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Published: November 23rd 2009
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Once we left our hostel in Quito we arrived at their sister hostel in Cotopaxi. This hostel was like a paradise exceot for the temperature as it is 3500 meters in the mountains! On our arrival we were given our lunch and then brought for a short trip to a near by waterfall followed by the 4 dogs of the house. The house itself sits on two hecters of land and overlooks the giant volcano which is still active. That evening we played some Extreme Jenga, had a beer and went to bed.
On Saturday morning (My Birthday), we were collected at 11.30am by our two guides for the climb. We also had a new member to our team (Andy) from England so now our team was made completely of the british and Irish Lions!! Our jeep took around 40mins to get to the mountain where it leaves us at the car park. From the car park we had to trek another 300 meters uphill to Base Camp. Our guides decided to test us to see how fit we were and made us to the 300 meters in 30 minutes when normally it takes between 1 hour to 1.5 hours!
Once
at the Base Camp we had our lunch followed by some training on the glacier another200 meters up the mountian. During the training we learned how to use our Ice Axe and our crampons which was all very new to us all! We then headed back for dinner to the camp. Tom then began to feel quite sick as did many other people in the refuge due to the altitude. We had to go to bed at 6pm as we were getting up at 12 in the mornin to start to climb at 1am! UNfortunately during the night Tom was getting very sick and the next morning he could not attempt the climb.
When we awoke or should I say got up as we didnt sleep a wink we had our breakfast and put all our gear on. At 1am we set off. Because Tom could not climb I had one guide and Richard and Andy shared the other guide. Once we reached the glacier after one hour of walking we fixed on our crampons and our guides attached us with the ropes so we couldnt fall down any crevases.
The climb itself was the most intense and difficult things
I have ever attempted. At some point you were walking on a ledge around 12 inches wide and to the right was a drop straight down the glacier. On the other side was a crevase which the end couldnt be seen. There was a number of crevasses which had to be jump over. For the my guide would loosen the rope and if the ice gave way it was up to him and my Ice Axe to get me back to the surface. At around 5am we got to 5750 meters and I really began to feel the altidude.We only had another 100 meters to the summit but I really began to struggle as did the other two. It didnt help that the angle increased to 45 degrees. Slowly I began one foot after the other and with breaks every 10 steps or so reached the summit at 6am and collapsed on the ground. Three of lay there for around 20 minutes before we could move. There was hugs between everyone who made it and a huge relief that we could now head back down.
Although we were heading back down it was still increadibly difficult. I had absolutely no
energy left and my legs were start to buckle underneath me. Now I needed breaks every 10 - 15 minutes. Thankfully my guide was very motivating and kep encouraging me to push on get to the base camp. After 2.5 hours of stumbling down the volcano I made to back to base camp, gathered all my gear and stumbled again down to the car park with the others. Once back to Secret garden it was straight to bed for 3 hours and then up for dinner before heading back to bed again until this morning. We had a nice breakfast and we are now in Banos in Ecuador.
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