Hello everybody!

We are now a couple days into the final RMI Ecuador trip for this winter. The whole team is here and we're settled into the Quito hotel and spa life. The soft landing is nice after basically everyone has to spend a full day in transit reaching Ecuador. Not everyone is sold on the cold plunge and the science is still out on it, but we can all agree on hot tubbing.

Yesterday, we had a nice tour to overlook the crater of Pululahua, visit the equator and see some sights in the old town sector of Quito before the skies fully opened on us and lightning struck within the city. This was real rain, equatorial rain, the kind where you get soaked if you spend any amount of time in it and the streets turn to streams. Needless to say, we all hoped that would not be the case for our hike of Rucu Pichincha today.

I am happy to report that our wishes and our sun dances worked! We had a lovely day on Rucu Pichincha. As clouds built throughout the day, there continued to be nervous anticipation about whether or not we would need to turn around. As much as I love reaching the summit of Rucu Pichincha, I would hate to be struck by lightning. However, the clouds continued to peel away and never quite turned to their menacing, cumulonimbus form. So, we were excited to have every member of the team stand on top, with it being an altitude record for several in the group.

Tomorrow, we head north out of the city working our way towards Cayambe. It's still a few days before we will venture that high, so we have some time planned continuing to acclimate and just enjoy ourselves as tourists in this beautiful country.

RMI Guide Dustin Wittmier & Team