Cotopoxi Refugio

The long trail back to the Refuge. 

A group of Czechs.

 

Looking back at the summit of Cotopoxi.

You can just make out a couple climbers up at the summit. 

My buddy Bruce

Bruce. You can rest now, we made it! 

Jose Luis, Greatest Guide in the World!

My guide to the summit, Jose Luis Peralvo. 

Cotopoxi Summit at 19,347 feet

The summit pose. 

Finally the top!

We could finally stop climbing! We were there. 

Almost there

As we approached the crater rim we finally got into the sun and it started getting a bit warmer. 

Getting Steeper

The higher up we go, the steeper it seemed to get. 

Cotopoxi Climb

Bruce and I heading up on Cotopoxi. This is before the headwall after the sun finally came up. 

Success on the top of Cayambe at 18,996 feet

 
 

Approaching the Summit on Cayambe

 
 

Steep Section on Cayambe

 
 

Sunset on Cayambe

 
 

Success on Cotopoxi

We started the climb this morning at 12:24am. Jose Louis lead Bruce and myself and we took it really slowly. This was my 4th attempt on Cotopoxi (as well as my last) and I am glad that Bruce and I summited together. The other rope team was Rene with Scott, and Emilie with Daniel. Emilie was really tired and just couldn`t get up teh energy for the summit. Rene and Scott summited at 6am, Bruce and I at 7:38 am.
Cotopoxi is a tough mountain, it is steep steep steep. There were several spots that were a bit scary (high pucker factor).
However, there were no clouds, we climbed in start light and then sunny skies. A very tough, but great climb.
We are back in Quito now and tomorrow morning we all fly back home, all that is left is to goto the Cuban Restraunt for food and salsa dancing.
I`ll post a few photos when I get back home tomorrow.

Off to Cotopoxi

We are just about to leave Baños to drive back to Cotopoxi for one last attempt at climbing it. We should leave around midnight tonight and hopefully summit around 9am.
We went up river yesterday to see a couple of waterfalls and we took a cable car across the river to the other side. They apparently do not care about lawsuits since the safety protection was minimal at best.
We did get some great views of the waterfall and I took a bunch of photos I hope to put together with the panarama stitching software I have.
No luck with photos, I´ll have to wait until I get home to post a few photos up here.
My next post will be back in Quito tomorrow afternoon after the climb, hopefully I will have good news.
Ok, well... hasta la vista baby.

Real Mountainiers

Rene, our guide keeps telling us what real mountaniers do and don´t do. So I decided to put a couple of them up here for other people to learn from.

Mountainiers...
- Rest, they don´t sleep
- Use umbrellas, not gortex
- Eat popcicles, not ice cream
- Ride on truck bumpers
- Drink Gatorade, not water
- Don´t change, or wear underwear
- Drink hot chocolate, not coffee
- Don´t take photos, that´s for tourists
- Don´t eat, just hydrate

Team ¨One Bag Short¨ information...

Our group of climbers here in Ecuador was named Team One Bag Short since one of Emily´s bags showed up really late. Along with the team name, we decided that everyone should have a nick name so here they are:

Jose Louis - Jeffe
Rene - Mary Poppins (he hiked with an umbrella once)
Effrion - Montoya (our driver)
Gary - El Bueno
Joel - El Malo
Bruce - Ex Wappo
Scott - Cowboy (he actually confessed to seeing Broke Back Mountain)
Emilie - Dirty, or Double-A (the battery, not the bra size)
Dale - Curious George (he was always asking questions)

The names for Gary, Joel, and Bruce came from Rene while thinking of that great Clint Eastwood movie, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. (you figure it out)

A side note, Dale has left the team and headed back to the United States early so he won´t be attempting Cotopoxi with us.

Resting in Baños Thursday January 19

We decided after our failed attempt on Cotopoxi to take a couple rest days and try it again, a bit like last year. So we drove off to the Refuge on Chimborazo to at least try to see what that mountain looks like. Jose said that there was more snow around the Refuge than he has seen in at least 10 years, so there was no way we would be able to summit that giant mountain.
We did see some mountain foxes playing around in the snow and I got some really nice video of them playing.
We then headed down to town and spent the night in a really nice hotel.
This morning we drove to the town of Baños which is really nice. The hotel we are staying at is really nice as well, Gary and I have a nice little balcony overlooking the bar (which we plan on hitting tonight for some margharitas).
Tomorrow we will be heading back to the Refuge on Cotopoxi and give it one more try. Bruce has decided that his mighty quads have healed significantly to give it a try as well, so Bruce and I will be on a rope team lead by Jose. (At least that is the plan as of now.) Our third guide, Marisio will not be joining us for Cotopoxi again as he will be off on Chimborazo leading some other group, his loss I guess.
So, tomorrow night we climb (saturday am actually) and hopefully I can finally get to the top of Cotopoxi, this will be my 4th attempt.
After the climb we will drive back to Quito for our farwell dinner and then go out to a Cuban Salsa Bar for some dancing. Jose Louis taught me how to Salsa Dance Cuban Style. (look out Laurel!)

Damn you Cotopoxi!

The 3rd time is definately not the charm.

Perhaps the 4th?

Cotopoxi Refuge Monday/Tuesday January 16/17

After lunch (which arrived late from Quito with Rene) we headed up to the Refuge on Cotopoxi. Bruce had decided because of his leg that he wasn´t going to attempt the climb. Gary, being such a nice guy, decided to stay with Bruce and have good meals and beer rather than rot up in the Refuge.
The Refuge really isn´t that bad, not as nice as Cayabme, but it isn´t totally awful. We had our usual little house to sleep in away from the main hut so we wouldn´t have to listen to the loud English climbers (Team Wanker).
We basically arrived, had a small dinner of soup, tortilinis (luckily not pesto) and went to bed around 6pm to wait for our 11pm wake up.
Meanwhile Bruce was down at Tombopoxi having a interesting experience with some llamas. (Ask Bruce about it, I think he has photos.)
The 3rd guide was supposed to wake us up at 11pm but he forgot, so we didn´t get woken up until 11:45 for our 12am start. (oops)
We started the climb at 12:30 and the sky was mostly clear, we could see stars, but the summit was clouded in. It was also a bit windy.
The higher we climbed, the higher to winds got, and the more cloudy it got.
It as exactly like last year, we slowly turned into walking ice-climbers.
Dennis should remember this well.
We got up to around 18,250 feet when the winds were wicked fast. The visiblily was wicked zero.
It was decided that it was too dangerous to continue and Jose Louis was really sorry to turn us around, but safety has to come first.
¨The summit is optional, the return is manditory¨.
We are currently staying at a really nice Hacienda and we need to get together to decide if we are going back to Cotopoxi, or off to Chimborazo.
Either case... Bruce is off to Quito (maybe...ya never know.)

A nice stay at Tombopoxi Sunday January 15

We left the Hacienda and drove up to the really nice little Hostelria called Tombopoxi at the base of Cotopoxi. We stayed here a couple nights last year and I was really looking forward to staying here again and hopefully getting some nice photos of Cotopoxi (guess again). We saw wild horses, llamas, and wild mountain foxes, but no mountain. It rained pretty hard and we stayed inside for a really nice dinner.
They had a guitar there so I got some nice practice in and played a few songs (for some reason everyone left the room and went to bed).
Dale and Scott decided to have a snore-off so no one got any sleep.
I did get a chance to listen to the MP3 songs that Dave set me up with on my Sony PSP.

Success on the Summit of Cayambe! Satrday 1/14

We just managed to miss Friday the 13th and started our climb at 12:19 for the climb of Cayambe. Gary as still feeling the effects of the fumes and altitude so he decided to skip the climb. Bruce and Emily turned around at around 16,500 because of a prior arrangement. Bruce was having leg problems and Emily was really tired from our earlier practice climbs so they were on the same rope team. I was lucky to just be on a rope with Jose Louis so it was nice to be a 2 man team. Scott, Dale and Rene were the other team. Cayambe is long and steep. The weather started out cold and windy, but once the sun came up the wind went away. Jose and I stepped on the summit at 9:15 at just less than 9 hours up. The weather was clear and I got some great photos and video from the summit. The other rope team got up around 30 minutes later. Scott had some effects of altitude sickness and Dale was really tired. It took us about 3.5 hours to get back to the Hut. All in all it was a great but really tiring climb. It was really steep and we had to put in some protection to hook the rope into so we wouldn´t slip down into some big old crevasse.
It was nice to finally summit Cayambe after last years rain storm fiasco.
We packed all out gear and went back down to the Hacienda for showers and some good food.

Hacienda and Cayambe Hut Friday January 13th

We drove back to Cayambe Hut Friday after lunch to prepare for the climb of Cayambe. We wanted as little time as possible around the fumes so we got back around 4pm, had some dinner and some prussic practice and then went to bed for our 11pm wake up. The fumes were still present so we opened up all the windows we could find.

Cayambe Hut, Thursday January 12

We drove up to Cayambe Hut which is around 15,000 feet high. It was a long bus ride up to a turn around spot where we had to hike up the last 2 miles. The 4x4 took all our gear up so Gary and I had a nice leisurly stroll up to the hut. We had some food and then we did a little rope tying practice which was fun. After dinner we all went to bed in anticipation of hiking to the glacier the next morning to do some crampon practice. Around bed time, it seemed that everyone was feeling a bit of the altitude with small or large headaches and dizzyness. Around midnight I got really sick and made several visits to the toilet to throw up. Jose said to let him know if any new symptoms showed up so I woke him up. Several more visits to the toilet and a massive headache and I started hyperventalating and had maybe a panic attack of some sort (ok, so I freaked out gary). Jose said I had to go down now. Gary also had a huge headache and decided to go down to the Hacienda as well. On the drive down Jose started getting sick as well. Also the other guide was sick and the guaridan of the refuge also got sick. We all noticed a strange smell and we realized that they had treated the floors with some sort of sealant that we think was the cause. Jose had everyone come down the next day so that they wouldn´t have to breath the fumes anymore.

Climbing Imbabura

Yesterday we set off to climb Imbabura. As usual... their were massive clouds and it was a bit misty at first. The climb is pretty much straight up. The clouds parted occasionaly so I did get some nice photos. The trail up is through some medium tall grasses that ends up with a rocky crater rim that we had to scramble up. The weather was a little cloudy, but not bad as we passed through the ¨door¨ which is a slot in the rocks. After that it is a 300 meter scramble up to the crater rim. Things were looking pretty good, Dale and I were at the front of the group and Jose told us to to to the second summit. Dale thought the first so I passed him by and sent off for the second summit. Just as I was about 20 feet from the top I felt really weird! Tingly all over, I thought Jose had snuk up on my and was tricking me, but just as I turned back there was this huge thunder clap! What I had felt was the electrical charge built up in the clouds we were in. Jose yelled for us to get down and off we went very fast, we had to scramble back down the mountain. As we were heading down it started hailing like crazy, BB sized and clear, not the cloudy type hail I am used to.
What a crazy climb, we had made it to just over 15,000 feet. The entire round trip took almost 9 hours. The hail turned to rain and we got soaked and had to deal with a very slipper trail back down to the bottom.
Since we were all wet, we steamed up the windows in the bus so the bus driver was having trouble seeing as he drove, so naturally he drove off the road and into a ditch. It was dark, and we were stuck.
4 of us got on the side of the bus and had to push against it so he could to drive it back onto the cobble stone road. I thought it was going to tip over on top of us!
Who said these trips were boring! A wild day... rain, hail, lightning, mud, and finally driving off the road.
Well, today is market day and I bought a few more wall hangings and some coats for the kids. This afternoon we are off to Cayambe, hopefully we will have good weather.
Everyone is doing great, Gary is having a tiny bit of altitude effects but we are all going up to the refuge on Cayambe to see how our aclimitization goes. Worse case we take the 4x4 down to the Hacienda.
Stay tuned... I´ll be back in 4 days.
Wish us luck on Cayambe (Spanish for bad weather).

Hiking around Guinea Pig Lake

We spent the day hiking around guinea pig lake. It was cloudy and windy but we had great views of the lake from time to time. We decided that the trail we hiked was around 6 miles long.
I was trying to get some input from Bruce, but for some reason he is spending a lot of time on the phone lately. I´m not sure who he is actually talking to, I´ll have to find out. (maybe his mom)
Tomorrow we head out to climb a local mountain, Imabula or something like that. It is around 16,100 feet high. But you can´t swing a dead cat around here without hitting some hugely tall mountain.
Everyone is doing fine and having a great time, we think the name of our team is going to be ¨One Bag Short¨ this is a inside joke since a bag was lost by the airline. (continental in case you are interested)

The machine that refuses to allow me to upload a photo!

 
 

Leaving Quito

We will be leaving Quito this am to start the climb. Yesterday we did the city tour which was different than last year. They recently built a gondolla that goes up to the top of a local mountain overlooking the city. The top is 13,500 feet so we got a little bit of acclimitiation as well. Of course the clouds were in so we really didn´t get a good view of the city. Then we toured old town and saw a really interesting parade. Then up to the statue of the Virgin Mary and the weather cleared up a bit for some nice photos.
We went to the Crepes and Waffle house for our group dinner last night, it was pretty good. The main problem was they rean out of Crepes so no one could order the desert crepes! They had about 50 different ice cream deserts but they ran out of chocolate ice cream. But the banana split was pretty good.
Today we will be driving out to Otovolo and the hike around Guinea Pig Lake, which is a collapsed volcanoe which has filled in with water.
I´m still working on getting some photos up...

Bruce Arrives!

Well, Bruce made it in to Quito around 3pm and everything turned out fine. It seems that the plane he was on (American Airlines) was having problems with its weather radar so they wouldn´t be able to fly over the Andes Mountains and had to turn back over Cuba.
So all is good, we all went out for dinner with Jose and then tossed back a few beers watching the NFL playoffs.
The rest of the climbing group arrives later tonight and tomorrow we will be touring Quito as well as taking a tram ride up to the top of a local mountain (12,500 feet) for a view of the city. Supposedly it just opened up.

No luck posting photos yet...

Arrived in Quito

Gary and I arrived in Quito at midnight last night and Jose picked us up right on schedule. Bruce claims he sent in his intineray, but for some reason it didn´t get down to Jose so he didn´t have any idea when he was supposed to arrive. I remembered that Bruce said he was going to be arriving about 2 hours before us so we figured he caught a cab to the hotel. Wrong!
As it turns out, Bruce´s plane was cancelled because of weather so he had to spend the night in a Miami strip club and will be catching a early plane today. That is, if he isn´t dead, or spent all his money on table dances.