Ecuador Volcanoes Expedition Dispatch

November 12, 2010 – We Make it to 5700 Meters (18,700 feet) on Cayambe

This is Leila Silveira reporting from Hacienda Guachala. Today was a long day; we woke up around midnight and by 1:30am we were all outside and ready to go. The weather though was not cooperating; it was a mix of rain and snow and extremely warm.

Helvecio enjoying the climb

The climb started with a long scramble until we reached the glacier and put on our crampons. The scramble itself was not hard but the darkness and rain didn’t help; the rocks were wet and the only advantage was the fact that the weather was unusually warm.

Once we reached the glacier, the conditions were good; there was no deep snow and no risk of avalanche. We took an excellent route and marked the terrain well in case we experienced any change of weather on the way down.

The entire day was a mix of rain, snow, fog, and white out, only some moments of clearing.

When we reached the summit ridge at 5700 meters we had to turn around however. The weather had warmed up even more as we got closer to the summit. There was a 50 degree ice wall with extremely wet snow sticking to it. It would not have been safe to keep going an extra hour to the summit. Everyone was happy for such a hard and long day and by the time we returned to the refugio we were all happy to be back.

David climbed with me and Osvaldo the entire day and went really strong but by the time he got down to the refugio he decided that between the Imbabura climb and today, he was ready to go home. We will miss him but the main thing is that he is happy; he had a couple major summit days and he is ready to go home. Congratulations David, on pushing your skills and your conditioning even further on this trip.

We packed our bags and loaded the bus and went down for what will be a couple of rest days before our next climb, Cotopaxi.

We are now staying at hacienda Guachala, the oldest hacienda in Ecuador, and tomorrow we will go to Termas Papallacta, a beautiful hot spring resort where we will be at lower altitude and will be able to rest and get ready for our next adventures.