3 Amigos at Guinea Pig Lake

Panarama of Seattle (dude at work did this with the Microsoft Stitcher program)

Guinea Pig Lake Panarama

Frozen Joel on Cotopoxi.

Cotopoxi, you can just make out the route in the snow.

Statue in Quito

Back in the US!

The trip is over, I'm back in the Seattle area.
It was a great trip even though we didn't summit anything. (Damn weather)
Alpine Ascents came through as usual with great guides and logistics.
This is my 3rd trip with them and I get more impressed each time. I cannot recommend them highly enough. Check them out at http://www.alpineascents.com/ecuador.asp and tell Gordon that Joel sent you!

Bruce and I talked over some margaritas in Miami that we need to go back to Ecuador and do these mountains again, this time in EARLY January! We are thinking perhaps 2007 since he has to go climb Denali in 2006. This time Sam is going to go no matter what! (right Sam?)

I think Gary will be ready as well so we could try to do a KMD6 trip.

Speaking of KMD6, Mt. Whitney is in the plans for the August time frame this summer and I suppose I may blog it as well, ya never know. It will be Mt. Whitney and then 2 days resting up in Las Vegas.

Well this is it for Ecuador, I'll be going back to posting some photos from time to time.

Maybe there is such a thing as bad weather...

Before I start Cotopaxi II, an update.

Peggy decided to fly back early, so I´m back in Quito today and she flew out yesterday.
Bruce and Dennis decided that they had enough of the bad weather and returned to Quito a day early to sample the food and beverages.

So that left Brian, Rick, and I to try to summit Cotopaxi again.

As before, we drove to the parking lot (around 15,000 feet) and hiked up to the refuge (15,800 feet), but this time instead of rain, we had SNOW. It was just snowing a bit, but it didn´t stop snowing at all, as a matter of fact, it snowed around 6 inches at the refuge and as much as 16 inches up at 17,000 feet.

We got up at midnight and got ready, it was still snowing. But we started out anyway. At around 16,500 feet the actual glacier starts, before that it was just snow covered dirt and rocks. As we arrived at the glacier, the first party of climbers had turned around talking about avalanche danger. (hmmm, this is a new one)

Jose Louis said that we should go check it out for ourselves to make sure, so we put on the crampons, and roped up. The only nice thing about so many people bailing on us, was that we each had our own guide, so we had 3 2-man rope teams. Brian and Javier, Rick with Eddie, and me with Jose Louis.

We climbed up about 300-400 feet (in altitude) up the glacier when Jose Louis said, "Did you see that lightning?".
I said no... but as I looked up the whole sky lit up and you could see the entire mountain. Jose then yelled, "We are going down now, fast!". We basically ran down the mountain back to the refuge, we even left our crampons on until we arrived all the way back down. All the teams on the mountain was in a mad dash. It was pretty wild. We got back to the Refugio at around 3:30 am and had some hot tea and talked for a while.

Dang... let´s see...
We had side ways rain and 50-60 kph winds on Cayambe.
We had frozen sheets of ice and sleet plus the 50-60 kph winds on Cotopaxi (first time).
Then the second time on Cotopaxi we get Snow and electrical storms.

It´s like the mountain just didn´t want us being on it.

So, the saying "There is no such thing as bad weather, just cheap gear." isn´t always true.
Sometimes, there such a thing as bad weather.

The grand plan...

First the bad news... Mike decided to head back to Ohio last night so by time I am posting this he is probably nearing Houston.

We are heading back to Cotopaxi this afternoon, we will spend tonight at the lower Refugio (really nice place with showers) and then tomorrow we will head back to the high Refugio (15,800 feet) and then Saturday night/Sunday morning we will attempt to climb Cotopaxi again.

Peggy is going off with a separate guide to try to climb Ruminahui (15,600 feet). She will start from the lower hut but I am not sure of the timing. I think this mountain requires some rock scrambling and it is supposed to be a great climb. Also... if the weather is nice, she will get an awsome view of Cotopaxi.

So... my next (and last) post will be from the Hotel in Quito on Sunday afternoon and hopefully (fingers and toes crossed) we will have a successful summit of Cotopaxi. We are not sure how many people will attempt it, but I know that I want another try, so depending on weather it could be 5 of us... or less, time and weather will tell.

As usual... check out http://ecuadorexpedition.blogspot.com for photos

Hiking around Quilotoa crater

Yesterday we went and hiked down to the bottom of Quilotoa crater, it is a sunken volcanic crater that has filled with water. It appeared smaller than Guinea Pig lake we hiked around last week. It was about 1,000 feet from the crater rim down to the lake. The lake was at 11,800 feet and the crater rim around 12,800 feet. We took some good photos and I think Dennis will be posting them on his Blog today as well.

It was a pretty long day, we went to an animal market in the morning, they had pigs, goats, sheep, llamas, and cows for sale. We saw a lot of mad pigs as they heard them by grabbing their tails and lifting them up. Also, the smaller pigs were put into white bags (pig-in-a-poke style). I don´t think the pigs liked that either. There were several pickup trucks with 6 or 8 sheep, and a couple pigs stuffed in the back. (We also spotted a couple pigs doing the wild thing.)

Then we went to a craft market and I bought a couple more water colors and a couple hand carved masks (hint hint Gary).

After the market we drove to the crater I talked about. They have a small factory that makes these hand carved masks so I think most people bought them there as well. By the time we got done hiking down to the lake and back up to 12,800 we were tired and hungry and ended up getting back to the hacienda around 7:00 (after dark).

Speaking of the Hacienda, Denis and I have the entire 3rd floor with a sitting room, and a separate bedroom with TV. Pretty nice... we flipped a coin for who got which bed (I lost). But, I took the heater and put it in the sitting room so I was at least warm in my hugre room with 20+ foot ceilings!

This morning Eddie and I went for a 6 mile run (at 10,000 feet!). It was fun but man was I breathing hard and my pulse was way up there! Eddie of course wasn´t breathing hardly at all.

Damn you Cotopaxi!

It´s beginning to look like all the posts are the same. As I mentioned in the last post, we were heading up to climb Cotopaxi. And as has happened basically every day... we had rain and winds. We stayed in the lower hut the first night and just before sunset the clouds parted and we were welcomed with amazing views of Cotopaxi. (We never saw it again.) Dennis will be trying to upload some of the photos we took today also.

After spending the night at the lower hut (12,500´ I think) we drove up to the parking lot below the main hut (which sits at 15,250´). We had about a little over an hour hike from the parking lot to the Refugio. This was also our first true ¨carry¨ since we had to haul up food, and all our gear (about 50 pound packs). The Refugio is pretty nice as these high huts go.

Dennis and I brought out MP3 players and the guides had little speakers so we were having dealing songs. The B52´s Love Shack was the big hit. Even the German women climbers were singing along.

Ok... The climb. Well, we got up at 11pm to get ready for the climb, we went outside and could actually see stars! Except... if you looked towards the mountain you couldn´t see any. hmmm. That should have been a clue. Well, it didn´t rain on us , but we had 60kph winds that blew constant the whole time. With the wind chill, it had to be 10 below. It was the coldest I have ever been on a climb.

And the steepest! Man was it steep, we climbed straight up. No switch backs at all (ok, I think there was 2 or 3). The high humidity and the winds caused us to have a coating of ice over everything. I eventually put on my down coat under my gortex shell and those trusty Cloudveil gloves (they should pay me) then I was warm.

Peggy just couldn´t get warm enough so she had to turn back first, then the rest of us stopped at this flat spot at 18,150 feet where everyone except me and Rick wanted to go back down, but since it wouldn´t be safe to split the group, Jose Louis decided that we should all go back down. We figured it was around 3 hrs more to get to the summit since the old cravasse had changed so we would have to traverse around it.

It was truly exhausting, but 18,150 feet isn´t anything to sneeze at so at least we got a good attempt on the mountain (vs that damn Cayambe where we didn´t ever get a good start on).

Now we are living the good life at the local hacienda and trying to dry out our gear to see whats next... The weather just isn´t cooperating so we don´t know if we will be able to attempt another peak or not. Stay tuned...

Damn you Cayambe!

Mike yelled this at the mountain as we retreated in to the Refugio at 3:30am this morning.

The climb was supposed to start at 11pm, but Eddie awoke us and said that the winds were too high and we should wait another hour and see how they are then. At midnight he said we should get ready. A hearty meal of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hot chocolate awaited us as well as we all prepared our own sandwiches for the climb.

We all gathered up our gear and put on all our gortex and gators and packed up for the hoped 8 hr climb to the summit of Cayambe. When we exited the Refugio we immediately knew that this was not to be. The winds were ferocious and looking with my head lamp I thought that it was snowing... but as I looked at Bruce´s soaking wet coat (after about 2 minutes) I knew that this was not snow but sideways rain and sleet.

When Jose Louis says that there is no such thing as bad weather, only cheap gear... he wasn´t talking about this morning. This was BAD weather. We headed out for the summit and started working our way through the steep sandy-wet rocks. We had already traversed these rocks two days earlier in the dark, but this time we had sideways rain and 50 mph winds.

We climbed on for about an hour and a half when we stopped at a semi-flat area and all huddled together when Jose said ¨Muchachos, it is time to go down, the winds are getting worse and we are running the risk of electrical storms." No one needed to be talked out of going down.

The trip back down the slick-wet rocks was an adventure in itself, our goggles were wet with rain, it was dark, and the winds were blowing so hard that it would push you around. And a basketball sized rock was knocked loose by this lone Swiss climber who was following us nearly hit Bruce and Mike.

When we reached the steepest rocky part we had to set up a belay so we could all make it down alive. Ok... that maybe a bit of a stretch, it was more so that no one would slip and perhaps injure their leg. But making it down alive sounds more poetic.

Our total climb time was about 2 and a half hours and we gained about 600 feet of altitude, damn you Cayambe.

We got up this morning around 7am and packed up all our wet stuff and headed back down to the Hacienda for a buffet lunch and showers.

Looking back at it now... it doesn´t seem that bad... perhaps next year we will come back! NOT!

Tomorrow we head off for Cotopaxi and Jose Louis claims we are due some good weather. He better be right... we don´t need any more Bad Weather.

There are new photos on. http://ecuadorexpedition.blogspot.com

Cayambe

Let´s get everyone up to date... I am posting this from the town of Cayambe, a few of us (mostly me) got sick last night so Jose Louis thought it wise to drive down to 9500 feet and spend the night, it did wonders and in a few minutes we will be driving back to the Refugio on Cayambe. Now... What happened before we (ok I) got sick... Before driving up to Cayambe, we spent the morning at the local market and bought souvenirs. Dennis and I picked up some Panama Hats, and I bought some cute outfits for my kids. We also went and listened to a local famous band play some traditional flutes and these 10 and 15 string guitars. (Dennis of course bought this really nice 15 string guitar and case.) We then drove up the the Refugio on Mt. Cayambe, it was about a 2 hr total drive since the road is made of cobblestones. After arriving we hiked up to 16,000 feet and had to climb back down with headlamps. We had a great dinner! It was really tasty and everyone felt great. Then on Thursday (ground hog day) I awoke with a splitting headache and tossed by cookies a few times and spent the entire day feeling really bad... I couldn´t´t eat. The weather outside was awful, the team that attempted the summit the night before had to turn around because of high winds and sleet. They looked bad. Because of the winds and rain we decided to do the rope practice inside so we tied knots, and everyone (except me) climbed up a rope with the prussics. After dinner which was amazing (although I didn´t´t eat any of it) was fresh roasted turkey, avocado, soup, and since I left to go to bed I didn´t´t see the dessert (which was lemon pound cake the day before). Ok, se we have about 20 minutes until we are driving back to 15,000 feet on Cayambe, then around midnight we will get up and go for the summit. I´ll probably get to do a post tomorrow after our summit attempt. Hopefully all goes well and I will be able to post some good news tomorrow! (or the next day).

Hiking on Imbura

This morning we woke early, had an early breakfast (7am) and headed out for a day hike up to 14,000 feet. We started around 10,500 feet or so (there were several altitude watches to choose from). It was a pretty steep hike today, it reminded me of the ¨mountain hike¨we had in Russia a few years back while getting aclimatized for Mt. Elbrus.

At around 13,000 feet or so it started raining really hard so it was a scramble to get the gortex shells on. (As a side note, the Cloudveil soft shell I was wearing did keep me dry until I could get the shell on.)

Jose Louis says ¨There is no such thing as bad weather, just cheap gear.¨

It was a 6 hour round trip and everyone made it. This is a really strong group.

We are heading out tomorrow for our first true climb, we will be ascending Cayambe so this will be the last post for 4 days. After that climb we will be going to a hacienda that has satellite TV so we should be able to watch the Super Bowl next Sunday! I´m hoping there will be internet access as well.

There were some errors in the address for the other blog, this is correct:
http://ecuadorexpedition.blogspot.com/

Hiking around a crater rim

We travel up north a bit and spent the day hiking around a lake which is in the middle of a volcano cone.
A lot like Crater Lake in Oregon, except smaller. In the middle of the lake are two small islands that the people used to raise guinea pigs on (I guess they can´t swim!).
It was a nice day, it took us 3 hrs and 45 minutes to do about 3/4 of the lake.

We had an excellent dinner tonight and we are going to get up tomorrow and climb up to about 14,500 feet.
There are differing opinions on the total altitude gain, Jose says 3000 feet, except we are starting at 10,500 and going to 14,500 (or higher) so I´m not sure about the Ecuadorian math down here.

The Internet Cafe here is ok... but it is really slow and they are running Windows 98 so it is doubtful we can get any photos uploaded on the other Blog site ( http://ecuadorexpedition.blogspot.com/) but hopefully we can figure something out, we got some really nice photos of the lake.

The journey begins today

We are off for our first hike of the trip, we are going to go on a hike around Cuicocha Lake.
It is a collapsed volcanic crater lake with three islands in the middle. These islands are resurgent volcanic cones but the volcano is now considered dormant. We can also view Cayambe and Cotopaxi in the distance. Our high point on the hike will be approximately 11,200’.
(I stole that last part from the Alpine Ascents Web site).
Dennis and I signed up for massages last night so we missed the group dinner.
(Couldn´t pass up a $20 massage)
Dennis and I had Thai food at the sushi bar in town, Jose Louis said not to eat the sushi although there were 2 Japanese women there enjoying it.