Success!
We climbed the mountain on the first night in the refugia, which was problematic as that entailed around 10,300ft of elevation gain in a day. High altitude sickness sets in after around ten thousand feet in a day, so we were all really sucking air for the top 1000ft of the climb. its hard to overstate how much the altitude caused us pain. I could take maybe six steps before i had to stop and catch my breath. At the summit, theres a maybe half mile jog over to the real peak, which took Forrest, Orion and myself around half an hour to complete, but that puts us at the fifteenth tallest peak in the world, the highest point in Ecuador, and the farthest point from the center of the earth, so quite a few accomplishments for a day of climbing. We had perfect weather, clear skies all morning. Began the climb at 1100 in the night (after 2 and a half hours of sleep) reached the first summit at around 730, and the real summit at 8, got back to the refugia at around 200 in the afternoon. Which makes us about usual on the ascent and like two hours behind schedual on the descent. Unfourtunately, having clear skies made it colder, and the peak is fairly well above 20,000 feet (the dead zone) so we couldnt get enough oxygen to keep ourselves warm, no matter how much we tried to move. we had moonlight for the first three hours or sao, until the moon went down, making everything dark and depressing for about five hours until the sun came up. This period of time entailed a seemingly endless trudge up a slightly crevassed snowfield.
(heck yes! Refugia in the foreground)
After getting back to the refugia, we decided to catch a ride in the back of a truck back to RIobamba, as most of us were completely exhausted, with a fair amount of altitude sickness going around. Alot of us had to take our boots off and check for frostbite. Considering the size of our group, we made pretty good time, keeping up with the guided groups for the most part. One causualty: my glasses broke as we were gearing up for the climb, vis a vis me putting on my baliclava. now i can wear either my sunglasses, which is wierd when its dark, or my regular glasses as long i wear my skullcap as well, which makes me look like a thug. Just bought superglue, so fingers crossed.
(Orions Hero shot approaching the Refugia)
After we got back to Riobamaba, August and Forrest decided to go climb a mountain called Cotopaxi, the second tallest in Ecuador, while the rest of us went o the beach (Hello, Malaria medication! like morning sickness for the non child-bearing....) About a seven hour bus ride, dropping 9000ft of elevation. So far Salinas is an expensive but not very appealing tourist ghetto, with old decrepid colonial hotels with cold showers. but there should be whales.