| Nationalgeographic.com has neither edited nor researched this dispatch. |
| October 27 |
 Our attack for the day was a pincer. Jimmy and José set off for Creston Grande at 6:30 am. Rumor, offered by the mill of Johan, had it that no traces of burial rings, offerings, or things Inca existed on the table top. The rest of the team was heading up to the lower burial platform—this time with advanced weaponry: a metal detector. |
 We said bon voyage to José and Jimmy and trekked up the icy sheet. More of the same up there. Picks, shovels, blisters, and calluses. When we hit bedrock, Johan asked Jim to go sniff with the metal detector. Jim donned the headphones and jumped in the holes on both ends of the semicircle. His readout was the typical background static of mother earth, bedrock. Finally we could close the book on the lower platform. |
 Before Johan could give the word, I was already stepping out on the icy precipice, heading for the summit platform. The passage is potentially dangerous. In places, we had to scale near vertical rock—and ice—often with loaded packs and digging implements. Rocks gave way. Ice filled our gaiters. We made it to the top in good form anyway. |
 Orlando, Ignacio, and Arcadio began measuring off the site and soon after commenced digging . Earthquakes had probably dismantled most of the wall years ago. Yet a small slip of platform remained and just beneath the surface was typical Inca fill—loose rock and dirt, easily picked and upturned. Arcadio even found a chunk of burnt wood—a sign of ceremony. With darkness and hunger both coming, we stopped and climbed down from the summit and returned to high camp. |
| Nostalgia is beginning to affect our team already. Tomorrow we will begin dismantling high camp and migrate equipment and supplies back to base camp and eventually to the dump site. We must also refill the sites with dirt and cleanup the excavation areas. |
| At dusk, Jimmy and José returned to high camp. Their report confirmed the rumor that no sites exist on the table top. As rich as Pichu Pichu has been in the past in archaeology, the present, I fear, is going to bode differently. |
Yancey Hall
nationalgeographic.com