5,6 Dec High on Life 19,341ft.

Thursday night Michael & I packed and he came over to Hostal Belmont. Because Hostal Belmont is only about 100 meters down the street from The Secret Garden, we got a room with two beds and we stayed there that night.

07:00 Friday morning rolled around and we were sitting on the steep curb opposite The Secret Garden eating our bread and yogurt, waiting. As always, because we are in Latin America, everyone is late for everything. This is an interesting phenomena that I have found true with anyone and everything that ever happens concerning Latin America or it's people. Thankfully we only had to wait 20 minutes.

The owner and his wife showed up and drove us to their office. We were greeted by one of our guides, Marco, who spoke pretty good English. Minutes later, two other guys who we were climbing with showed up, Rafael, and Charlie, both from Hong Kong. Charlie has lived in Toronto for the past 10 years. We put our gear in the back of the Toyota SUV and headed south.

We met up with another guide, Segundo, in Machachi, which is located about halfway between Quito and Cotopaxi. Michael and I went with him in his pickup, while Charlie and Rafael stayed with Marco.

I'm not sure how it works, but Ecuadoreans love privatization more than any American businessman. The National Park is privately run and maintained, hummm, peculiar. Now, that doesn't make much sense, does it?

About an hour later we arrived at the park entrance. Then, it was another 45 minutes of driving up and up and up. We drove through the national park which was quite fascinating just in the vistas and terrain. We drove through this huge, open valley, or páramo.

páramo, a treeless, apline plateau in the Andes or tropical South America.
dictionary.com

It was very interesting because we were on a large plateau with no trees, just small bushes, and volcanic rocks randomly scattered about. With Cotopaxi consuming the foreground, we continued up the winding road to the parking area.

When we arrived at the bottom of the snow, we parked the car, put our boots on and geared up. We noticed the decrease of oxygen in the air as the parking lot sits at 4,500m (14,763ft.)
We had a 30 minutes hike to the refuge where we would be staying for the evening.

The refuge was a nice building situated at 4,800m (15,748ft.) with a cafeteria and lounge area on the first floor and a bunch of bunks on the second floor. Marco and Segundo put together a light lunch which consisted of tea and some high carb foods like crackers, cookies, and potato chips. Refael, Charlie, Michael and I played a few hands of Gin Rummy and it was time for dinner. Dinner was a bowl of soup and some tea. After dinner, Marco gave us a short brief of what was gong to happen. He also said, "There is only one flat place on the volcano, the top".

After dinner, Marco took us up to the glacier, 5,000m (16,404ft) where we did some crampon training. By this time, it was 18:00, 6:00pm and it was time to "go to sleep."

Now, I'm not sure if you have ever tried to sleep at 4,800m, but it's isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. In fact, I barely slept at all. Michael can pretty much sleep through anything and anywhere, and even he said he didn't get a great nights sleep.

00:00, 12:00am my watch sounds and we get up along with the other 25 or so climbers from different guide services. We got geared up and ate our bread and cheese and had a couple cups of coca tea. I already had a headache, and not sleeping didn't help, especially for what we were about to do.

01:00, we were out the door and ready to go. At probably just below freezing, everyone was bundled up. People probably thought Michael and I were crazy for not even wearing a hard shell. We each had one base layer and a thin layer of insulation. We wore a thin cap and I had Spring gloves on while Michael sported his fingerless gloves. Everyone else, you could have suspected looked as though they were about to summit Everest. It must be the northern blood. With a light fog in the air and a few flake coming down we started our slow hike to the glacier.
Looking to our right, the lights of Quito sparkled in the distance about 70km north of us. It seemed so peaceful from the side of Cotopaxi. To think that music and dancing probably filled the crazy streets as the week long Festival de Quito was coming to an end.

Once we reached the foot of the glacier Charlie and Rafael roped up with Marco and Michael and I roped up with Segundo. Our breathing already heavy, we started up the glacier as the first two parties. Looking back as we ascended, you could see the lines of dots from headlamps snake up the side of the volcano as other teams came behind us. We paused every so often and were greeted with ¿Estan bien? (How are you guys?) Answers were returned as muy bien, muy bien. (very good, very good).

Marco began to complain that the snow was no good as were were breaking trail through perhaps three or four inches of snow. Now, we must have two different ideas of breaking trail, because when I think of breaking trail, it's more like six to twenty inches of snow.

Our team was breaking trail. With Marco's team behind us, we pressed on. Soon I started to notice that we were pulling away from all the other teams. We continued our snail speed appoach to the summit. Crunch, crunch, ping, crunch, crunch, ping seemed to become the melody of my life as we climbed. The crunch is our steps and the ping is the sound of our ice axes stabbing the snow.

With no sleep, and being very early in the morning, I noticed that I had to concentrate a lot on my rhythm. Breathing heavy, in a state of drunkenness, I followed Segundo and Michael followed me. Soon, it became difficult for me to keep my balance just from looking over my shoulder and the glistening lights of Quito.

It is soon interesting to actually feel the effects of hypoxia, lack of oxygen on your body. You may think you know what it would or should feel like, but until you have actually experienced the effects, you have no idea what it is like. Because everybody reacts differently, physiologically to lack of oxygen, it hard to tell someone what to expect. I will say, however, when you feel the effects, you will know.

Climbing, climbing, climbing, we continued on what seemed like having about six of your favorite drink and then telling your friend to climb up this mountain with you to your favorite bar, getting another drink every 500m until you get to the top.

We came to a part where we walked alongside a deep, wide, crevasse. I was instantly sober for about a minute and a half. It was a great relief from the complacency of the previous few hours.

I knew I was feeling the effects, but more so, I was probably feeling a combination of not sleeping and lack of oxygen. We came to the final pitch of 45 degree snow and Segundo said, "this part is the most dangerous. There won't be anymore breaks until we get to the top". I had to crawl part of the way up. Then we approached another crevasse. Soon after the crevasse, it started to level off.

Violet started to fill the sky as we reached the summit. We reached the summit at 05:30, just before a sunrise. It was so fulfilling standing atop a volcano standing 19,431ft. We stopped once we reached the high point and were above the clouds for a moment. We had a 360 degree panoramic view of Central Ecuador. Looking North, Quito was below us in the distance, the Amazon under the raising sun to the East, Tungarahua and Chimborazo in the South and and the Ilinisas in the West. We saw the crater for a split second as the clouds quickly filled it. We took a few pictures and headed down.

Coming down, we were in the shadow of Cotopaxi. The view below us was so amazing. Green farm land filled the most of the area. The contrast of the blue sky, the white snow and the green farm land is unforgettable.

Once we to back to the foot of the glacier, we took our crampons off and made our final traverse to the refuge. We were the first group to the top, and we were the firs group down. We got back to the refuge at 07:00.

On our way down, Segundo said that he knew we were strong and that's why he wanted us. He said we were one of the fastest teams to summit with him and he thanked us for that. He thanked us because he said it was a challenge for him also. Other guides don't always like strong people so they go slower. Unfortunately, Charlie and Rafael didn't see Ecuador from Cotopaxi's summit. We met them at the refuge.

I felt like I had just finished running a marathon. I didn't want to eat anything as I had a bad stomach ache. It was probably due to dehydration and not eating anything since we left. I just kept drinking tea and soon I felt better.

When we returned to the truck, Michael and I rode in the bed as Charlie, Rafael, Marco, and Segundo rode in the cab. It was great seeing where we had been and what we had accomplished.
Once we arrived at the highway, we dropped Charlie and Rafael off on the side of the road as they were headed to Latacungo. As soon as we stopped, a bus showed up and off they went. We got in the cab, and took a little cat nap on the way back to Quito.

It was hard to believe what we had been through as we arrived back in Quito at 10:30am. We dropped the gear off at Condor Trekking and took off. We ate lunch at our favorite cafe, Este Cafe, and rested for a bit.

Later we met up with some of Michael's classmates Aaron, Alice and Laura at an Indian restaurant for dinner. We went to Plaza Foch, a small square in "Gringo Landia" and had a couple drinks.

It was a great way to spend a weekend and I felt like we really accomplished something. Cotopaxi, standing less than 1,000ft short of Denali (Mt. McKinley, 20,320ft.) I feel like I'm ready to give that a shot. Granted Denali is a little bit different animal due to weather and the latitude, but I think Cotopaxi was a great warm up.