After their previous attempt to push on up the mountain was thwarted by a team member suffering from altitude sickness, the Mini 6000 team regroup for their next attempt. 

I was back on the shores of Laguna Verde, 4,300 metres above sea level. But the situation was very different to that which prevailed four days earlier, when I’d last been there. The Range Rover wasn’t around, for a start – it had left to drive back down to the nearest town that morning, to take our ill team member back to the thicker air. Both the remaining team members had gone down the mountain with it, for moral support as much as anything, given the reliability issues the big 4x4 had been suffering. I was alone in the wilderness, 150 miles from any shop or petrol station; just me and my Mini.

I got to work preparing it for the next attempt to drive it up the mountain. Firstly, I checked it over thoroughly, and then got to work changing the lower supercharger pulley for a larger one, to provide more power in the thin air. We’d need all the help we could get when we headed back up there.

It was dark when the Range Rover returned. It had been overheating badly on the climb back up to 4,300 metres, one of the rear shock absorbers had failed, and so had the alternator. Just to get to our camp, it had needed to limp through the desert night with the lights off, navigating by moonlight. We had no spare which would fit, and the following day we spent hours cleaning the electrical contacts and attempting to get the battery charging again, but to no avail.

Our time was limited by our supplies of fuel, food and water. We couldn’t afford to spend days working on the problem, and so we decided to continue up the mountain, stopping every few miles for the Mini to charge the Range Rover’s battery through a set of jump leads. We continued beyond our previous highpoint in this manner, the Mini enabling the Range Rover to keep running, while the Range Rover towed the Mini through terrain too rough for it to drive through alone. Progress was slow, but in this manner we were able to reach the climber’s high camp, 5,250 metres up the flanks of the world’s highest volcano, via another acclimatisation camp at 4,700 metres.

We spent several days there, acclimatising and going for hikes to check out the terrain higher on the mountain. The thin air made starting the Mini very difficult, even when the carburettor was adjusted for altitude; conversely, the fuel-injected Range Rover seemed to have no issues. And speaking of issues, we were able to fix one of the Range Rover’s problems – the spare alternator which we’d brought along for the Mini was bodged on, and we got it to charge the big 4x4’s battery, making it viable transport once again.

The next stage of our ascent, from 5,250 to 5,840 metres, was the toughest yet. A vague track existed, but it seemed made up purely of steep, soft sand, and rough boulders. It took us all day to drive less than five miles, and the Mini’s winch was called on extensively to keep making upward progress, often using the Range Rover as a convenient anchor point, while on other occasions the Range Rover’s impressive four-wheel-drive capabilities and a tow rope were called upon, to keep us moving on up. But however hard we had to work for our progress this high on the mountain, the rewards were there. The landscape, while lunar in its starkness, still possessed a simple beauty; our reward for the weeks of toil which had led us there.  The summit crater was gradually drifting closer, too, reminding us that even this ordeal-like project would end some day soon.

For much of the time, it truly felt like an ordeal. Since we’d passed the 4,000 metre point some weeks before, we’d spent the days being blasted by winds which picked up the grit and sand and flung it at us with such ferocity, it bordered on the unbearable. The thin air made everyday tasks a struggle, the sun burnt any exposed skin remorselessly, and the temperature at night dropped to -17 Celsius and froze our water supplies daily. It was a brutal environment in which to live, work, and keep two faltering classics running, but as we reached 5,840 metres, the end was finally in sight.

The new elevations brought their own issues. Firstly, the Range Rover’s coolant froze, fracturing a freeze plug in the engine, and resulting in a permanent leak, which we partially sealed by jamming a purpose-cut rubber bung into the hole. And then there was the Mini. In the thin air, keeping the carburettor happy seemed a knife edge between running too rich and too lean. With each altitude change, it had demanded serious attention before it would start each time, especially when cold. Up there, almost six kilometres above sea level, the challenge became ever more acute. The challenge affected the Range Rover too, which now also refused to start, the fuel/air mixture entering the engine being too rich for combustion, and even adjusting the idle air bypass screw was of little help. Both cars were way out of their comfort zones, barely able to function in this alien environment, and often neither vehicle would start, leaving the whole expedition broken down just below the volcano’s summit.

On New Year’s Eve, after hours of tinkering with the carburettor when the maelstrom of blown sand and grit died down enough to allow us to work on getting the supercharged engine to start consistently, we took the Mini higher. The altitude of 5,900 metres was reached without too many issues, but above this, the route to 6,000 metres looked anything but simple. A steep boulder field, which gave way to a sandy track rising at an angle of 40 degrees, separated us from our goal. There was no way the Mini would be able to drive up this terrain; the only option was to winch. And so, we got to work.

For the first five winch cycles, everything went smoothly. We’d put a sling around a boulder, run the engine to power the winch as we pulled up the car, and then shut down the motor and get everything set up for the next pull. The ground was incredibly rough, and the underside of the Mini was taking a beating, but we were making progress, pulling up, and then moving the slings to a higher boulder from which to winch.  Then, at an altitude of 5,920 metres, we were all set to pull the Mini higher, but the motor wouldn’t start.

It had been starting first time up to that point, but now it just cranked uselessly. Nothing appeared wrong, we couldn’t see anything which had changed; it just cranked over, apparently without fuel.  Soon, the cold, winch-drained battery began to run down too. The Mini was dead, amid the boulders of a 25-degree slope, most likely unable to draw fuel through the carburettor jets because of the angle. Going higher was out of the question; our only option was to somehow roll it down the slope.

Without an engine or winch with which to manage the descent, the Mini took a battering. It crashed and scraped over boulders as we pushed it down the mountain, jamming its suspension and exhaust against rocks, and denting its fortunately well protected underside, and it seemed like hours until we got it back down to safe, horizontal ground.

We’d been lucky. If the failure occurred higher up, where the Mini would’ve been on the 40-degree sand slope, even this only vaguely controlled descent would’ve been impossible. The Mini would likely have found itself tumbling down the mountain like in a scene from the end of The Italian Job. And that wasn’t a risk worth taking, in the pursuit of an arbitrary elevation of 6,000 metres.

Although we stopped just shy of the 6,000 metre mark, our attempts were not without their significant achievements. In spite of the host of unreliability issues, the loss of a team member and the challenges of one of the world’s more hostile environments, we’d taken Daisy the Mini higher than any road in the world. We’d certainly set the record for the world’s highest Mini, and almost certainly the world’s highest non-4x4, too.  From our research, we think the Range Rover had achieved the highest point ever reached by a Land Rover product, and as the clock struck midnight and 2024 began, the Mini was the highest car on the planet – not a bad achievement for a little city car built in Longbridge half a century earlier.

Words & Photography Ben Coombs Twitter/X | Instagram