Cotopaxi: take 2.

Well here is the short version; Melissa and I climbed Cotopaxi yesterday!

Here is the long version: after a few minutes of talking about climbing cayambe, mel and I knew we couldnt move on from cotopaxi without one more try. The weather looked good for wednesday night, thursday morning, so we were hopeful to see cotopaxi for the first time!

So we took a rest day, dried out all our stuff and then set off to cotopaxi; we took the metro, the bus and a pickup truck back to the base of the jose rivas hut, and did the 45 minute hike back up to the hut, again. It was super foggy, we saw foxes and this time we packed smart and didnt haul a duffle up (YES!). When we started our climb at midnight, it was clear, but windy (ice was being blown into our faces for about 2 hrs).

first sighting of cotopaxi from the hut

This time we negotiated the crevasses and semi technical ice with ease (we were scared out of our minds the first time!), and moved quickly. As we climbed, the fog rolled in and the wind picked up....one by one we saw the guides turn around with their clients...one even said, ¨it is impossible to summit right now, there is too much wind!¨. But one guide did not turn around, and we didn´t either.

The wind brought ice and snow and I wore my puffy the WHOLE climb. Prussics were iced up, as was my hair, jacket, rope, backpack...and everything else. When we finally got to the headwall there was only one other party that was there who had summitted (they were also unguided...and french). By this time the poor guided dude was totally wasted, and couldnt make it to the summit (he had been puking and slow going for quite some time)

family of foxes on the way to the jose rivas hut

And by the time we summited there was so much fog that we could only see a few feet around us...but we at least knew we were at the top! We rushed down.....exhuasted from the climb and the wind and the cold, collapsed in the hut for a few minutes and then ran down the trail to catch our truck back to the bus that would take us back to quito, where our sister escalita heather was anxiously awaiting our return!

It was a crazy day, but we did it!

We will try to post some pictures when mels camera recovers...although it died almost immediately from the cold so we only have a few pics :)