Waking at the lovely Hacienda San Luis, we soon found ourselves in the midst of the Saturday Otavalo market. Full of local crafts, raw chickens, entire cooked pigs and about anything you could imagine. We wandered around the vibrant market doing a bit of shopping and a lot of looking around.
After a fun morning of exploring the market we traveled to the Cayambe hut making it most of the way on wheels before finishing up the approach on foot. Here at the hut we celebrated Brad's birthday and turned in to get some rest before our training day tomorrow. A fun day for sure and great to get to the base of our first big climb.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
Buenos Dias! Today we loaded up our gear and left Quito, driving North on the Pan-American Highway to our next acclimatization hike on Cerro Fuya Fuya. Again in the clouds, we had openings on our way up that provided great views of Lago Fuya Fuya and Cerro Negra. Hiking through the mountain grasses, we ascended quickly as we followed a little steeper trail than yesterday. Again the team did well, standing on top of the volcanic remnants in a few hours, feeling strong at 14,000 feet above sea level.
After walking down the mountain and reloading the vehicles we rejoined the highway and made our way to the Hacienda San Luis, a beautiful hacienda to relax and prepare for our trip to the hut on Cayambe, our first big objective. Let's keep our fingers crossed for continued luck here in the Mountains of Ecuador.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
Today was a great day. After an early breakfast, we left the hotel and headed to the morning opening of the teleferico, the gondola that launches from Quito and lands at 13,500 feet on the old volcano of Rucu Pinchincha. Quite a leap in elevation and great for an acclimatization hike.
The team did a great job ascending the grassy ridges that led to a rocky scramble to the cloudy summit of Pinchincha. Our maiden voyage was a success, climbing to around 15,700 feet in an afternoon and even getting enough of a clearing to see both Cayambe and Cotopaxi rising high above Quito.
Tomorrow we head out for another altitude mission, but this one was tough to beat.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
Our Ecuador's Volcanoes team has arrived here in Quito after a fair bit of travel, but healthy and with all of our gear! Always a good start to a trip.
Today we took to the streets, touring Quito's revitalized Old Town and taking in the sights from La Panela, the hilltop site of the Virgin of Quito where we could clearly see the city snaking to the North and South, the ancient churches and plazas quite visible from our vantage point. Then it was off to lunch and a stop at the "Mitada del Mundo," the "center of the earth." Here the equator is marked by more than just a line and we were able to double check it's accuracy with a few tests, putting to rest the long debate about which way the toilet flushes in which hemisphere (can you remember without testing?).
All in all a great first day and the afternoon thunderstorms even held off for us!
RMI Guides Jake Beren & Zeb Blais
Hey everybody, this is Casey from RMI checking in from the Cotopaxi Express Ascent. We are currently on the summit of Cotopaxi with everyone! We are 100% today. It was a tough climb and took just over 7 and a half hours. A little bit of new snow, definitely some slow going. Everyone did fantastic. Not too much of a view right now. We're actually up here in the clouds and can’t really see much other than our little faces. Everybody is doing well. Our plan is to take a few photos up here and then start back to the hut. We will check in a little later on today.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
RMI Guide Casey Grom calls from the summit of Cotopaxi!
Congrats Everyone, I am not a big fan of climbing but I was excited to watch you ascend to the Summit and learned that it is truly a team sport. Good work and enjoy the next day relaxing. Love you, Billy C
Hello everybody back home, this is Casey Grom checking in from the RMI Cotopaxi trip. We wanted to let you know that we're all here just below 16000’ at the Cotopaxi hut. We had a nice morning, a great breakfast with some eggs, cereal and yogurt and a nice relaxing start to the day. We went for a short walk, about 45 minutes, up to where we could access the glacier. We spent about 2 hours reviewing some of the techniques that are going to be applicable for tonight's climb.
Everyone seems to be doing great. The weather's been a bit in and out today, some snow and a little bit of light rain. And currently we are kind of socked in a cloud but not much precipitation. The team has just finished dinner and we had a little pre- summit climb chat. Everyone is off to bed right now. So, our plan is to try to get up and leave about 12:30 and hopefully will reach the summit just after sunrise. If we get the opportunity we will try to give a call from the summit. And if not, we will certainly give a call as soon as we return back to the hut. Thanks for following, and we will talk to you guys later on.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
RMI Guide Casey Grom checks in from 16,000' on Cotopaxi.
Hello everybody back home, this is Casey Grom checking in from the Cotopaxi Express Ascent. Today we left the busy city of Quito and traded in for a little rustic countryside visit. We did a short acclimatization hike on the Illinizas where we reached just over 15,500’. Everybody did fantastic and we even got to use our gore-tex jackets with fresh snow falling on us today. We have since descended and have retreated to the Hacienda Chilcabamba where we have just finished a delicious meal and great conversation. Everyone seems to be doing really well and everyone's relaxing right now inside. We are looking forward to some clear skies tomorrow and a nice view of Cotopaxi.
That's all for now and we will check in again tomorrow.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
Hola Everyone,
Today began much like yesterday. Breakfast in our newly remodeled hotel at 7:30 with the team preparing for the day's activities. But instead of taking a tour of Quito, we stayed close to home and headed ten minutes east of our hotel to the 15,500' Rucu Pinchincha volcano. This mountain gave Quito quite a scare in 1999 spewing large amounts of ash into the air which caused half of this enormous city to be evacuated. Nothing major came of the eruption. So today it is a prefect acclimatizing hike. Because it is only the team's second day in Ecuador, one might speculate that marching from 9,200' to 15,500' first thing might be a bit much. Not the case when a gondola zips you up the mountain side turning what should have been a two hour hike into a 10 minute cruise. We were a bit bummed to have thick cloud cover resting heavily in the valley but we lifted out of the mist at 13,000' and were allowed great summit views of both Cotopaxi and Cayambe, two of Ecuador's most impressive peaks.
Once on the move our team showed their enthusiasm and readiness to climb. Led by RMI's local Ecuadorian Guide Fredy Tipan, we all headed 2.5 miles up a well traveled trail making good time to the mountain's summit. Several members of the group broke personal altitude records. We spent 20 cool and cloudy minutes on top before returning to the cable car. With a rather late arrival back in town, it was decided that a late lunch would set everyone up nicely for a leisurely evening and some much needed rest. We are all looking forward to leaving the city and seeing more of this beautiful country tomorrow.
RMI Guide Adam Knoff
Great group and the pics are really beautiful!! Great job, keep working hard!! Charlie, I like your jacket!!!!
Posted by: simona fioravanti on 12/14/2011 at 5:58 am
It’s great to see you all on your hike. Thanks for sharing the photos and story. Best of luck on Cotopaxi! Do you see any airliners flying right over your heads?
Posted by: Charley Knauff on 12/13/2011 at 1:42 pm
Hello Everyone,
It was a beautiful first day here in Quito, Ecuador. We started the day off with a visit to the equator which is just a few miles north of our hotel. The short drive through the busy streets of Quito gave us a brief glimpse of life here in this city of over 2 million people. We spent an hour at an outdoor cultural museum that is set up to show the importance and effects the equator has on the planet. Most of us were amazed to see the Coriolis effect in both hemispheres. It is true that water spins in different directions while being drained.
After our visit up north we headed back to Quito where we took in the sights of the colonial old town. There was much to see in this city that was founded in 1530. Our stops included the monastery of San Francisco (built in 1535), the church of La Compania, which has gold painted throughout the interior, and a quick stop at the Virgin de Quito. It's also called the La Panicia and it sits atop a small hill and overlooks this beautiful city. We snuck in a very appropriate siesta after yesterday's long flights and wrapped up the day with a wonderful dinner full of good conversations.
Everyone is doing great and looking forward to stretching our legs tomorrow.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
What a nice and informative Blog. I cannot wait to read more about the climb. Hoping for good weather for all of you! I will be watching from my warm couch.
Posted by: Sue Campbell on 12/13/2011 at 8:46 am
Great picture, Chuck!!! At 2,250 feet in my treestand, I didn’t have any trouble breathing! Have a great climb. We’ll be in Wmspt. when you get back.
Posted by: Charley Knauff on 12/13/2011 at 5:36 am
Hello everybody back home this is Casey Grom checking for RMI’s Ecuador Expedition.
We are currently on the summit of Cotopaxi. We had a great day, pretty tough conditions, lots of new and loose snow. We made it up in just over 6 hours. Everybody did great. We are hanging in some sunshine right now taking a few photos and are going to be heading down in just a little bit.
We will check in again as soon as we get back safely to the hut. We’ll be heading back to Quito tonight.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
RMI Guide Casey Grom and the team check in from the summit of Cotopaxi!
Well done team! I am looking forward to getting the full report when you visit for Xmas Spence. Feel free to bring what ever amount of snow you can manage to Idaho because we are dying up here.
Hi, I’m Oscar’s wife! I am very happy that everything is fine and enjoying every moment. I wish all of you the best for tomorrow’s hike!
Posted by: Marisol Fernández on 1/15/2012 at 7:22 pm
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