Indeed we did our first mountain today at 4696m!
Besides the altitude factor, this is more a hike than anything else.
The night before we got to enjoy the Quito festivities and partied late until 9PM. Indeed, since we can t drink (does not help with acclimatization) and had a real hard time going around with the streets crowded as ever, we decided to call it an early night. For the little we saw, many costumes, especially temporary transvestites stopping cars and doing obscenities for a dime or a nickel. We somehow celebrated the new years when we got woken up by the fire crackers and fire works at midnight sharp.
Yes... I must really sound like an old grandpa but summits are my best parties.
This allowed us to wake up fresh at 7am and enjoy a sunny and warm 1st of January. We took a taxi to the biggest attraction in town, the teleferico (or cable car). We were lifted from an altitude of 3000m to 4100m just in a few minutes. We were very please to see our first glaciated volcano Artisana at 5800m, who was shyly pointing her head out of the clouds. At the arrival station we quickly put on our 60spf cream and extra dark sunglasses since the sun was extremely strong.
The main concerns I had about this hike was the altitude and the robberies on the trails (I had read some very bad reports)
For the altitude, at 4100m we were feeling great. Not everyone was feeling the same since we noticed a few throwing up, altitude and booze don t mix.
We had a very safe trip to the top. It was mostly a grassy ridge until a rocky peak. We enjoyed great views on the way until it got covered when we reached the base of the peak. The pleasant surprise was that the trail was very clean from any litter, something rare when you are so close to a large metropole.
To reach the summit we had to take a long sandy slope which was very dreadful and then do a few easy climbing moves with no exposure. The top had a huge sign confirming our success since visibility was minimal.
We were very pleased with two factors, it had only taken us 2 hours from the lift and we were starving.
Happy to be starving because this meant we were well acclimatized, besides the tingling in our hands and feet (because of Diamox) we felt like we were on a normal British Colombian hike.
At the summit we enjoyed a modest picnic while the weather was clearing up again. Although not too cold, the wind and lack of oxygen made us very chilly. We finally got some great views of Quito and the surroundings mountains.
After one hour on the summit, we headed down. We were hoping to make it back in an hour only, but kept on meeting friendly groups from all around the world. Since we had been the first ones to summit that day, we kept giving advices to the oncoming climbers.
In exactly 2 hours, we made it back to the lift where we enjoyed a free ecuadorian doughnut with a delicious pear juice. We then descended back to the easier elevation of 3000m and headed back to our hostel.
We will be leaving tomorrow for the hut of Cayambe at 4700m. We hope that our acclimatization has worked and will be able to get some rest. Hopefully we get there by noon and hike around to get a feeling of the volcano. We will then go to bed around 5pm to wake up 6 hours later. Hopefully we will get to summit in the night of the monday to the tuesday. I cross fingers that I will send you another summit succes email on wednesday!
Besides the altitude factor, this is more a hike than anything else.
The night before we got to enjoy the Quito festivities and partied late until 9PM. Indeed, since we can t drink (does not help with acclimatization) and had a real hard time going around with the streets crowded as ever, we decided to call it an early night. For the little we saw, many costumes, especially temporary transvestites stopping cars and doing obscenities for a dime or a nickel. We somehow celebrated the new years when we got woken up by the fire crackers and fire works at midnight sharp.
Yes... I must really sound like an old grandpa but summits are my best parties.
This allowed us to wake up fresh at 7am and enjoy a sunny and warm 1st of January. We took a taxi to the biggest attraction in town, the teleferico (or cable car). We were lifted from an altitude of 3000m to 4100m just in a few minutes. We were very please to see our first glaciated volcano Artisana at 5800m, who was shyly pointing her head out of the clouds. At the arrival station we quickly put on our 60spf cream and extra dark sunglasses since the sun was extremely strong.
The main concerns I had about this hike was the altitude and the robberies on the trails (I had read some very bad reports)
For the altitude, at 4100m we were feeling great. Not everyone was feeling the same since we noticed a few throwing up, altitude and booze don t mix.
We had a very safe trip to the top. It was mostly a grassy ridge until a rocky peak. We enjoyed great views on the way until it got covered when we reached the base of the peak. The pleasant surprise was that the trail was very clean from any litter, something rare when you are so close to a large metropole.
To reach the summit we had to take a long sandy slope which was very dreadful and then do a few easy climbing moves with no exposure. The top had a huge sign confirming our success since visibility was minimal.
We were very pleased with two factors, it had only taken us 2 hours from the lift and we were starving.
Happy to be starving because this meant we were well acclimatized, besides the tingling in our hands and feet (because of Diamox) we felt like we were on a normal British Colombian hike.
At the summit we enjoyed a modest picnic while the weather was clearing up again. Although not too cold, the wind and lack of oxygen made us very chilly. We finally got some great views of Quito and the surroundings mountains.
After one hour on the summit, we headed down. We were hoping to make it back in an hour only, but kept on meeting friendly groups from all around the world. Since we had been the first ones to summit that day, we kept giving advices to the oncoming climbers.
In exactly 2 hours, we made it back to the lift where we enjoyed a free ecuadorian doughnut with a delicious pear juice. We then descended back to the easier elevation of 3000m and headed back to our hostel.
We will be leaving tomorrow for the hut of Cayambe at 4700m. We hope that our acclimatization has worked and will be able to get some rest. Hopefully we get there by noon and hike around to get a feeling of the volcano. We will then go to bed around 5pm to wake up 6 hours later. Hopefully we will get to summit in the night of the monday to the tuesday. I cross fingers that I will send you another summit succes email on wednesday!
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