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Wow! I just got back from one of the coolest (and hardest) things I've ever done, climbing to the top of the 3rd biggest volcano in the world! 6 of us got dropped off yesterday at about 1:30 at the base of the mountain, about 2000 meters. Our goal was to hike up to a refuge that was a few hundred meters from the top of Teide, stay the night, and wake up before dawn to hike up to see the sunrise over all of the islands. It was unknown, however, if the refuge would actually be open, and we were told to hike back down to meet a car at 8 if it wasn't. The hike was amazing and pretty tough (uphill all the way carrying large backpacks). It was worth it when we caught sight of the refuge though. We made it there at about 7 pm (clearly too late to turn back), only to be told by the man inside that it was closed. Pretty much our only option was to camp out, luckily we had all brough sleeping bags and warm clothes. We had been told we'd freeze if we slept outside, but it didn't seem like it would be too bad. We huddled against the back wall of the refuge, which was quite warm, and tried to make a dinner of pasta noodles by pouring cold water in them and letting it set (this, by the way, does not really work so well). We were out there for a couple hours when the guy from inside came out. We all thought that he was going to tell us to leave, but instead he offered us a room with 6 beds. Perfect. After it got really dark, we went back outside to look at the stars. They were absolutely amazing, I think we saw at least 10 shooting stars between the 6 of us.
This morning we woke up at 4 to start our final ascent up the peak. It was dark, cold, and rocky on the way up. One of the girls in our group was feeling pretty poorly, so we split into two, I continued up with 2 of the guys, while the other three slowed down a bit. After walking for about an hour through lava rock that made me feel like we were on another planet, we came to the turn off for the last part of the climb. By now it was amazingly windy, still dark, and very steep. We left our packs in a protected area to keep from getting blown around even more, and continued up. It was intense, there were points where all three of us were crawling up rocks to keep out of the wind. At one point we all were very doubtful that we would make it to the top, it looked so far away, and we were freezing. We decided to keep going a little ways to see what we found. Shortly after, I started smelling sulfur, so I knew we had to be close, and kept going. Within 5 minutes of almost giving up, we were at the top! And we were the first ones there! The views were unbelievable, you literally were above everything, you could see all the other islands, it felt like if I squinted hard enough I could see to Africa! More people started to file up as the sun began to rise, it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen!
This will defintely go down as one of the top 5 experiences ever (I know I say that a ton, but its true). The group we went with was perfect, we all had a great time and will probably be friends forever now. I'm so glad I got the opportunity to do this!
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steph
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wow is all i can say