BURSTTwenty One year old German climber, Malik Schirawski has spent much of his climbing thus far racing to the crag and working kick ass projects. At eighteen, he began thinking about changing things up. The result was a recent seven week expedition to Peru, where he and two friends established a 5.14d (9a) sport route at approximately 4,500 metres in the Andes, and rethought what it means to claim a first ascent. He shared with Gripped.
“I think I’ve been using this analogy within my friend group,” Malik says. “If you compare it to a sprinter, I’ve been sprinting my whole life in sport climbing terms. I’ve been climbing in local areas, which are in my comfort zone. I get in with my car, I can warm up in a gym, get in my car go climb routes in the ninth grade in Spain, where conditions are pretty good.”
Peru was something other. Like training with five mile runs for a marathon. A totally different beast. Malik felt it.
“It felt a bit like hurdles in comparison to climbing at my home crag, because you’re not used to the nutrition, you’re not used to the altitude, and you’re sleeping at about 4,000 metres elevation. It’s cold at night. Our sinks in the refuge were freezing every evening. It was a really cool combination of expedition and sport climbing.”
The idea began with a photograph. Malik and his close friend Arlo Rogers (UK), were sitting beside their vans in Switzerland, talking about adventurous sport climbing beyond chasing the next grade. Malik opened a gallery on his phone and found a picture of a striking arete in Peru, at a place called, Pitumarca, bolted by Charlotte Dusseailles of Coldhouse Media.
“If I ever can climb one banger, I would really love to climb this route,” he told Arlo. Arlo needed little convincing. “Mate, we just need to get out asses down there.”
The idea faded for a while, then resurfaced six months later when the pair met Josh Ibbetson (UK) at Sant Linyà in Spain. They spent two weeks laughing their way through miserable weather, unable to climb their projects, until the conversation turned back to Peru. The three began researching the possibilities online, sitting in a café in Balaguer with WiFi and a global map of climbing opportunities.
“We were looking at the map, and I have a big Google Map where there’s different emojis for crags that have been developed, crags where I know there are projects, and then they’re differentiated by season. You can turn on filters and see the whole globe with loads of pins of where I want to be, where I want to go.”
Malik laughed at the my idea of his map as a pin cushion. Behind the spontaneity, though, was a serious undertaking. The team needed funding, equipment and time. Petzl and Scarpa supported the trip, Petzl supplied bolts and hardware, and the climbers shared sponsorship and photography income. They travelled cheaply, with help from Bergfreunde covering their flights, and Rab providing the needed gear.
Malik was on the edge of nineteen, when the plan took shape. He was studying online while living in France and coaching climbers through training plans covering physical, mental and nutritional preparation. The trip was also an early step towards a professional climbing future.
“We’ve been talking a lot about getting something that’s truly our vision,” he says. “I do love adventure and that sense of uncertainty. I can find that within sport climbing or pushing hard projects, within training. Though really, I also want to see different sides of the planet, and climbing really is my tool for doing that.”
The journey took them from Europe to Lima to Cusco (elevation approximately 3,500m) then by bus and taxi towards Pichamarca and the Chacuyahuasca Valley. There they hooked up with local legend, Jorge Sirvas Milla (everyone calls him Coco). Malik was emphatic about the welcome they received.
“Without him there would be no story to tell. Coco basically is the place. He’s been bolting there for the last twelve years. It’s incredible to go to a sector like this and have a local who’s willing to show you around. There are no closed projects. It’s all open, and he’s showing you around and telling you, ‘Maybe go and look at that wall. Maybe go and look at that project.’ I’ve not seen that at many places, where someone’s so willing and openly welcoming foreigners and giving them all the information.”
The stoke was high. The team arrived with enough equipment to establish one or two exceptional routes, not to bolt an entire sector. On their third day exploring, they found a prominent shield of rock with an obvious arete running up its left side. Emphatically Malic told me, “We were just like, ‘Sweet, this arete needs to be sent. There needs to be some metal on this wall.’” They rappelled in to begin work and then the weather turned nasty. It was the first time they experienced a snowstorm there, and all three were hanging, shivering like Elvis, bolting three lines down this pillar and that shield. “It was an epic day.” Said Malik.
Malik bolted the middle line, which became Cancion de la Cuy. Arlo took the arete later called Cafe y Coco, while Josh worked on the approach pitch and installed the hanging belay. The team initially focused on the arete, which looked like the most obvious line. Malik completed it, then began exploring his own route while his friends continued trying theirs.
The lines shared an opening sequence around 7c. Above it, Malik found a technical, crimpy wall, initially estimating the difficulty at around 8b or 8b+. But just before the headwall, for about two metres, the holds disappeared.
“Below, they have pretty good holds, and then you have a shallow tufa coming down.”
The solution involved a double gaston. It took another session before Malik could complete the short boulder problem.
“Eventually I came up with the double gaston, and it felt super strenuous and ridiculously hard. It took me another session to actually do the whole problem, the two metres. And from then on I was kind of like, Oh shit, it definitely goes.”
The route is around twenty metres long, but reaching it is a substantial part of the undertaking. From the refuge, the team hiked for an hour and a half to two hours up the steep valley. The line starts with an approach pitch around 6a or 6b, leading to a sloping ledge and hanging belay. A day on the route could mean nine or ten hours in a harness, with the uphill approach and descent bookending the climbing.
At 4,500 metres, the percentage of oxygen in the air remains the same as at sea level, but atmospheric pressure is much lower, meaning each breath delivers considerably less oxygen to the body. The effects on hard physical exertion were immediate.
“I remember the first route I climbed. It feels like a snake was compressing on my forearms and the burn strikes quick. It feels like the strangest pump ever, where your forearms are about to explode, and you’re kind of gasping for air in equal measure.”
The team discovered that sustained power endurance was particularly punishing, while short, maximal efforts felt much more manageable.
“What we found is that the thing that works the worst at altitude is those power endurance efforts where it’s twenty moves, no rest. You just use all your stored aerobic capacity to do those twenty moves. The downside is that it really messes with your body.”
He compares the feeling after such an effort to a deep sea diver surfacing and struggling to breathe. “You feel like this when you’re clipping the chains.” By contrast, the three or four move boulder problem at the heart of Cancion de la Cuy suited the conditions.
“Bouldering efforts, maximum power for three to four moves, actually feel relatively similar to baseline level, because it’s less of an oxygen system that is used. That was perfect for the 5.14d, basically. You do a boulder, then do a rest, and that scheme works really well at altitude. But as soon as it gets power endurance, you’re battling with lack of oxygen.”
Acclimatisation required discipline. Malik had increased his training prior to leaving Europe up to volume to forty hours, hoping to build the capacity to sustain long, demanding days. Instead, he pushed himself into a hole and became sick during the final two weeks.
“As often in life, the slower way is often the faster. The slower you take it in the first couple of days, until your body has enough red blood cells that it can support the altitude, the better it is.”
On his second day at the crag, he climbed an 8b+ that felt harder than any of the six or seven 9a routes he had climbed in the preceding months back home. “I was so incredibly pumped. I was like, this is a big ass fight.”
The team gradually increased their workload, generally climbing two days on and taking one off, before moving towards alternate days as they focused on the main route. The weather remained remarkably consistent for six weeks, so they could plan around fatigue rather than wait for conditions. Daylight limited them to about four or five attempts on the project. For recovery, Malik had a straightforward prescription.
“I think the best recovery, and it’s completely underrated, is a couch and nothing to do, and a good nap every now and then is Zen.”
The grade itself was judged against other hard routes in the area. Malik is wary of treating grades as precise measurements.
“The closer I get to my limits, the more confusing grades are. I flashed 8c+, and sometimes it feels like it takes me five or six days to do an 8c+ if it’s not my style. Then I did 9a in a day. But sometimes 9a can take me three to four days, or sometimes there are 9as where I’m like, Fuck, how do I even do that?”
Malik and his companions came up with a plan. They agreed to claim team first ascents rather than individual ones. That’s like an ace that most climbing packs don’t pick up. Malik explained it.
“We decided prior to this trip that we will not claim first ascent. We will claim team first ascent. Whoever does the line on this trip will get a share of the glory of the first ascent. We climb as one.”
The reasoning was admirable; friends travelling to the other side of the world to climb hard should work together, not against one another. If Malik found a knee bar, he shared it. There was no point withholding information to protect a personal claim. Sharing sends on Instagram was team focused. He really saw value in this approach.
“There was never this moment where I was thinking, ‘Oh, I found this cool beta while working a line, but I’m not going to tell anyone because I want the first ascent. Instead it was always like, ‘I found the beta and I was immediately telling them.”
“Being an athlete, and especially wanting to get into a professional space, it’s definitely not a low pressure environment. Agreeing on this team kudos of a first ascent really took out a lot of the pressure for me.” More than that, he found himself remembering his friends’ struggles on the routes even more vividly than his own. It was the vibe they lived on in Peru.
“I really do appreciate it. I remember the fights of my friends on those lines even more than I remember my own, because I was so full heartedly wishing them to do the route.”
Then he adds: “Which I think is the best gift ever.”
For a young climber contemplating a professional future, it is a revealing sentiment. Grades and first ascents provide an easy record of achievement. Generosity, shared knowledge and the pleasure of seeing a friend succeed are harder to measure, but they shaped this expedition as much as the altitude and the climbing. I found that fresh.
The trip began with a photograph and an impulsive declaration beside a van. It demanded months of planning, difficult travel, long approaches, careful acclimatisation and repeated attempts on a hard routes at altitude. The team left Peru with new lines on the wall and a shared understanding of what they had achieved; 9a and at altitude. That’s elevated stuff and not your usual pic and flick.
I spoke with Coco about the visit by the boys from Europe. This was what he told me: “It’s important to leave routes that inspire the next generations of climbers in Peru to dream, which is why I think Malik’s visit with his friends, which resulted in many first ascents and Peru’s first 9a, is significant; it’s something that contributes greatly to the local climbing scene. I also appreciated seeing that they were young climbers with a deep sense of respect for the place, its rules, and its customs, and a passion for the rock that’s becoming increasingly rare these days.”
Coco’s view is supported by Alex Megos, a countryman of Malik. Alex told Gripped: “Their whole trip is extraordinary I think! Absolutely amazing to see them not only travelling to a lesser known country in the climbing world, but also combining expedition style travelling with hard climbing.”
Doing hard stuff in unlikely places, sharing sends amongst friends, respecting the scene you visit, being motivated by adventure over status quo, these are kinda neat. In a game that so often asks who sent it first, sometimes the better question is who made it possible? Having international climbers visiting Peru and seeing locals increase their standing, for Malik and his friends, that will complete the story.
The post The Story of Peru’s First 5.14d: Canción del Cuy appeared first on Gripped Magazine.