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Published: August 13th 2007
View of Cotopaxi
From Pichincha... I would be climbing Cotopaxi a little over a week after this trip.This was my second trip to Ecuador and the hostel "The Secret Garden". My goals for this trip were pretty simple... climb Cotopaxi and take more Spanish lessons while enjoying my stay at the Secret Garden (great three-course dinners and Chilean wine). Trekking up Guagua Pichincha was part of the preparation to climb Cotopaxi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pichincha_%28volcano%29
On my second day in Quito, a group of about six of us (a couple from Holland, three from Canada, and me) and a guide (Louis) headed out in a four-wheel drive vehicle out of Quito and up into the mountains. The drive itself took about 1.5 hours.
We began our hike a good distance below the refuge... walking up the road around one switchback after another. The terrain and plant life in the area is beautiful... alpine fields filled with flowers, grass, and evergreen plants.
Once we reached the refuge, we took a break and ate some snacks before continuing up the mountain. Here the altitude was above 4000 meters, so I was pretty winded and couldn't go very fast without having to stop for awhile and breathe very hard to catch up on my oxygen. Even at rest, I found
This is the group with Duckie, Paddington, and Avis on the hood of the car.
myself having to breathe inordinately fast to keep up the oxygen intake (I could feel a headache setting in whenever I just let my body breath naturally... long story as to why this is with the body... but the short answer, from my limited understanding, is that it takes over a week... or weeks... for the body to really adjust such a high altitude... and I had only been in Quito - ~9,000 feet - for a little over a day and was now heading to an altitude over 15,000 ft.).
After hiking for awhile, we reached the lip of the crater... seeing the big opening come into view with each step is quite a site. We then hiked up to an awesome peak that looks out south and also has good views of south Quito and parts of the south side of the mountain. This peak had two crosses on it and a kind of Catholic shrine. We took some photos and then headed up to a higher peak.
The trek to the higher peak was a little more difficult... it
Ready to Hike
This is the group with Duckie, Paddington, and Avis on the hood of the car. was steeper and over rocks... at times we had to use our hands and feet to climb up.
I was the first to reach the top (not racing anyone... only eager to see the view) and it had a great nearly 360 degree view around the countryside, the surrounding terrain, and of Pichincha's other major peak - Rucu (15,413 ft). We could look in the massive crater of the volcano (which last erupted in 1999) and see a little smoke coming out of it (which is normal). The peak we hiked to was at 4,781 meters (15,686 ft.)
We enjoyed the view, rested, ate lunch, and talked for awhile. We then headed back down the mountain.
After getting back to the care, we all piled in and Louis tried to start it... but it didn't start. It had a standard transmission, so we tried pushing it, but since it was facing uphill we only got it a few feet. Then a friend of Louis' stopped by on his motorcycle with some tools. Louis (apparently also a mechanic in addition to a guide) took some gas and poured it in the (I think) the carburetor. He was then
able to start the engine. We then headed down the winding road back into Quito.
Before going back to the hostel, we went up to El Panecillo to visit the Virgen de Quito and see the surrounding view of Quito.
Overall, it was a great hike, great exercise, and really cool to see the crater and the surrounding landscape.
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Augusta
non-member comment
Guagua Pichincha
Wow, that's a mouthful...Guagua Pichincha! Incredible pictures, as usual. I can't wait to see the pictures from Cotopaxi!