Climbing
After facing avalanches, toxic volcanic fumes, dehydration and near collapse, Thomas Palmer tells the story of how he completed the world’s maiden exploration of Colombia’s tallest active volcano.
We were on La Cresta when it happened, and everything almost changed in the blink of an eye.
Tim went to scope the part of the volcano that we were descending. He’d put a safety deadman in the snow for extra protection, and Luis, Tim and I were connected to the same rope. As he started to walk across the ice ledge, I heard an enormous crack, Tim dropped, and everything felt like it was going in slow motion.
An enormous avalanche had started and Tim was caught right in the middle of it as the whole ice shelf moved with him, and rocks went tumbling underneath.
I’ve never heard the kind of cry that I heard coming from Tim at that moment. It was a genuine “I’m going to die now” scream. Within a split second, the deadman failed, ripped out of the snow and hit Luis full in the face, breaking his nose instantly. As this was happening, we were all getting pulled forward as Tim dropped and Luis started moving in the same direction – I could see the rope shooting away from me.
As this was all playing out, Alex reacted quickest and managed to somehow secure Luis between himself and a rock, which managed to hold Tim through the avalanche.
Without a doubt, he had saved all of our lives.
I’ve never heard the kind of cry that I heard coming from Tim at that moment. It was a genuine ‘I’m going to die now’ scream
It was the craziest moment, and one where I almost didn’t realise what was happening until it was over. But it shook us to our core. I asked myself ‘What on earth are we doing here?’ and we were all wondering whether we should even continue when the risks and danger were so high.
So, what were we doing just below one of the volcanic peaks of Colombia’s Nevado del Huila that February day?
We were going to attempt to summit the four peaks of Volcano Huila, totalling 4,168 metres of climbing, in temperatures as low as -20ºC, traversing and exploring sections of mountain that have never been set foot on before.
Challenge accepted
The idea to climb all four peaks of Huila had started just as the Coronavirus was starting to spread around the UK [in March 2020].
But my own participation in such an incredible adventure would have been completely unthinkable less than three years ago when I was struggling with depression and feeling very low. At that point, as a film producer, I was asked to do a week’s filming work on Red Bull’s Great British Swim in 2018, in which Ross Edgley swam around the whole of mainland Great Britain.
I was in a massive mental rut at the time, but seeing Ross’s pure endurance and resilience – and figuring out for myself that he’s just a normal guy – started to put ideas in my head that I could push myself in similar ways.
It was definitely the start of something, and the following year I was in Colombia attempting to climb the country’s 10 tallest peaks in 30 days, despite being an absolute novice. I’d never done anything like that in my life.
It took us longer than we’d planned and we never got to do the final peak, Volcano Huila, as it’s so difficult to access and we were eventually told to leave the area by armed forces.
Colombia is a very politically complicated country – making challenges like this even harder to accomplish – but I had the feeling that we had to go back there and finish the story. Nobody had ever been on all four peaks, and the area had been closed for more than 30 years due to the armed conflict.
So, myself, Timothée Callec, and Alex Torres, all of whom had climbed together in 2019, went back in February 2021, along with Luis Silva Pete, a member of Colombia’s indigenous Nasa community.
Luis didn’t know we were going to invite him until we arrived in the country. We did an interview with him on his farm, which is 3,600m up in the foothills of Huila, and asked him if he was up for it. He replied: “I’m ready to die for this expedition.” That’s the kind of motivation you look to match – he was completely all in.
The four of us became like a brotherhood on the expedition. In life-threatening situations, we had each other’s backs, and that created a certain bond between us.
After months of preparation, including lots of hill climbing, rock climbing and cardio work, we set off for base camp, having first navigated the nerve-wracking journey into FARC territory to pick up Luis.
I felt excited but the nerves were building. So much had gone into this project. Some people would say the 1,200m climb to base camp is the hardest part. It was a lot in one day at that altitude and it’s almost vertical, through really muddy forest, while we carried 20kg backpacks. For the challenge we were taking on, we should’ve been carrying virtually nothing. But with all our food, camera equipment, drone, drone batteries, safety equipment, and ropes, it all adds up.
We were late leaving so the last stages of the 10-hour climb were in darkness, and I was struggling because, annoyingly, I suffer from altitude sickness. It just gets me. And it really got me like never before on that first day. I just had to collapse and get on the floor at one point, or I would have fainted. Luis put my pack on his shoulder and wandered off into the distance, even though he was already carrying his own bag.
After two days of eating and acclimatising at base camp, we set off for the northern peak at 2am. We were exhausted before we started as Luis and I hadn’t slept, and Tim got about 30 minutes, but five hours after trudging through deep snow, we summited as the sun rose. We’d cleared our first hurdle.
One thing about Huila is that there is no evacuation plan. It’s not the Alps, so there’s not going to be a helicopter swooping in
We refuelled and set off for La Cresta which, like the southern peak, nobody had been on since 1981.
For me, this journey was as much about the exploration as the ego trip of summiting the four peaks. And traversing from the northern peak to the bottom of La Cresta, we were breaking new ground. This involved our first rappel, during which I managed to drop our radio that gave us contact to base camp in case of any problems.
One thing about Huila is that there is no evacuation plan. It’s not the Alps, so there’s not going to be a helicopter swooping in. So we had to detour down into a crevasse to retrieve the radio.
That was the first big rappel that we did, which was incredibly daunting. I came face to face with absolute fear and just had to do it. It was a bit like being on the edge of a diving board. I had tried to mentalise about being in those situations, but Alex was shouting "just go, rappel, rappel, rappel!”
Off we went down these huge 30-metre icicles – Huila has some incredible ice formations – and we made it to the base of La Cresta before starting the climb, which was relatively un-fazing.
We sent Luis ahead to summit first so he would become the first Nasa person to stand on that peak. There was a real moment of unity as we embraced when we all joined him at the summit. It was incredible. There was a real big lift in spirits and whatever exhaustion anyone was feeling temporarily halted as we knew we were halfway there.
But then disaster almost struck.
After the avalanche, we all had mixed feelings about whether to go on. I was so driven by this project that I didn’t want to stop. I knew that kind of danger could signal the end, and I know it really shook Tim down to his boots. To be in that type of experience must’ve been terrifying. But we all had a chat, regrouped and on we went.
The onward journey
As we descended La Cresta and headed towards the central peak, we had two main problems. First, we were in a race against time because we had to summit three peaks on day one, to leave us enough time to traverse from the central to southern peak on day two as that was a much bigger distance. And second, we were starting to become dehydrated. We’d only carried a couple of litres of water each. Although we had stoves to melt snow into water, time was against us, so we couldn’t sit around doing that for too long.
Descending La Cresta was tough as we struggled against exhaustion, not to mention some really tricky edges, ledges, and having to crawl through what were almost ice caves. If that wasn’t enough, throughout the expedition I’d be walking through the snow and then ‘boom!’ – suddenly I’m up to my shoulders in it with my legs dangling down through a hole.
And because we were traversing uncharted territory, there was no route to follow. We’d use the drone to try and plan our route and Alex is a fantastic guide with a great background of mountaineering experience from Peru and Bolivia.
He rated our next climb up to central, the most daunting of the four peaks, as one of the 10 most dangerous he’d ever done – not because of its technical challenge but because it has 14 different gas vents pumping out smoke. A lot of it was sulphur, so we had to climb with the smell of dirty, rotting eggs all around us. The volcanic fumes sit in pockets in the ground, and you can’t see them all the time.
Not only that, but we were really dehydrated by this point. Tim asked to stop for water as we climbed, but the sun was setting and night was drawing in quickly – we had to reach the summit before dark.
I could hardly breathe at all, and my eyes were burning so intensely that I could hardly see anymore
We kept waiting for the wind to blow the toxic fumes in the opposite direction, and then we’d move, but the wind would change and suddenly I was breathing in sulphur. I could hardly breathe at all, and my eyes were burning so intensely that I could hardly see anymore. And if all that wasn’t enough, as night fell, the temperature had plummeted to -15°C, and we were absolutely freezing cold. We’d been climbing the ice vertically using axes and there was a constant stream of slush rolling down my face from whoever was ahead. I couldn’t feel my feet at all, and wouldn’t do until we returned to base camp.
At that point, I remember thinking ‘what are we doing out here?’, but I had to rein that voice in because if too much doubt had set in, I could have easily started freaking out really quickly. Anyone could.
We managed to get within 50m of the summit when we decided to build a bivouac, which is where we would spend the night. Unfortunately, it was right next to a small volcanic vent, meaning every 30 seconds we were treated to a massive inhalation of sulphur that burnt our eyes and throat. It was quite worrying, but there wasn't much more we could do about it. It was dark and we didn’t have anywhere else to go.
We rested there for eight hours, drinking aqua panela, which is basically just sugar water, and eating noodle soup. We did the best we could to sleep, but it was hard as we had to bury our heads in our jackets because of the fumes. But we kept each other’s spirits up.
The next morning was Alex’s birthday, so we woke up by singing 'Happy Birthday' to him. Even though my boots and gloves were frozen into near non-existence that morning, I did feel quite regenerated and I was buzzing by the wonder of the crazy exploration we were doing.
After we summited central, we started the traverse to the southern peak, which Luis estimated would take an hour. “Dunno about that mate,” I thought to myself, and the almost endless series of hurdles and obstacles we endured on our way proved me right.
Every time we came up against a roadblock or a huge technical challenge, I kept thinking “it’s over”, but each time we found a way through.
We had to perform continuous rappels and there were a couple of hairy moments when both Tim and I fell and were left dangling from our ropes, but luckily the safeties held firm. For each rappel, we used a stack – a large piece of metal that gets driven into the ground which you often can’t retrieve – and we’d used our last one as we approached the final glacier before the base of the southern peak. If we had to do another rappel, we’d have had to turn back.
Right now, 36 hours into the trip, we were running on adrenaline as we were about to start the final climb up the southern peak. It looked a bit like Mordor at the base with all the smoke, rocks and barrenness. We had a team chat during which Alex said he was worried that something bad would happen on our climb. The snow looked really deep, and there was a huge avalanche risk. We had a heated discussion and there was talk of turning back. Tim especially was quite rightly very apprehensive because he’d just seen his life flash before his eyes.
I just felt like “we’re here – how can we not go up?”. Maybe I was too naïve and driven that I wasn’t thinking enough about safety, but that’s why you have team-mates. For me, the project was all about risk. We’d all risked so much in terms of time and finances, and this was our final risk.
Eventually, we came to an understanding that we would side-track up through the rocks, and if the snow looked better we’d go for it – if not, we’d call it a day. As we climbed, the snow got deeper and deeper. Alex was looking back at me, shaking his head, saying: “Five more minutes and if the snow doesn’t get better, we’re turning back.” I watched his every step. If it was above knee height, it’s dangerous, and with each step it gradually decreased until it stayed at about shin height, and we kept going.
Eventually, we summited the south peak together, side by side, in deep snow. It was just the most exhilarating feeling to be standing there.
And I knew what it meant to Luis. The exploration of Huila was so important for him personally. Standing on the southern peak made him an instant legend among his Nasa people, who’ve lived there forever. The elders of the community wanted to see photos, they had lots of questions about the volcano, and wanted to hear stories about it from Luis.
What goes up…
But, the exhilaration was soon cut short when Alex said “OK, we might be at the peak but we’ve got to get back to base camp, boys!” What we endured next was nothing short of hellish, and required even more resilience. It took us nine hours to get back to base camp, trekking and rock climbing through the night in freezing temperatures. Whatever had been driving us to get through the peaks was rapidly leaving us as we were overcome with exhaustion. We passed through one area where we climbed rocks, as they were literally falling down, hitting me in the chest and legs.
There was no water, we had no gas left, and every river we came across was dirty grey with sulphur. My mouth was so dry and parched – it was about 15 hours since my last drink.
By the end, my body had taken such a beating that I was moving like an old man. All I could manage was three steps before stopping to rest.
Finally, after one last gruelling rock climb, we were back at base camp and what an amazing feeling that was. Tom Laffay, the cameraman who filmed our return, said we didn’t look like humans at that point. I certainly didn’t feel like one.
We spent two days at base camp recovering. The feeling slowly returned to my feet, which I discovered had taken a real battering. Every single one of my toenails snapped off and my toes had gone black. They became infected and I’m still on antibiotics a month later. It was horrendous.
Parts of Tim’s feet had gone black, and we were worried he had frostbite. And Luis still had his broken nose. Luckily, he’d already told us he was ready to die for this expedition.
When you come face to face with your fears, you’re going to learn something about yourself
To be able to endure and resist for so long during this exploration told me something that I like about my character. And to not be that character who I’ve been in the past with that strong inner critic feeding me negative thoughts and feelings was huge for me. It’s given me such a strong confidence boost.
Some people might think it’s crazy if you have to do loads of extreme things all the time, but as much as it’s an exploration of the mountains, it’s an exploration of yourself as well. You put yourself in these situations where you’re going to come face to face with your fears, so you’re going to learn something about yourself. I love adventure. I just feel so humbled.
The documentary we’re making is going to be the story of our exploration of Volcano Huila and its history, and also of Luis’s connection with it. It’s not just going to be a mountaineering movie. We'll hear the story of the team through each character's eyes, as well as something deeper in terms of bonds, friendships in the mountain, and how that experience brings you even closer.
Tim and I are already having chats about what we do next. I don’t want to give too much away, because someone else will sweep it up. But we are looking at staying in Colombia, and we’ve got something very tasty that’ll involve real exploration again, and some real technical rock climbing in a place that is so remote and difficult to get to we’re not even sure it’s possible.
There’s another story to tell, that’s for sure. But for now, I’ve got to finish my course of antibiotics…