of ice broke away near the summit of the 5,944m-high Alpamayo and sent the group tumbling down a sheer face of ice.
They had been clinging precariously to the mountain with crampons and ice picks when a block the size of a telephone booth crashed down the narrow ice channel they were in.
Alerted by a guide higher on the mountain, police rescuers trekked through the night and part of the next day to reach the site because winds and snowfall ruled out flying in by helicopter. An Israeli woman who survived the initial fall died before they arrived and there were no other survivors.
Rescuers have recovered seven of the bodies. They have yet to find the corpse of an Israeli man who they say fell into a crevasse, which they may have to abandon there permanently.
On the nearby slopes of Huascaran mountain -- which at 6,767m is Peru's highest -- there is a vivid testament to the fatal allure of these mountains.
Experience no safeguard
An experienced South African climber who tried to open a new route there in 2000 is still dangling from the rope where he died -- his body now freeze-dried by the cold and wind.
Before heading out on the climb, he had told his family he wanted his body to be left where he fell if he were killed, rescuers said.
"The accident in Alpamayo was just bad luck," said Lieutenant Henry Paz, head of operations for the high mountain police rescue team in the nearby town of Yungay.
"But accident numbers are increasing. Many climbers don't even bother to come and register with us ..." he stopped, interrupted by an emergency call. A Mexican man had died on Huascaran after apparently failing to acclimatize properly to the altitude.
Peru is not considering any new regulations to reduce climbing accidents. Police and guides alike say many climbers refuse to turn back in bad weather because they have already come so far.
"A lot of foreigners don't think of the danger," said mule driver Gerardo Cirillo, waiting at dawn for the next group of climbers to roll in to Cashapampa and hire him for US$10 a day and his mules at US$5 a piece -- a small fortune here.
"I give them a warning, but they want to go anyway. As long as they want to keep climbing, I'll take them," he said.
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