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| Jackie and Tadeo navigating |
The last
update left off with our summit attempt of Antisana. Our next journey began with a three-day
group solo through the highlands to the foothills of Cotopaxi. We were split
into two groups for this solo.
Team Jack Around the Mountain (Jack, Sosonna, Angus, Isaiah,
Yarrow, Robin, and Julia). Jack kindly offered to write about his groups’ experience.
Previous to
our group solos, we lived in a circle of 20 faces with the exception of one
cowboy we saw on the second day of our trek. Our group of 14 students and 6
teachers were the only community around. We were always with each other, save
the nighttime when the group splintered into 6 tents to survive the wet, cold,
mountain nights. After nine days of living in a tight-knit community, most everyone
(all, I would wager) wanted to be apart at some level.
The group solo
was the divine answer! And everyone in the “around the mountain” group felt it.
For three days and two nights, the seven of us hiked through the middle of the remote
Andean Plateaus, consisting of grasslands and marsh. A group consisting of
three teachers, Hannah, Leah (who recently joined us from NH), and Tupac never
strayed more than 1 km from us, but the mountains prevented daily radio contact
and thus we felt completely isolated. We were immersed in a great, open, wild
world of mountains and plains, populated by wild deer, horses, llamas, cows,
rabbits, and birds.
In the
midst of a pebble-sized hailstorm, we had a hasty lunch of PB and J’s and packed
up our Antisana basecamp. We left the slopes of our great volcanic host and descended
300m onto a gigantic grassland bowl sprawling to the south of Antisana. A
number of roads, maintained by the Ecuadorian Park Service for the purpose of
water management, crisscrossed the valley and provided a swift path to our
destination across the plains, through a canyon, and onward to our camp at the Rio Diguchi,
some 16 km south of our starting point.
Compared
with the hiking pace of our previous trek, the seven of us flew to camp at 4
km/hr. Our late start at 2 PM pushed us to walk in the last licks of a gorgeous
burning sun, making camp on the banks of the small crystal clear river at 6 PM.
Having
luckily found a stash of good firewood in a vast treeless region, we made a delicious
meal over a glorious fire. All fourteen of our pruned feet and soggy socks fit
around this fire, an impossibility with a group of twenty. We sang, ate, and
laughed near the heat and basked in the inclusiveness of a seven-person
conversation.
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| Heading towards Cotopaxi |
The next
morning, after packing up camp, we set off up a steep river valley, fighting
through the ubiquitous fog in the highlands, knee- to chest-high grass that,
despite its picturesque look, is nearly impassable. But after a triumphant 300m
climb, that stressed our leg muscles and taxed our lungs, we strode out into a
vast swampy plateau filled with rivers and ridges, that lays Northeast of Cotopaxi
and South of Sincholau. We walked for 8 km in the muck and madness of the marsh,
with the wet and dark environment erring on my own willingness to press on. By
3:30, it was time to find a camp. Yet everywhere in sight was either a slope or
a marsh - dry flat-ish ground was nowhere to be found. Forget about firewood,
these wetlands had only grass, moss and mud!
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| Quinn coaxing the fire along |
Despite carrying firewood all the
way from out first camp, the conditions were not conducive to lighting fire. A
cloud moved over our marshy camp, cloaking everything in moisture. Trying to
keep spirits high, all seven of us piled into a tent and ate jerky and a thick
mixture of peanut butter, quick oats, water, chocolate and nuts. It was deliciously
gross and after reading aloud in our tent, we all went to sleep satisfied.
The next day was the last of the
solo, ending at the Cajas lakes (large puddles) at the foot of Cotopaxi’s eastern
slope. What was expected to be the easiest day – a 12km hike up a small ridge,
then down a river valley and onto the volcanic plateau sitting next to Cotopaxi,
was our final goal. The easiest day in a week, and the sun would come out to
greet our arrival. We’d push to the lakes, and, by 2PM, make a fire and have a
nice, hot lunch of cheesy rice. That was the way we hoped the day would go...
Well, we didn’t have the map with
the Cajas on it, and the one we did have, ended a few km before our
destination. Just a compass bearing with vague instructions guided our way.
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| Trekking |
“They’re on the volcanic field, I
feel they’re just over that ridge, we’ll be able to see them from the plateau,”
I kept saying. But the lakes were nowhere to be found. We walked to the end of
the flats to the south, reaching a deep ravine with a glacier fed stream.
“Where are these lakes, they don’t
exist!” We exclaimed. “The road goes to the lakes, so we can follow it.” And
follow it we did, down the road, through the ravine away from Cotopaxi.
“Hannah, it’s Julia, we’re all fine
but we need some direction to the lakes,” Julia pleaded on the radio at 3:30,
when all our hopes of finding the lakes were gone.
“Guys, we’re not lost.” I stated in
attempt to rally the group. “It’s just - we don’t know where the lakes are, or
they don’t exist!”
We sulkily continued down the
ravine on the road, for want of a direction to go. At least we could camp in
the ravine since there was water, wood, and lovely grassy spots for tents.
At 4:00, the teachers responded via
radio. And after many confused radio conversations, we realized where the lakes
were - only about 2km back from where we came, hidden amongst small hills! So we
started back, annoyed that we weren’t camping in our ravine, but glad in our hearts
we knew where the lakes were. After an hour's walk, we heard shouting and exchanged
yells with the other group who had just arrived at the lakes. We ran towards
them and realized that we had passed just 50 m from where our camp now stood. I
wished we’d had a map!
-Written by Sir Jack “Cousteau” himself, our
fabulous food manager and assistant navigator.
Team Tadeo Over the
Mountain (Tadeo, Jackie, Chris, Asha, Quinn, Nacho, and Sonya): Sonya
writes:
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| Nacho and Asha with a firewood supply |
Our solo
began with hail. It had been a dreary but unthreatening morning while we
prepared for the next section of our expedition; packing tents, sending Mathias
off with our gear for Cotopaxi, and meeting with our solo groups to go over our
plan for the next three days of trekking. After a lunch of peanut butter and
jelly and a salad made of the last fresh produce from our re-supply, the tarp
came down and into the hail we went.
Luckily,
the hail didn’t last long. Within 15 minutes, we were walking under a pale grey
sky. Thunder still rumbled in the southeast, but the clouds withheld their
moisture, and we walked across the highlands in peace. It was an easy route,
mostly flat and downhill, so we made good time and covered the 13 km to camp
before darkness fell. We set up camp at a leisurely pace, and though our tarp
was distinctly saggy, our curried rice was nearly cooked and didn’t burn at
all!
That night, as I sat brushing my teeth under the tarp, I
noticed two glowing eyes reflecting my headlamp’s light. They came bobbing up
over the hill straight towards me.
Slightly alarmed, I called out to
the rest of the group in their tents, “Guys, there’s some sort of animal coming
towards me out here. A fox? Or coyote? No, I think it’s a wolf.”
Then, Chris’
muffled voice from his tent called out, “Knives out!”
I never did
get my knife out, but the dog-like creature turned aside and slunk around the
tarp about ten feet in front of me. Chris and Nacho however, were out of the
tent within minutes and took off in the direction I indicated that the animal
had disappeared in. A few minutes later, they came back over the hill and
informed me that the beast was nothing but a grey fox and they’d chased it off,
so we went to bed and slept soundly for the rest of the night.
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| A much needed rest |
Our second
day of trekking was hard. The terrain wasn’t particularly difficult, nor the
route particularly long, but for some reason we were exhausted. Every time we
mustered up the energy to start walking again after a break, our backpacks felt
a little heavier and our legs more leaden. By 4:00 PM, we were thoroughly
unmotivated and the rumbling thunder and threateningly dark clouds weren’t
helping anything.
We were next to a stream and the
ground was pretty flat, so I asked Tadeo if we couldn’t just set up camp there.
He consulted the map and determined that though we were still 3 km from the
lake we were supposed to stay at, the trek wouldn’t be longer our next day if
we stayed where we were. So we set up camp.
And just in time, for the heavens
opened as soon as our tents were up. We set up the tarp between the tents and
huddled under it as gallons of water poured down. To keep the water from
flooding our little dry-ish haven, we set up pots on the upper slope of the
tarp and passed them down to the other side of the tarp when they filled. Even
with the hole Nacho dug to hold some of the water, the pots filled in 5 minutes
during the worst of the deluge. We determined that a trench running through the
middle of the tarp was a necessity, so Nacho continued hacking away at the
ground with our little poop shovel (a metal stake with a somewhat sharp point
generally used to dig poop holes).
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| Sonya glad to be getting into camp! |
We rose early the next morning and
ate a cold breakfast of somewhat moldy tortillas (which we happened to have a
lot of on this expedition) with peanut butter so we could get an early start.
We set a good pace throughout the morning and even though we took an hour break
for lunch and a half-hour nap, we arrived to Laguna de Cajas, where we were
meeting our instructors at 4:30. We set up our tents, and eventually, the other
group staggered in after their adventure. We ate a good dinner of quinoa soup
and went to bed for a long night’s sleep.
Back as a full group
- A too long night’s sleep to be
exact! We were supposed to leave at 8:00 the next morning, but with a late
wake-up call, sleeping bag inertia, a slow cooking breakfast, and a general
grogginess, we didn’t leave camp until after 9:00 and we certainly paid the
price later.
We had 16 km of tough terrain to
cover that day. We climbed up into the moraine region of Cotopaxi’s foothills
in the morning and traversed around the mountain at approximately 4,400m in
altitude during the remainder of the day. The moraine is the region of sand
mounds and loose rock below the glacier. It is utterly devoid of life save a
few tenacious lichens and mosses. The monstrousness of the ravines we crossed
puts human beings into perspective and humbled us. In this extreme terrain, we
are ants subject to the whim of the mountain.
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| The moraine on the flanks of Cotopaxi |
All day, we trudged onward in this
land of rock and sand. Everyone was tired and several people were sick, but we
pushed on, crossing one ravine after another. At about 5:00, we descended into
what we hoped would be our camp for the night. To our dismay however, there was
no water in the ravine. We were all running dangerously low on water in our
bottles, so we decided to push for the next ravine where we had a better chance
of finding water.
Dusk and fog were coming in
quickly, so we pulled out our headlamps and stuck together for the last hour or
so of the trek - the hour we’d slept and idled through earlier that morning. It
was a slow, steep climb up the side of the ravine, but the sound of moving
water joyfully greeted our ears once we started the descent into the next
ravine. Unfortunately, however, the area was a boulder field and unfit for
sleeping. So we had to fill all our containers with water and climb up to a
flatter, softer spot on the upper part of the next sand mound.
At this point, our bodies were
exhausted, but we still set up a great camp and made a delicious pasta dinner
before crashing into our tents. That night could have been miserable, and
perhaps for some of us it was, but the fact that we were all able to sleep in a
dry tent with a full belly that night is a tribute to our group’s determination.
The next day was an easy hike down
to the Cara Sur Mountain Refuge, owned and operated by Tadeo’s family, where we
finally got to relax. We arrived before noon, so we had the whole afternoon to
rest, take hot showers, finish our journal entries and hang out in the lovely
little cabins we stayed in for two nights before attempting Cotopaxi. The warm
tea, delicious food, hot showers and beds were, of course, a welcome respite
from the high demands of expedition life and we enjoyed them thoroughly all
afternoon and the next day.
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| The hut |
Sunday was the day to start our
summit push. We hiked up to the high camp where we ate a light dinner, slept
for a few hours, ate again, and set out for the summit. It was a gorgeous
night, perfectly clear and cold, and conditions were good except for an icy
section at the edge of the glacier. Julia, Quinn, Isaiah and I had to turn back
due to altitude sickness, and in Isaiah’s case, an extremely bruised foot. The
rest of the group pushed on through the night.
It was an extremely cold, tiring
and painful climb, but the first rope team arrived to the summit before dawn
and watched the sun rise from the top of the crater. Though I wasn’t there, I
understand that the view was stunning, and the crater awesome. Steam puffed out
of the vents near the summit, and the world lay at the feet of everyone who
made it. Through all the pain, climbing to the summit was an experience which
Yarrow assures me was completely worth it. I don’t question her one bit! Tadeo
even juggled at the summit and Matty (the dog) made it all the way too!
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| The crater of Cotopaxi and summit |
Everyone who summited made it down
to high camp by 9:30 am, and after a brief rest, we all hiked down to the Cara
Sur, packed up all our gear, and made our way to the road head. We stopped for
lunch, bread, and ice cream on the way back to Palugo which was a treat! We
were all happy to reach Palugo and head to bed for a nice long stretch!
It’s been a tumultuous and
strenuous week for our small community. We’ve covered a lot of ground and gone
through big changes in group dynamics, but with determination, we’ve made it
through. Despite the taxing terrain, the altitude, the joys of experiencing
summit views, the disappointment of having to turn away from the summit, we’ve put
one foot in front of the other and continued to grow and learn as a group and
as individuals.
With gratitude for these experiences,
Sonya
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| At the hut after two weeks of trekking! |
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