2013 Ecuador Semester blog post #9

Boy – have we come a long ways! At the beginning of the last expedition, we struggled out of the chozon with backpacks as lopsided as the Tower of Pisa! Then we wasted a half an hour as Mathias and Roberto had to help us re-pack everyone´s bags. On this expedition however, our backpacks looked beautiful and we set off from Palugo at a steady pace.

Sonya and Sosanna

A break for hydration and sustenance

Asha, Julia, Sosanna, and Quinn

The first 3 days of trekking passed rather uneventfully, a fact that can be attributed to the growing strength and experience of our group. The first day we covered about 12.5 km in 7.5 hours, and gained around 700m in elevation – all with relative ease. We set camp early in a beautiful forest of Polylepis trees, which are, in my opinión, some of the coolest trees on earth! These trees are low lying, wide canopy trees with bark that comes off in fine sheets - lighter than newspaper. The trees abundance gave us the plenty of leña (firewood) for our fireplace, and we cooked a filling dinner of quinoa soup. Dinner was early, but everyone was happy to eat and eager to get to sleep.

The next day, we made a relatively late start at 8:40, but made up the time hiking at a brisk pace. We had about 11km to cover that day, a solid portion of which was uphill for our route took us from the forests to the high ridges. In the morning we trekked up a dirt road for a while, then dove into a wet forest where we filled our Katadyn water bottles and crossed a river. The weather was good and we set a steady pace as we climbed up the center of the valley on another dirt road. The trees thinned out slightly and just before we turned off the road we were following, we saw an Ecuadorian condor! This bird´s magnificent wingspan cast long shadows as it glided past us, and even though we were a good ways off, the bird´s grace and power was unmistakable.  We had a long hill to climb before we ate lunch that day, and later, rain and fog rolled in. We still made it to camp by 4:30pm. On the way, we came across a boulder which Jack and Isaiah did a little climbing. They decided that they are coming back to Ecuador someday to camp out next to “The Boulder” and do nothing but climb it all day long.

Fried green bugs

Our camp the night was quite nice, if a little lumpy and lacking in clean water  We were in a low spot on the ridge with cows and horses grazing all around (there are huge herds that roam about on the flatter tops of the ridges). The evening played out normally with tent and tarp set-up, fire lighting (which took a while at 4,000m in a damp cloud) and dinner preparations, until a buzzing bug flew by Roberto.  He leapt into the air and shouted for everyone to join in the hunt! It took a few minutes for Roberto and Tupac to convince us that the bugs were worth chasing, but before long, everyone was yelling and sprinting around after the flying beasts. The hunt lifted our spirits and most of us enjoyed the crispy fried bugs at dinner that night.

Looking down one of the many valleys

Go Quinn!

Julia with our beloved Matty!

The next day we had a short, gorgeous hike to lake Muerte Pungo (door of the dead). There, we had a relaxing afternoon of bathing, cooking, hanging out, enjoying a beautiful rainbow, and making new friends. A little curly haired dog showed up at our camp that night, and in fact, he is still with us today! A combination of cheese rinds and plenty of attention roped the little dog into our group, and now he is a distinct member of our community. He had a lot of names at first - Scruffles, Negro, Saicherdoodle, and Pumpkin. Julia´s name for him, Matty, stuck. Matty has indeed brought a certain light-heartedness to our group, a quality which we needed in the demanding days following Muerte Pungo.

JOY!

Chris, Jackie, and Cotopaxi

On solo

Our last section of trekking to Antisana was a group solo. We were challenged to figure out the navigation and organize our time, which was no small task on the 18km route. We were incredibly motivated however, and pushed hard the whole day. We broke camp in record time, took only a few short breaks, and with Jack and Tadeo´s help, navigated expertly and made it to camp in record time. Hannah, Roberto and Tupac met up with us that afternoon and their upbeat spirits gave us a lift. Despite the threatening clouds, we pushed on to base camp and set up so we could have a full layover day the next morning. We´d anticipated a retched evening in the rain, but the rain never came and we arrived at Antisana base camp at 4:55, an hour and 20 minutes less than Hannah told us it would take! It was an exhausting day, but the accomplishment of successfully completing such a long hike gave us confidence for our upcoming glacier school.

What wonderful teachers!
Roberto and Hannah

 

Prying off muddy boots

The layover day passed quickly. We woke up late (8 am) and got a re-supply which over-whelmed us. There were fresh eggs, veggies, milk and delicious gifts from Adela (Thomas´s mother). Sebastian, a mountain guide who is part of our leadership crew for the rest of the expedition joined us and we had a brief class on high altitude living before bringing some of our gear up to high camp.

Glacier school started the next day and we moved to high camp. We only spent a few hours on the glacier, practicing crampón use and ice axe techniques, but just being up at high camp was part of the training, as it is at an altitude of 4,700m. The next day however, we were out on the glacier for longer and practiced self-arrest skills and working with a rope team.

Glacier school

We went back to the high camp for lunch on the second day of glacier school, and as we ate, we took a vote. We could either wake up at 11pm and attempt the summit, or head out at 2 or 3am and simply go as high as we could before sunrise.  After a bit of discussion, it became clear that the majority of the group wanted to attempt to summit, thus we began the preparations: everyone tried to take a nap before dinner, we drank lots of wáter, and packed our backpacks. It was a strange schedule and nobody slept very much. At  11pm, everyone “woke up” and ate breakfast. After a quick bite toe at, Sebastian led us up to the glacier. His slow methodical pace was critical because it is importnat to conserve as much energy as possible, especially at high altitudes.

Sunrise

All morning we walked in the dark, our headlamps illuminating the patch of snow before us and our crampons steadily crunching on the hard snow. In the immense stillness of Antisana, our minds wandered or lulled off into a meditative state, as our feet kept moving and our lungs kept breathing. The hours passed and the altimeter on Sebastian´s watch slowly rose. We took a few breaks to drink and eat, but mostly we just switched-backed up the steep slopes. When the sky began to lighten, we came to a huge crevasse. At 5,500m we could look down on the clouds and see the earth rolling away far below us. It was an incredible sight! We were 200m in altitude from the summit, but unfortunately, the only option was through a difficult pass and it was deemed too technical for our experience and equipment, so we had to turn back and head to camp.

Cotopaxi - our next destination

Coming down

Even if we didn´t reach Antisana’s summit, climbing to 5,500m is a huge accomplishment, one that will help us on our next challenge: Cotopaxi!  Though we have been acclimatizing slowly all semester, going up to 5,500m will give us a much better chance of summiting Cotopaxi´s 6000m without experiencing altitude sickness. In the next five days, we will be making the trek from Antisana to Cotopaxi, and there is no doubt that, as with our ascent of Antisana, the journey will be far richer than the destination.

Our family on the glacier!

Until next time,

Sonya.

Happy Birthday to:

Arial (Nacho´s Sister) and Thomas

Happy Thankshannukah to all those who took part in the festivities!