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