Entries from Ecuador
Hola from Quito!
We started the day with another wonderful breakfast here at the hotel full of fruits, eggs, fresh baked breads and plenty of coffee. We then took a short cab ride to the Teleferico and rode the gondola up to around 13,500'. From here we hiked for about 3 hours to the top of Rucu Pichincha (15,696'). It was mostly cloudy on our acclimatization hike until we nearly reached the summit. The clouds broke up a bit and allowed us a few views of the surrounding valley. The team did great on the hike and a few team members reached new altitude records. We spent the rest of the day doing a little shopping, sightseeing and a few of us took siestas.
All is well here in Ecuador and we are looking forward to tomorrow's adventure.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
On The Map
Hello everyone. After a day of long flights, our team arrived in Quito last night and moved into the Hotel Mercure Alameda to rest and recover.
This morning the team indulged in a great breakfast including various local fruits and dishes. After a quick orientation meeting, we headed out for a city tour and visit to the Equator. Warm weather and a sunny day made our time walking around the city enjoyable. We were able to visit Independence Plaza, the Jesuit church La Compania, and the Virgin of Quito - a 100+ foot statue with gorgeous views overlooking the city.
Seated at 9,350 feet, the air in Quito is thin, especially for those of us coming from sea level. The city tour, in addition to exposing us to some of the best sights in Quito, gave us a chance to stretch our legs and aid in the acclimatization process. The time that we spend here is building the base to increase our chances of success later in the trip.
We spent the afternoon exploring the Equatorial line and phenomenon associated with it. We watched basins of water, only a dozen feet apart, swirl opposite directions on each side of the line and learned when the indigenous people first discovered their location.
After taking a few hour siesta, the team met for our first dinner to round out the day. The conversation and laughter at our table made it feel like a group of old friends, who will only grow closer in the coming days.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
Posted by: Billy Nugent
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Ecuador
The team made great time descending in near perfect snow conditions and watched the weather close in after summiting in what had been the most pleasant weather I have seen on the mountain. We lost one teammate before our summit attempt due to illness but everybody else's summit success is indebted to his superhuman cloud-bending abilities. After bailing out of the Refugio we hustled down to the van where Victor was waiting to whisk us away to Hosteria La Cienega. Cienega was apparently built sometime in the 1700's but for us it simply means a warm bed in a beautiful historic hotel with delicious meals. As far as mountaineering goes the Jose Ribas Hut is luxury but now that we are off the hill the team is really enjoying true luxury. After a fat meal, most of the gang has hit the hay trying to recuperate for a BIG celebratory dinner with the entire team tomorrow night in Quito.
Buenos nachos,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Hey!
It’s Billy giving you a call from the summit of Cotopaxi. We are on top in beautiful weather, sunny skies and calm winds and a very happy crew. Not much else to report. We are gearing up, getting some sunscreen on, getting some food and water and preparing for our descent back to the hut. We will give you a call when we are back to the hut safe and sound.
Until then… chao,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
RMI Guide Billy Nugent calls from the summit of Cotopaxi!
Congratulations, Gail and team!! We are looking forward to seeing lots of pictures to go with your stories of this adventure! Stay safe and have fun!
Posted by: Laurie and Mark on 7/8/2012 at 5:30 pm
Congrats to the team on a successful trip! Kevin—I hope you had fantastic time!!! Please say hello to Victor and Freddie (if he’s along on this trip) for me. Safe travels back to Texas!
—Lauren
Posted by: Lauren on 7/8/2012 at 3:30 am
Hey everybody, it's Billy calling in with another dispatch here from the Jose Ribas Hut on Cotopaxi. We went out on the glacier today out and did some training. Got ourselves back up to speed with all the fun stuff in a typical climbing school: cramponing, ice axe arrest and basically getting used to working with our tips. The crew did really well despite the high elevation. We just had a great meal here, courtesy of the caretakers at the hut and we are going to be early. We are getting up in the middle of the night to take a crack at the summit. So right now I'm outside looking at nothing but stars. We are hoping this weather holds for us... We'll see what happens and we'll give you a call tomorrow and let everybody know what came of us. Signing off for now.
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
RMI Guide Billy Nugent checks in from the Jose Ribas Hut on Cotopaxi
On The Map
Hey Everybody Billy calling in with another dispatch this time for the 4th of July. Happy Independence Day everyone back home! Hope you guys are celebrating properly with barbecues and blowing things up as it typical custom. Not so much of that here in Ecuador. We actually left the Chilcabamba Eco Lodge this morning and headed up to the Jose Ribas Refugio. The team is getting settled in we had a great dinner and we are looking forward to that first rough night at a new elevation. Hopefully the team will do well and make it through the night. Tomorrow we plan to head out and do a little training as we continue to acclimatize and get prepped for our big summit push.
We will call and check in tomorrow after our training day and let you know you how we did. Again, Happy Independence Day to everyone back home.
RMI Guide Billy Nugent and Team.
Billy Nugent checks in on the 4th of July.
On The Map
Hey there! This is Billy calling in with our dispatch for July 3rd. The team woke up pretty early here in Quito. We got out of the hotel pretty quickly after a nice breakfast. We headed south of town to the Illinizas which is a really cool park to do another training hike. We ended up hiking for a few hours, climbing up above 15,000’. We made it to a Refugio which sits right in the saddle between Illiniza Norte and Illiniza Sur. We had some hot drinks then cruised on down. The team performed super well and so we were really psyched. After that we descended where Victor, our driver, rendezvoused with us again at the trailhead and we headed up to the Chilcabamba Eco Lodge where we had a fantastic meal and an awesome night! We are really enjoying the super, super bright full moon and amazing views of Cotopaxi which is our next big adjective. Tomorrow we are planning on heading that way, towards Cotopaxi, so we will give you a call and let you know how things are developing. That’s all for now, bye.
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Billy Nugent checks in from Chilcabamba Eco Lodge
On The Map
Woke up to clear blue skies (over the city anyway) psyched to get up into the hills and stretch the legs a bit. I met the gang down in the hotel restaurant and wasn't shocked to find they were also revved up for getting the trip started in earnest. After a quick bite to eat, we linked up with Jaime and jumped in some taxis headed for the Teleferico. This gondola took us up high above the city onto the slopes of Rucu Pichincha, one of two sister peaks on an active volcano. Quito's sprawl actually starts to climb up the flanks of the mountain and this proximity was bad news for the city in the 90's when the volcano belched a huge quantity of ash onto the metropolis. Well, with no signs of imminent eruption the team was able to climb from the top of the gondola at just above 13,000' to the summit at right around 15,400' in about 2.5 hours! Good stuff! Being able to move well on our first foray is a great indicator of the group's overall fitness. The climb was largely hiking on decent trail, but the last several hundred feet involved some really fun 4th class rock climbing. Everyone was feeling the elevation but moving and climbing incredibly well. The whole time we climbed we were followed by an awesome dog who even made the rock moves to the summit, my guess is that he was hoping to snag a few more of Jaime's chicharrones... The team managed a quick and efficient descent, downloaded the gondola, and hopped a van back to the hotel. After hustling around town to shag a few miscellaneous gear items, I took a nice siesta and met up with everyone for another team dinner. Good times.
Tomorrow we head out of Quito and up for another training hike before starting our approach on Cotopaxi, more as it develops...
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
On The Map
Glad to hear of the good first day of climbing. We will be following updates daily. Go get em Kevin.
Posted by: walt thome on 7/3/2012 at 7:08 pm
Hello everyone following along back home and welcome to another series of dispatches from this year's summer Cotopaxi Express trip!
After a long night of scuttling back and forth from the airport Jaime and myself finally got the crew settled in last night at our hotel here in Quito. Since everyone is usually a bit bushed from long travel times from the states we typically start out our first day of the program on a city tour of some of Quito's colonial sites in addition to a visit to the exact geographical equator. We were fortunate enough to climb the bell tower in the Basilica (a neo-gothic cathedral), walk the streets of the old town (world's first UNESCO World Heritage Site), visit the Church de la Compañia de Jesús (baroque interior guilded w/ 7 tons of gold leaf and one of the oldest churches in South America), and play with funky coriolis phenomena on the exact geographical equator. Despite the lack of physical exertion, the gang was still pretty tired after cruising around town all day at an elevation around 9,000'. We ran some errands, took a little siesta, and then met up for our first team dinner later this evening. The gang is starting to open up a bit and get to know each other better, a good thing considering the challenges ahead! Tomorrow begins the first of our acclimatization hikes...
Hasta mañana,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
On The Map
Success!
The gang went to bed with another deceptively improving weather trend only to wake up (for the third time this trip) in the middle of the night to more stormy weather. We decided that since this was our last chance we'd give a hail Mary attempt. After a quick breakfast and some tinkering with gear and backpacks the time came for us to push out. Surprisingly, the winds had started calming down, which heartened the guides at least a little bit. As it turned out, that abatement was indeed only temporary...
We climbed to the edge of the glacier and roped/cramponed up, and after only an hour or two in the elements we were starting to ice up. Somehow everybody kept it together and we continued upwards into worsening winds, winding our way through a jumble of a glacier and then skirting around the massive rock face of Yanasacha. Weather was bad most of the day but after reaching the upper slopes of the mountain we were fully exposed. When we reached the summit (half of us crawling) we were elated but couldn't stay long because of the blastingly continuous 50 mph wind and the fact that were covered with over and inch (yes an inch!) of ice from being in a freezing lenticular cloud all day. The guys were a little beat but pulled it together to descend like champs all the way back down to the refugio. All in all we were out in the storm for a little over 10 hours, managing to bag the summit and safely descend.
We were greeted back at the refugio by Victor, our driver, who had hiked up from the parking lot to hang out. Knowing our ride was waiting down the hill, we celebrated with a quick beer and crammed all of our crap into our packs. A short walk down a scree field brought us to the van which brought us back to civilization in Quito!
The team showered up and hit the town for a fabulous multi-course meal complete with wine and pisco to celebrate properly. Hopefully folks weren't too ragged making their early a.m. flights.
I'd like to thank a great group of guys for making this such a fun and memorable trip (pako's ipa, triple cheeseburgers, two left crampons, pansies, sock boiling, knee taking, etc.) and thank Jaime and Diego for being awesome guides and a pleasure to work with. Thanks again everybody!
Signing off, for now...
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Hell of week for cotopaxi huh?
Posted by: Nate on 7/3/2012 at 10:45 pm
Wow!I’m impressed and awestruck. You guys still have all of your toes?? :-)
Posted by: Paula on 6/30/2012 at 4:18 pm
Congrats to my twin and one of my fave nephews - from 88 degree Vermont! Bet it feels good with the snow, after the 100s of Colorado. Safe Travels! (Cathy Chamberlin Foutz)
Posted by: Cate Foutz on 7/6/2012 at 6:19 pm
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