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Ecuador Tales IV: Riding The Throat Of Fire

January 23rd, 2010
Quito, Ecuador

Attempting Cotopaxi....the "Throat of Fire"

Day IV/Day V
There's an aspect of masochism to mountain climbing that I don't quite resonate with.. I just don't find it's worth risking my health or safety for. It's so romantic reading about Ed Viesturs climbing Everest without oxygen or Anatoli Boukreev rescuing his fellow climbers late in the night during a white-out but it's easy to romanticize when you're not hypoxic, freezing your ass off, and fighting sixty-mile per hour winds on the side of a glacier in the middle of the night...

The morning of our scheduled Cotopaxi climb (world's highest snow-capped active volcano in the world at around 19,347 feet) started out on a really hectic, strange note. We hadn't showered in two days and spent forty minutes trying to get the hacienda to switch propane tanks for us. When we headed out to the shed with two Swiss-French girls who were also scheduled to climb the same night with us, none of the special crampon boots (that were supposed to be of the highest quality and keep us warm in subzero temperatures for eight hours of high altitude climbing) fit any of us. They were all worn out and varying sizes...one of the Swiss girls who's a serious climber was practically in tears with fury at the equipment. Then we rented sleeping bags for the refuge that were also supposed to be good enough to sleep at 15,500 feet in winter weather...hah! They looked like cheap imitations of one-inch thick L.L. Bean sleeping bags maybe warm enough for a summer night camping trip in the backyard. Mom and I packed two of them each (and later slept in all of our clothes to stay warm!).

When we came back inside, we found a friend of ours passed out on the couch looking like death warmed over. This young Australian guy we had met a day earlier was supposed to have climbed Cotopaxi the night before us and for some reason he was back at the hacienda several hours early. Formerly vibrant and charismatic, he was pale and motionless, with his arms crossed over his chest like the dead. We realized he was extremely sick and had just been deposited there at the hacienda and abandoned by his guide. I was pissed! We woke him up and figured out what had happened. He is an experienced climber and had been summitting several peaks in Peru and Bolivia and was supposed to climb Cotopaxi the night before us. As soon as he got to the refuge (at around 15,500 feet) he started vomiting uncontrollably. A Canadian girl who was at the refuge the same night later told me that at first he was just a little sick but by midnight he was pale and completely weak, throwing up every fifteen minutes. Mark told us (in broken words and a weak voice) that his guide refused to take him back down and drive him back to the hacienda (it's a one hour walk down to the car and a two-hour drive back to the hacienda at 9,000 feet), saying it was "too cold." Bullshit. When someone isn't acclimating and they're weak, can't walk, and are throwing up uncontrollably, you have to take them down in altitude or they will get sicker and it can progress to cerebral or pulmonary edema and they can die if they're not treated.

As a new friend of his, my mother and I were pissed. But as someone who's guided on and off for the past 13 years, I was especially chafed that a professional mountain guide would be so negligent in the face of something dangerous and would then deposit him and abandon him.

I fixed him a diluted electrolyte mixture with some flavoring and brought him a wastebasket then told everyone at the hacienda including our guide that they needed to watch over him and make sure he kept drinking liquids. We gave him a banana and soda crackers to eat for when we could later start drinking solids. From talking to him, we both agreed he didn't have cerebral edema, which I do have meds for as well. Mostly, he needed rest and hydration.

Frustrated by the morning and the inadequacies of his guide, we piled into an old Toyota truck with our guide Ñato, the two Swiss-French girls (more on that later), and their guide, Lobo (it means "wolf!"). Fortunately, both of the guides seemed to be much more attentive and professional than Mark's had been. We drove for two hours--inhaling the fumes from a gas leak somewhere inside the truck and talking through the cloud of dust that swirled through the vents whenever we passed another car--towards Cotopaxi and ended up on this gorgeous, expansive, and barren highland plateau surrounded by volcanoes. The wind was screaming through the valley and clouds were swirling around the top of Cotopaxi's icy. There's something about the windswept open spaces of the Tibetan plateau, the Himalayan valleys, and the Atacama Desert that appeal to my inner poet and feel so utterly familiar and exhilerating. So few things can live at that altitude but there's a screaming sense of liberty that I feel in those spaces.

We climbed up as high as possible in the truck where we had to shoulder our backpacks and begin the one hour march up the side of Cotopaxi's steep gravel slopes. I grunted when I swung my backpack on...it was loaded way to heavy with gear at around 45 or 50 pounds (which is a lot to carry at high altitude). An ice axe, mountaineering boots, two crappy but heavy sleeping bags, lots of water and snacks, several layers of fleece, a gortex jacket, gloves and mittens, hat, gators for the snow, a climbing harness (what the frick were we getting into anyway?!), and snow pants all were either stuffed into my backpack or swung to and fro with every step up.

In front of us, the clouds parted for a rare moment to reveal the glacier and snow-capped summit of Cotopaxi and behind us the valley spread out in cinematic beauty, the distant snow covered Antesanos, and a wide valley of rough toffee, avocado, and rust textures....

We were huffing and puffing with every step upwards, reminded of the agony of climbing mountains in hypoxic environments...part of me exhilerated by the prospect of pushing my body's limits and having the opportunity to commune with the giants and the other part of me wondering how I could so easily forget the misery of hiking under the weight of a full back in the barren cold while dirty and tired.

The refugio (15,500 feet) was a simple, rustic concrete building with bunk beds on the upper floor and tables and chairs and a kitchen that the guides used on the lower floor. Mountain refuges tend to be very basic structures which provide a little bit of comfort at high altitude in brutal weather but, which in the context of any other place on earth, would be complete dives and places to be avoided. There is no heat and no comfort save the hot tea in hand and the company of other trekkers suffering the same hardships. There is something very bonding about seeking the same difficult circumstances as others...over the years, Mom and I have made our best friends under similar circumstances...there's an intimacy of suffering that city travel can never compete with.

As we feasted on the most incredibly nourishing supper I could have imagined in such a depraved place (grilled chicken, steamed broccoli and carrots with fresh herbs, boiled potatoes, and a scrumptious, hearty vegetable soup) we saw several other climbers straggling in from the bottom and prepping for summiting that night as well. All but one of them were men...many of them walking in wearing professional clothing and climbing gear, speaking in French and German, looking to be in their 30s and 40s, their faces sunburnt and weathered, grisled with beards, and characterized by that intense focused stare only seen in men whose sole passion is to climb mountains and put themselves in harm's way as miserably as possible. They reminded me of the kind of men that climb Everest and K2 and for them, Cotopaxi was a baby hike to them...a training hike if you will.

Mom and I hunkered more deeply in our soup throwing each other's glances that said, "What the frick are we doing here with these people?" and feeling way in over our heads.

Our guide Ñato decided that Mom and I should get up at 11 p.m. that night for a midnight departure (an hour earlier than the Swiss girls and most of the other climbers). He had surmised from our pace up to the refuge that we would go more slowly than the others and wanted to give us a headstart. The whole reason climbers leave in the middle of the night is that the coldest part of the day is during the middle of the night. Once the sun comes up, it begins melting the ice and increases the risk of avalanches. The idea was to begin in the middle of the night and hike for 6-8 hours up the glacier until we summited at sunrise then made a two hour descent.

Mom and I went to bed at around 7 p.m. our bellies full. We were both excited and apprehensive about the night ahead of us. We still hadn't had a chance to learn anything about how to use an ice axe to arrest a fall, how to walk properly in crampons, or how far apart we would be tied to Ñato or in what order but we both trusted him and knew we'd have a chance when we started climbing.

We climbed into our super skinny L.L. Bean knock-off bags with all of our clothes on (long underwear, fleece pants, socks, down vests, and hats) just to stay warm. We slept a few hours as comfortably as can be expected when you know you have to wake up at midnight and put on a bunch of gear, snow boots that don't fit, climbing harness and wield an ice axe.

Around 10 p.m. or so I awoke to the sound of wind howling around the surfaces of the refuge. Whether in my mind or not, the wind only seemed to grow. I got up to go the bathroom outside and the sky was clear and brilliant with stars but the wind was only growing in strength. It was freezing outside and I went back inside to hide inside of my sleeping bag. I felt fine with the altitude...I didn't have any headaches or dizziness or difficulty sleeping at that altitude which can be characteristic of AMS (Altitude Mountain Sickness). As I lied there, the wind only grew in strength, it was rattling the windows and the roof ominously, and I shrunk deeper and deeper into my sleeping bag. I had expended so much energy during the days prior...climbing Pasochoa and then hiking to the refuge of Las Ilinizas. My mind felt clear but my body still felt like it hadn't completely recovered.The wind chill brings the temperatures down either further, makes it difficult to get secure footing on the ice and snow, and exhausts the body even more than usual.

I knew that eight hours of climbing at around 16-19,000 feet altitude in high winds and bitter cold would require much more energy than I had used in the week previous and it might be enough to set back my health after I had so recently begun recovering. I realized then that the best thing would be to not go.

The proud part of me started to hope that Mom and I might have an excuse not to go. That one of us might have that creeping headache that signals an AMS migraine or that one of us might have stomach cramps from impending food poisoning...nothing so bad that we would be really sick but just enough of an excuse not to climb.

I saw her get out of her sleeping bag and creep over to me with her headlamp.
Maybe she doesn't feel well, I thought hopefully.

She leaned down by my bunk and whispered to me. "Do you feel okay?"

"Yes," I answered with disappointment. "I'm fine with the altitude. What about you."

"I feel great."

My heart sank.

She paused for a moment, laughter in her voice.
"So are we really gonna do this?"

I realized this was my window and that my mother had been thinking all the same things I had. That it was fricking freezing out there, that we had struggled enough and accomplished enought that week, and that the wind was growing in strength and was only going to add to the misery of the climb that night. And most importantly, she didn't want to go either (note: she is very vulnerable to cold air and smog and recently came down with a nasty case of pneumonia last September while trekking in Nepal).

"NO. HELL NO!" I answered.

"Thank god. I'm so relieved. I would have gone just so you didn't to go alone but I don't want to either. It sounds miserable out there."

We talked about what we might regret but neither of us could come up with a good excuse to actually start the climb that night. Reaching the summit wasn't worth our health and our bodies were begging us for rest. We talked to Ñato, who was absolutely understanding, and went back to sleep just as the rest of the climbers began preparing their gear.

By six a.m. the winds had picked up and were howling like mad. We went outside to investigate and were absolutely relieved we had the made the choice we did. The summit and the whole climb was completely exposed and would be even more brutal higher up. Mom estimated (from living in a notoriously windy part of the mountains in Flagstaff) that they were 50-60 mile per hour winds. I couldn't imagine how miserable it would be for the climbers right then.

We watched around 7 a.m. as some of the climbers were making their way down the glacier. To our surprise, out of all those griseled looking mountain men, the two Swiss Girls were the first to summit Cotopaxi! The only other girl in the group, a sweet Canadian, was the fifth to make it. All the women looked surprisingly chipper when they came back.

The second two climbers were identical twins guys in their 20s with bright red hair and beards....they were flush from the cold, their backpacks covered in frost, and they nearly collapsed in silence as they dumped their gear on the floor and fell onto a bench. Neither one of them spoke when we congratulated them. A few minutes later when Mom and I looked over at them, one of them had passed out at the table. The other looked deflated, grim, and exhausted. There was no happiness...only exhaustion. The rest of the climbers slowly filtered in over the next hour; the guides strutted in whistling as if to announce, "piece of cake! Look at how strong I am!" A few of the guides seemed to take pride in racing each other to either the top of the bottom and then showing off how "easy" it was. The foreigners who were climbing it for the first time slowly straggled in, looking much more tired and frost bitten. Mom noticed how grim they all were, even the gnarly looking mountain climbers with foreign accents. The German guy and the Canadian girl later told me on our hike down how scary it was walking along the side of the glacier in the dark along a narrow path as they heard the ice crackling and breaking off. The German guy said he was absolutely exhausted.

We made our way back to the car and piled into the eau de gas Toyota for our long journey back to the hacienda.

As we enjoyed our mint tea and a fresh set of clothes that weren't covered in dust from the journey and didn't smell like truck exhaust, an older American from Colorado came into the hacienda and shared a story of his own.

The same night we had been on Cotopaxi, he had attempted a summit of Chimborozo (the highest volcano in Ecuador). It was unusually warm that night (very different conditions that the ones we had on Cotopaxi). The trick with climbing is that you want somewhat good weather so it's not completely miserable but if it's too warm the ice can start melting.
He and his guide Jose had stopped for a sip of water around midnight just before they were to start climbing the glacier when they suddenly heard the explosion and crashing of an avalanche. In the darkness, they both saw the sparks above them as the giant boulders tumbled down the mountain and bounced off of the gravel slope. His guide Juan had run down the mountain and saw a large backpack size boulder tumbling straight towards the climber and just as it came to him, went around him and then continued down the mountain. The climber could feel the whoosh of wind as it passed within inches of his life.

They both decided that climbing anymore would be foolish that night. It was only getting warmer and the ice would be giving way even more. They had gotten a warning already. The climber had given up his bid for the summit but came out of it with his life. Later that night, they heard another explosion and then rumbling...the floorboards of the refuge were shaking violently. Somewhere above them, the glacier had calved or more rocks had been loosened and were raising the level of the creek outside. They were relieve they had listened to their instincts.

I have to believe that, in the end, our lives are guided by a mixture of our instincts, wisdom, our higher power, and a bit of good luck.

Cotopaxi isn´t going anywhere. Mom and I both pushed our comfort zones this week, have had many incredible adventures on this trip, and feel more bonded than ever in our support and respect of each other (she's been the oldest of anyone we've come across in the mountains by around twenty years!). We've upped the bar for what we can do and next time we'll push even harder. There are times, I am learning, when it's more important to adjust your expectations and to listen to your body's needs than it is to achieve something at the risk of your health and safety. Plus, there's always maÑana!

Hoping you're all doing well and in good health-

much love,
Raquelita and Mama Chihuahua

P.S. Tonight Steve comes in to join us for the last leg of our travels...we're going to rest and relax as we stroll the barrios of the colonial city of Cuenca, enjoy the artesan markets, and then hike and visit friends in Vilcabamba...