I booked this trip with the guide who took me up Cotopaxi, a guy named Nico who was a really cool dude and a very strong and experienced mountaineer. It'd been a few days since I had climbed Cotopaxi, so I had kind of fallen out of the swing of things, but yesterday when I met up with Nico as well as his wife and a couple of his friends, I got really pumped on climbing Chimborazo. It's the tallest mountain in Ecuador (top summit is 6310 m), and it's world renowned for being the farthest point from the center of the Earth due to the equatorial bulge.
When we drove into Chimborazo Fauna Reserve, we immediately encountered some wild vicuñas, these deer-like animals that hang out in the park. The mountain itself was mostly clouded in, but we caught glimpses of it as we drove up the highest elevation paved road in Ecuador, which goes up to 4400 m. We then drove into the park to the first refuge at 4800 m, got our gear ready, and hiked for about half an hour up to the second refuge at 5000 m, where we spent last night (highest I've ever slept!).
As with all these climbing trips, we ate an early dinner and were in bed by 7:30 pm. I didn't sleep very well, so getting up at 11:15 pm last night for the climb was a little rough. I ate what I could stomach for breakfast and then set off climbing at 12:30 am with Nico. Walking out the door of the refuge was amazing--the stars were incredibly bright and the Milky Way was a bright white splash across the sky. A night this clear was good for the soul, but turned out to be a disadvantage later on...
At first, I felt really good. We climbed up to 5400 m in two hours, keeping a good pace and feeling strong. We took a rest on a ridge, where we felt the wind kick in for the first time--a very cold, bone-chilling wind, thanks to the lack of clouds. The snow was really good and compact for getting traction with my crampons, but soon after we left the ridge we had to go up a steep icy pebbly rock section and my crampon popped off, so I was basically flailing up this thing for about 20 m. That sucked. And it also took a ton of energy out of me. So I got my crampon back on (with Nico's help) and I started up the main face, which was pretty much just a 600 m 35-40 degree slog (which is about the steepest part of Cotopaxi). At this point, I was already feeling tired, plus the wind was whipping me with an almost 0°F (-15-20°C) chill factor. I made it up to 5850 m and I was like "hey, Nico, I can't feel my fingers" at which point we decided to trade gloves...the only problem was that without being able to feel my fingers, I fumbled and his really expensive Marmot guide glove slid down the mountain into oblivion... So there we were, one glove short, which put us in frostbite danger, plus I was about another $100 in the hole for losing his glove. I was sitting for a little bit as we tried to ask the group behind us where the glove went, and I started shivering like mad, but then kinda calmed down a bit, and we decided to go up just a little higher. So we went past 5900 m, higher than Cotopaxi, but plenty far for my poor freezing self.
At around 5 am, we turned back. We descended nice and slowly and watched the sunrise from the side of the mountain instead of the top of it. It turns out that I wore one pair of socks too many, so my feet sweated in my boots and got super cold, so when I finally got back to the refuge (after searching long and hard for the long lost glove) my big toes were kind of frozen, and still hurt a lot now. Nico's wife and friends got back a while later, having been to the very top summit--I was obviously jealous, but considering how my toes feel right now, I think it was definitely the right move to turn back when i did.
So, all in all, I got higher than I've been but not as high as I wanted. I tried to prepare well based on what I wore on my Cotopaxi climb, but this California boy just couldn't handle the chill of that clear night's Chimborazo wind. That said though, it was sweet just standing on that huge huge mountain, and the views were awesome, and that's the closest I've ever been to the stars! Definitely worth the pain. Thanks for your good vibes, I felt strongest when I was thinking about my friends, I couldn't have gotten as far as I did without you!
No comments:
Post a Comment