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Published: April 15th 2009
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Thursday and Friday (April 9 and 10) were vacations from school because of Semana Santa, so Nicole, Troy, and I took advantage of the days off to climb Cotopaxi! It is a volcano south of Quito, the second highest in Ecuador at 5897 meters, 19,347 feet. Almost as high as Denali but definitely not as difficult!
Wednesday evening we took a bus to Quito, had some dinner (a Thai restaurant!!!) and then went to bed. Thursday morning after an amazing pancake breakfast (they have every kind of food in Quito!) we went to the Moggely Climbing office to pick up our gear and meet our guide. We got everything loaded up and then jumped in Jaime's car (our guide) and started towards Cotopaxi. We had lunch at the company's hostel just outside of the park and met Marco, our other guide, and then drove up to the parking lot. From there we trekked for almost an hour in the rain/sleet/snow with our massive backpacks up to the refuge. We didn't take that much stuff, the sleeping bags were just massive and we had all our food. In the evening we had glacier training a little ways away from the refuge in
Cotopaxi
Me, Nicole, Troy some snow. How to climb up and down with crampons, what to do with the ice axe, what to do if we fell, then Marco pushed us down the mountain and we had to stop ourselves. Then we slid back down to the refuge for dinner. After dinner and a talk about our plan and safety we went to bed. We went at about 9 but i don't think we actually fell asleep until at least 10 or 10:30. Midnight we woke up, had a little food, and got all geared up to leave.
When 1:15 rolled around we were starting our ascent. Zip-off pants and rain/snow pants on the bottom, long jeans, t shirt, and rain jacket on the top, thick socks, glacier boots, harness, hat, and headlamp. The first part was just snow so we didn't put on our crampons until a little later. Once we got to the glacier we roped up, a group of 2 and a group of 3, just for safety. For the first part the moon was out and gorgeous and pretty bright so we didn't really need our headlamps. Later on it got pretty windy and cloudy. The climb itself was
definitely a challenge! It was especially hard because I had a cold so I was already coughing and had tons of junk in my lungs, so the hard work and lack of oxygen probably wasn't the best combination. It was still really cool to be climbing up a glacier! Some of the slopes were extremely steep! We're talking double black diamonds at Alyeska. Going straight up them. Sometimes at an angle, but often just climbing. At some points if we had put our hands out in front of us they would've been on the ground. It was almost better when we couldn't see very well because then we couldn't see how steep it was and how straight down we would've fallen if we had slipped... For a little while we were in softer snow and we were just sinking in up to our knees. Luckily that didn't last long.
When it started getting light it was gorgeous! We could see the whole glacier and all the formations. It was still cloudy (we were just above them) so we couldn't really see any of the other mountains or cities. At some points when it was dark we could see all
the lights of Quito off in the distance.
We turned around at 7. We were climbing straight up this really really steep part and the snow was sort of just crumbling underneath us. Once we got up to this one ridge the snow got even worse. I was attached to the guy who was leading and testing the snow. At this point the snow was avalanching even more whenever we tried to dig our crampons in and climb so we couldn't continue. We didn't want to end up sliding down the mountain in a river of snow. Supposedly we were only 10 minutes from the top. It was definitely frustrating to be that close and not be able to finish, but we were so close that we essentially made it and we still conquered that mountain! When we were descending it cleared up for a while and we could see the summit and the point that we made it to and we were literally right there! So let's be clear: Summit or no summit, we conquered that mountain!
Our descent was ridiculously fast compared to the ascent. It took us almost 6 hours to go up and not
even 1.5 to go back down. We did a combination of sliding/walking/halfway running down the glacier. Once we left the glacier we sat down and slid the rest of the way down to the refuge. It was really fun! Definitely a good way to end the climb! Then some breakfast, packing, and descending the rest of the way back to the parking lot to drive back to Quito.
In Quito we had some lunch and then took a bus back to Otavalo. It was already full so we sat up with the driver. One of us on the floor, one on the one seat, and one on a stool behind the drivers seat. We rotated partway through. And all we wanted to do was sleep! I got home, took a shower, and then took a 'nap' at 430. I wasn't planning on sleeping very long, but I slept all the way until dinner at 7. Then went back to bed at 830 and slept until 830 the next morning. I guess that's what happens after climbing a mountain on 2 hours of sleep! And the next day none of us were even sore!
So basically we conquered Cotopaxi!
Cotopaxi
Yes we had awesome snow goggles... It was a new experience for me and definitely a good one! And Troy and Nicole were awesome to do it with!
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doug
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ice and snow
....so, I am Eryn...I am from Alaska.....where it is winter six months of the year......I went to equator...and put on crampons, got an ice axe, lots of winter clothes...and climbed ice and snow and a glacier...what's up with that!?!??! Don't get enough in the six months of Alaska winter??