Cotopaxi to the Maxi

After an excruciatingly excellent few days catching up in Quito, Andrea and I met up with Jason (in from the Lala Loor Reserve / Tabuga) to journey out to Latacunga, the first step of the journey up Volcan Cotopaxi. Latacunga is only an hour and a half bus ride from Quito – which rings up at a buck-fifty fare – but the bus was leaving as we exited the taxi at the Quito bus terminal. No matter, to catch it as it left all we had to do was catch it, literally, running about half a mile slightly hunched with our heavy packs until the bus stopped at a nearby roundabout and we could jump on as it moved a bit slower. Technically illegal in Ecuador, which is why we had to jump on at the roundabout and not closer to the terminal where La Policia were stationed to prevent those types of shenanigans.

Shortly thereafter we arrived in Latacunga, where Andrea and Jason knew another PCV (Jason used to be a PCV in Andrea's omnibus but exited early over medical issues, and now runs the reserve that Andrea originally went to Tabuga to work on) that had a couple extra beds in his apartment, plus a hookup with the a local mountain-climbing-tour company. John was his name, he was a pretty funny one and it sounds like we'll be seeing him again shortly when we get back to Quito for the Ecuador v Argentina soccer game on June 10th. Anyway, as advertised, we got set up with a tight Cotopaxi climbing company and went out that night to meet those folks and a girl that wanted to make our hiking threesome into a foursome. She was Italian, seemed alright and was named Michaela which will be funny to some.


After agreeing to terms with the climbing company, we went shopping at local markets and returned back to John's apartment to fix up a pretty amazing spaghetti meal. Carbo loading folks, as this wasn't a little hill we had in our sights. Cotopaxi is just under 20,000 feet in elevation, the second tallest active volcano in the world, and the lodge where we'd be staying our first night rests at 15,000 feet and would come after a 2 hour hike the next day.


Woke up the next morning after my first very good night of sleep in Ecuador – weird that it was on a hard futon, but appreciated nonetheless – and had an excellent chorizo scramble prepared by all those crazy PCVs I now hang out with. At around 10am we headed to the climbing company, where we spent the next hour or so getting outfitted with the necessary equipment – three layers of pants, two layers of gloves, ice axe, headlamp, headwrap/hat, crampons and surely a couple other things I've forgotten. Like... a climbing harness, so that we could tie ourselves to our guide.

Then off to Cotopaxi! We loaded into a cool white-and-wood International Scout for the drive to the mountain – myself, Andrea, Jason, Michaela and the two guides, Diego and Joaquin. Decently beautiful drive to the mountain, although it was misty and cold most of the way, as Latacunga is at around 10,000 feet elevation – even at the equator, it gets pretty cold at that height. We were impressed and a bit taken aback when Cotopaxi's flank stuck out of a cloud bank, and hustled to take pictures as we'd heard that might be the only time that we'd get a decent view, due to heavy fog. Hopping out of the truck, we bundled ourselves into our coats and heavy packs laden with snacks, sleeping bags, ice axes and other assorted badass climbing accoutrements.

The first day's walk wasn't crazily hard or technical, just a two-hours walk up fairly soft volcanic gravel at around 15,000 feet elevation. As long as we took it slow it was pretty easy, although like laboring up a 60-degree angle of deep, beach-like sandy stuff. I found that I'd pretty much trained perfectly for this first stretch, what with living up in the Rockies in Alma, CO and taking two or three 6-mile runs per week. So I didn't have to take it slow, and instead just pushed ahead of the group to see how fast I could make it.

Got up to the lodge pretty quick and hung out waiting for the rest of the group to emerge from the mist, camera ready. They arrived 10-20 mins later, but everybody looked pretty damn fit and ready for the bigger climb. Jason, who's never lived above sea level in his 27 years, looked especially spry. Andrea was thanking the fact that she'd been up in the mountains of Cayambe for the past three months (training the new PCVs) for her good high-altitude condition.

Joaquin cooked up yet another pasta dinner as Diego showed us how to stop ourselves when sliding down the icy glacier. We all took turns falling onto a mattress and slamming our ice axes into the wooden floor of the lodge; Andrea and I both excelled at this acting process due to our extensive training in middle school theatre. Jason sucked, he was probably too much of a meathead in middle school.

After some card games we headed off to bed at 7pm or so; it was decided that because I was in such better altitude shape that the three others would take off on the hike at midnight (hopefully after some sleep) and I'd leave at 1pm with Diego, catching up to the rest a couple hours in. Andrea immediately fell asleep on the small bunk beds in the lodge, while Jason and I got an estimated 23 minutes of sleep combined. At eleven we were still wide awake, ready to go (even though I knew I'd have to wait a couple hours) but the guides came up and told us it was far too windy to leave right now, so everyone would wait until 1pm to take off. We rousted around midnight and had a nice little breakfast of yogurt and granola, toast, jam and cheese. Even without sleep, we couldn't feel tired. Cotopaxi awaited.

The energy was palpable as we tightened up our climbing belts and secured our ice axes. After a short bathroom break, we were on our way. The first half-hour or so was on crumbly volcanic rock, illuminated in the pitch blackness by our headlamps. The sky overhead was achingly clear as a result of the high winds, bright stars poking violently through the dark blanket of night. The lights of Quito looked surprisingly close, a long array of yellow pooling in the valley at our backs.

We were the last group to leave, but came upon the next group (out of around six groups or so) by the time we encountered the glacier. Here we sat to affix our crampons, and my crampons took about 20 minutes for the guides to latch on, because we hadn't prepared them correctly at the lodge and they were too small for my boots. This would have two unfortunate consequences: first, that my right crampon would be slipping off, no matter how tight and snug we got it, for the next eight hours of grueling hiking. Second, because it was taking so long, the guides decided to split the four of us up so that at least some folks could leave without waiting for me. Andrea and I were left with Diego, while Jason and the Italian bird went ahead with Joaquin. This proved to be disastrous for Jason.

After getting my crampons on – but not before one of the straps had snapped, never a good sign – we tied ourselves to Diego. Andrea was in the middle, and I took up the rear with the heavy backpack full of snacks, water, and the remainder of our climbing rope bundled around my shoulders. And then we began our ascent of the Cotopaxi glacier, where DEATH awaited!

Well, not really death per se, but I wanted to keep your interest piqued.

Anyhoo, Diego sized up his charges, declared us fit, and decided to push us to our limits. After a few large zig-zags across the glacier as the other groups were doing, he turned back and spoke over the wind to the effect that we'd pass all of the groups in front of us. With that he set a course sans zig-zags, straight up the face of the glacier, maybe a 45-degree angle at this point. Seemed hard at the time, but it wouldn't after we'd had all that the mountain had to give us further along the hike.

We buzzed past Jason's party like they were sitting still, and another one besides, before we had to stop for the first of many five-minutes sessions of me wacking my left crampon with my ice axe and cursing vehemently. The air was crisp but not bitingly cold yet, and the only complaint of chill was from Andrea's feet, and even then only when we had to stop and stand. An hour and a half of hard hiking in, we were feeling good. Where the moonlight and our headlamps reached, we could see massive snow formations all around us in undulating bursts and waves. At times we came across steep ascents that required us to turn sideways and take small sidesteps, pitching heavily onto our axes. The headlamps of other groups twinkled steadily on the trail ahead of us, but swung closer every time we paused to look.

Three hours in, we paused beneath a hulking hill of ice to take water. Andrea asked Diego how much more time we had in the hike, and he looked up the mountain and figured that it would be another five hours. This was around 4am, as we'd taken off at 1am, so another 5 hours would put us at 9am, cutting too close to the mandatory 9am time to leave the top of Cotopaxi due to avalanche danger on the descent. I checked and rechecked this on my watch, but decided not to tell Andrea that we might not make the top given that estimate. We put our heads down and soldiered on.

We passed another three groups or so over the course of the next two hours. By this time we were noticing far less of our surroundings, focusing instead on the footstep to come.