Volcan Chimborazo

February 21, 2009
Saturday
8:07am
Sayausi
Partly Cloudy, 55F


Atletismo
This past week we decided to test our aerobic capabilities in two arenas: running a 10k at 9,000ft and attempting a hike up Chimborazo a volcano whose summit is over 20,700ft above sea level; the closest point to the sun on the entire planet (thanks to equatorial bulge).

Reference points: We will be talking a lot about altitude in this post so here’s a few points of reference from the states:

Highest mountain east of the Mississippi River is just over 6,000 feet above sea level.
Highest peak in the lower 48 is just over 14,000 feet above sea level.
Combine the two of those and you get Volcan Chimborazo at 20,700 feet above sea level.

146th and 184th
The 10k race was last Sunday and the course wove through the streets of Cuenca. Like all the other races we have participated in or observed in Ecuador there were no casual runners. Everyone showed up in their fancy running shorts and tank tops doing star jumps and other ridiculous looking warm up activities. They also all brought their racing attitude i.e. I am going to give it my all and if I am not vomiting at the end of this race I did not try hard enough. Needless to say that is not the attitude I showed up with. Nor have I spent my life running at 9,000ft above sea level like every other participant (excluding Mike and the other volunteer who were also running in the race). As such I began the race towards the back of the 250 person pack and finished in the back as well. My place being 184th out of 250. Mike did slightly better coming in at 146th place. I guess this should have been an indication of our preparedness to climb Chimbo which again peaks out at over 20,000ft above sea level and is the highest place on the planet.


The Chimbo Trek
Since arriving back in Ecuador Mike and another volunteer, Garrett, have been planning their attempt to climb Chimborazo. The climb to the summit is supposed to take between 8-10 hours and the descent an additional 2-4 hours, depending of course on the speed at which you are walking which is dictated by fitness level, snow level, and level of acclimatization, and of course level of craziness (which according to me has to be set higher than average). The climb itself, we were told, is not technical and only requires that a person be in good shape. By the end of the trip our definition of good shape and even altitude acclimatization had completely changed.

Entrenemiento
To prepare for this climb Mike was of course hiking in Cajas on a regular basis (I too was going on these hikes but as I have a more average level of craziness I never intended to attempt a summit on Chimbo and instead planned on staying at the refuge while the other made their climb; as such these were not training hikes for me, they were just normal hikes).

These hikes usually peaked out at around 13,000 ft above sea level and we went out hiking for 4-6 hours once or twice a week in the month leading up to Chimbo. The highest we hiked up to during our training was Paraguillas which reaches 14,500ft above sea level.

In addition to these hikes, Mike had started a weight-lifting regime which included going into our dojo with the gas tank, a brick, several big bottles of water, and a few big rocks. I am not sure what the regime consisted of but it took about an hour and he came out tired and sweaty…boys. On my part, I was going for 40-50 minute runs several times a week, in preparation for my stay at the refuge. After my last Andean mountain refuge stay three years ago at Cotopaxi where we had to come down due to my mild altitude sickness I was trying not to take any chances.

So, after a full four weeks of this intense training schedule, Garrett and Gina (two volunteers that started their service in Bolivia but were relocated to Ecuador after Bolivia was forced to kick out the US Ambassador and PeaceCorps Bolivia was shut down) arrived in Sayausi to make the trip up to Riobamba the nearest city to Volcan Chimborazo.

Gearing Up
On Tuesday morning, the day we were planning to leave for Riobamba the city closest to Chimbo, while walking towards the bus terminal in Cuenca with our backpacks we got a call from the mountain guide agency. They were calling to see if we still wanted to go up even though it wasn’t a full moon. Apparently, since global climate change started messing with normal weather patterns they have found that the weather on Chimbo is better around the full moon and our chances for a summit would be greater if we postponed two weeks and attempted our climb with a full moon shining down. They also wanted to let us know that the recent weather on the mountain had been fairly bad (lots of snow) and that they can never guarantee what the climbing conditions will be like, but that they “confiar en la luna”.

Now, none of us were earth science majors but even with our biology degrees we were pretty confident that the moon has very little influence on mountain weather patterns. So despite what the guide shop was advising us, we decided to go ahead and leave as originally planned as the historically best times for climbing Chimbo are June-August and December-February and if we waited two more weeks we would be climbing during the historically worst time to climb. “Worst” times to climb and “best” times to climb being based on the weather and snow level during these times. Surprisingly when there is a lot of snow it makes the climb a lot harder and the chances of reaching the summit before utter exhaustion are low.

So, at 11:00am on Tuesday morning we set off for Riobamba. After six hours of slow curvy Andean highland semi-paved highway we arrived. A half an hour after that we got a phone call from PeaceCorps telling us that the road between Cuenca and Riobamba (the same that we just took) was off limits to volunteers due to landslides and subsequent road closures. Talk about timing! If we had left any later PeaceCorps wouldn’t have let us go, we would’ve lost our deposit money and our chance to climb Chimbo (Parents of the world, please do not worry too much, had it been really bad we would’ve cut our financial losses in favor of our safety…or at least I would have and then Mike would’ve had to as well).

After talking with PeaceCorps and letting them know we were in fact safe, it was time to eat, and eat, and eat. We met up with another volunteer who lives in Riobamba and she took us to a little pizza place where I think Mike may have eaten his weight in food, all in preparation for the climb of course.

Wednesday morning we walked around Riobamba until one o’clock when we went to the mountain guide agency to get all of our gear and then head up to the refuge. We were supposed to go the agency earlier but a group of Germans who were up on Chimbo the night before got really sick on the mountain and the guides were busy all morning getting them off the mountain and back to safer altitudes.

At the guide shop the climbers, Mike, Garrett, and Gina, were given boots, crampons, an ice ax, water resistant pants, a fleece, a water-resistant jacket, giant gloves, a harness, a headlamp, and gators (things that cover your shoe up to your knee so snow doesn’t fall into your boots). I was given the warm clothing, a sleeping bag, and none of the climbing gear.

After picking up some roasted chicken and the rest of our food for the next 20 hours we got in the car and started the drive up to the first refuge located about an hour and half from Riobamba with an altitude of 15,748 ft above sea level (the same altitude as the refuge on Cotopaxi where I got sick from the altitude three years earlier). The ride up was half on a paved road and half on a windy, cinder road with visibility of about ten feet due to heavy fog (at this altitude they are clouds, but it still seems like fog). The only things that would occasionally break the white blanket of fog were giant volcanic rocks strewn across the barren landscape and several prancing vicuna (a relative of the alpaca with extraordinarily fine fibers and a very small population).

When we arrived at the first refuge there was a blanket of snow with a depth of at least 3-4 inches. We were told that it is a rare thing to have snow that low on the mountain….retrospectively a warning that there would be huge quantities of snow higher up the mountain. At the first refuge we were given a snack of tea and popcorn followed an hour later by dinner. It was sometime between the snack and dinner when my head started to hurt…totally psychological right, that I would get the same symptom of altitude sickness at the exact same altitude I got sick last time?

Once we had finished dinner we donned all our gear and headed up to the second refuge on a cinder trail lined with giant volcanic boulders (both red ones and black ones), covered with snow, and a visibility range of 20 feet at best.

Drive North, Gear Up, and the First Refuge



16,404 ft – 19,???ft
The hike to the second refuge took about 30 minutes and all the physical and aerobic strength I had, made painfully obvious by the persistence of my headache and the onset of mild nausea. We were now at 16,404ft above sea level, the highest any of us had ever been.

At this altitude I was not the only with a headache, but everyone else maintained their positivity and hoped that a couple of hours of sleep before the climb would help. So, at 7:00pm we got into our sleeping bags and attempted to doze off for a few hours before the 11:30pm wake up call.

I can only speak for myself and Mike but those few hours were anything but restful. My heart rate never dropped below 90 beats per minute, my headache just got worse, and the sleeping bag was not keeping me warm. In fact, I was probably shivering for the entire time, my shivers ranging from mild to severe jerking spasms. During these restless hours I was considering my bailout option: hiking down to the first refuge and paying the guide there any sum of money to drive me back to Riobamba. Luckily, I was about to inherit three additional sleeping bags once everyone left on their hike so I decided to wait it out and see if warmth would make things better (spoiler alert: the extra sleeping bags did in fact make all the difference and I slept like a rock from 12:30 onward).

At 11:30 pm the guides came to wake everyone from their restless sleep. Mike, Garrett, and Gina got up and began gearing up by the light of their headlamps and shuffling down to the first floor where “breakfast” by candlelight was waiting (there is no electricity at this altitude). I too got up and went downstairs to enjoy the small fire (the wood comes up on donkey) and stretch out my now cramped muscles from tossing, turning, and shivering the past four hours. As Mike was being strapped into a harness that he would later be using to repel down an icy rock face, I sipped some hot chocolate, warmed my hands by the fire, and started to feel a little better.

When 12:30am rolled around it was time for the hike to start. The hike has to start in the middle of the night so that you can reach the summit and head back down before the sun has time to melt the snow causing avalanches and other mountain dangers. The equatorial sun is strong even at altitude. So, in the pitch black of midnight Mike, Garret, Gina and their two Kichwa and Spanish speaking guides set out from the second refuge headed up, and up, and up. I turned around, went, back upstairs, grabbed all of the sleeping bags, constructed a serious cocoon, and quite literally passed out into a lovely deep sleep.

Meanwhile…

…the hike began. Though I only saw the headlamps creeping up the first 10 meters of the path, and the reflective patches on their jackets shining back, I have been told Mike and the gangs’ accounts of what happened and have been given permission to relay that information here. The trail was steep. Very steep. Steeper than expected and relentless in its incline. There were no places where the trail leveled off. In fact, it actually got steeper as you went further along. At its easiest point the incline was most like a staircase but it would be more appropriate to compare the majority of the trail to a ladder. The trail was also surrounded by steep, sloping drop offs that dropped off for thousands of feet into a sea of darkness. The term “trail” is also slightly inappropriate as there were several feet of fresh snow on the mountain hence covering any “trail” that may exist below it. In the few places where the snow was thin, because of the steep slope, the “trail” was solid rock covered by a crust of ice.

“Crampon, crampon, ice ax,” were the words that continued to float through Mike’s head as he advanced slowly up the trail. This translates in layman’s terms to, “Left foot, right foot, cane,” but with the added physical challenge of kicking your feet into icy snow with each short stride and plunging the spiked end of the ice ax down several feet to provide an anchor in case the snow under your feet gives out and you start to slip downhill. (Notes for the non-climber: The ice-ax is attached to your safety harness by a short rope, so if your footing gives way and you slip and fall your ice-ax should catch you and support your weight. Also, each climbers harness is attached to their guides harness by a 20ft rope incase of fall, of which we did have one but thanks to the rope and harness system no one went sliding thousands of feet down the mountain. Crampons are the spiky metal things that look like mini bear traps that you strap to the bottom of your plastic mountain boots and use to kick into the snow and ice for traction.)

And of course, during all of this your body is severely deprived of oxygen. So, after two hours of ascent they arrived at the top of an inverted V shaped ridge, and despite the steep sides, this ridge was the one and only level part of the hike. This is where Mike took the only pictures we have of the hike as it was unbelievably cold and otherwise dangerous to take out the camera and let go of your anchor i.e. your ice ax which is what stands between you and slipping downhill into that unending dark slope to oblivion. But I’ve been told you could see both the Southern Cross and the Big Dipper so maybe it was worth it.

Another hour of “crampon, crampon, ice ax” and Mike started asking the guide some questions about how much longer there was to go and how hard the descent was. Three hours of constant hiking and there was still another five to go plus the descent which is faster but more energy demanding than the ascent. Considering this information plus the fact that the slope was getting even steeper causing more slipping and less upward movement, and that it was impossible to take more than four consecutive steps in row without stopping to rest, and that you couldn’t rest without getting really, really, cold, and you needed to rest more because the trail was getting harder, and that with every step you go there is less oxygen available, and that Mike is no longer single and twenty-one, he decided it was time to turn around and head back.

So, at nineteen thousand and some number of feet above sea level after three and a half hours of hiking up Mike and one of the guides turned around and started descending back toward the refuge located just over three thousand vertical feet below them. Gina, Garrett, and the second guide continued uphill for another hour or so before later coming to the same decision.

The hike down was faster as it included more slipping, sliding, and a free form of sledding (without a sled) down a particularly steep section that involved Mike in a seated position using his ice ax as a handbrake with the guide he was still roped to behind him doing the same thing for about 300 yards. In addition to this free form sledding Mike had to repel down a 20 foot rock face covered with snow and ice. Repelling meaning the guide was holding all of Mike’s weight using a rope that they were each tied into by the harnesses they were wearing. As Mike slowly kicked to find footing with the toe part of each crampon and hammer in with the pick end of his ice ax he made his way down…as for the guide, he did the same thing without the additional safety of someone supporting his weight (I guess that’s why you pay for the guide).

Aside from the bitter cold, the steep drop offs into mountain crevices, the lack of oxygen, and the psychological challenge of forcing your body to its physical limits, the hike I was told, was absolutely gorgeous. The sky was clear allowing thousands of stars to decorate the otherwise black sky and a crescent moon eventually peaked over the mountain top turning the snow into a blanket of iridescent blue. So, despite numb fingers and toes, burning lungs, and extreme fatigue, the brain still seemed able to process the beauty of the mountain against the backdrop of night…or maybe it was all an illusion created by lack of oxygen, I guess we’ll never know.

Back in the refuge…

After five full hours of toasty warm, dreamless sleep I heard the unmistakable sounds of giant snow boots on the metal ladder staircase that leads up to the rooms where generally hikers sleep before the big hike, or in this case, where those who opt out of the extreme high altitude activities with high discomfort levels accompanied by the risk of falling off mountain ridges into an infinite blackness, sleep.

I crawled out of the four layers of sleeping bags under which I had been hibernating to see a large dark figure duck in through the doorway and then blind me with a giant headlamp. It took several seconds to realize this relative of the abominable snowman was in fact Mike back from his attempt to climb Chimborazo. Moving as quickly as he could in what was an exhausted, semi-frozen state, Mike took off the giant snow boots, the harness, the water resistant pants, the water resistant jacket, two fleeces, glacier gloves, hat, headlamp, and few other random pieces of climbing equipment and collapsed into the nearest bunk bed.

I did get a few details out of him before he fell asleep (yes, I did give up some sleeping bags). However, he didn’t get to sleep long before the sounds of snow boots on metal yet again broke the otherwise perfect silence of the refuge of Chimborazo. At around seven o’clock Gina and Garrett were back at the refuge having had to turn back from their climb about an hour after Mike turned back. Again, a few details were shared and many layers of equipment were shed before they too collapsed into the nearest available bunk. Being back down to one sleeping bag and since the sun was starting to crest over the mountain, I decided to get up and take a look around the refuge as it was after seven o’clock in the morning and my cocoon had been dismantled.

The morning at the refuge was beautiful. There were no clouds and the fog (clouds) that had enshrouded the area when we had arrived the day before had lifted revealing stunning views of the Volcan Chimborazo. I was later told that the weather during the hike was also beautiful, though cold, and that had it not been for the several snowy days preceding the climb that they would have had a better chance at the summit. In any event, the morning was certainly breathtaking and for a brief, fleeting, almost non-existent moment I could understand the urge to climb to the top of the gentle looking mountain before me. However, after a few careful minutes of studying the mountain side, the sharp edges stood out more clearly as well as the steep rock faces that cut through the snow covered ridges, and seeing the fresh tracks where the hikers had ascended the urge to even walk up the trail a little bit left as quickly as it came.

Several hours later, Mike, Garrett, and Gina awoke and we began the hike, which for them compared to the night before was more like a stroll in a park on a spring day, back down to the first refuge. At the first refuge we gathered up all the rented gear, turned it over to the guides, then piled into the van that would take us back to Riobamba leaving Chimborazo behind (and above) us in the clouds.

Chimborazo Climb



Carnaval
Back in Riobamba we were greeted with the official start of Carnaval. Carnaval is the Ecuadorian equivalent of Mardi Gras except that it lasts five days and instead of drunken madness, the entire country participates in what is essentially a giant, friendly water fight. Everyone is fair game, although the younger population seems more into it than the older population, and nobody gets mad.

This is how it works. You buy water balloons, water guns, and flour. You then walk the streets or perch on a balcony and try to soak as many people as your can. After soaking people with water you also try to cover them in flour or carioca (an Ecuadorian version of silly string). This continues all day for five days until Ash Wednesday. We’ve been told it stops on Wednesday but we were also told that it wasn’t supposed to start until this past Thursday, despite the fact that on February first Mike and I were walking in Cuenca when someone dumped an entire bucket of water on our heads. Luckily, aside from some minor water gun attacks, that’s been our only real soaking since Carnaval began but technically it started three days ago so we’ll see what happens.

We stayed the night in Riobamba and then headed back to Cuenca on Friday morning. Apparently, there had been several mudslides on the road between Riobamba and Cuenca but they were cleared up well enough to allow at least one lane of traffic to pass again. So, six hours later we were back home and ready to celebrate Carnaval…or at least ready to watch it from the safety of our apartment! (The soakings have reportedly been drier than normal since the water in Sayausi has been off for three days now. Don’t worry though; the kids are going down to the river to fill up their water guns and buckets.)

Riobamba Carnaval and Drive South


Carnaval in Riobamba


Special Note: When we arrived in Riobamba it was Day One of Carnaval. Saturday, Sunday, and especially Monday and Tuesday were still to come which means another blog is soon to come with loads of Carnaval goodness...check back soon!