My adventure began with an Andean cemetery.
All attractions in the vicinity of the first shelter for climbers without skill. This cemetery is a testament to the unpredictability of heights. Chimborazo is very high. It is randomly large rocks or pieces of ice and you have time, at this time. Hiking in the second cabin, we hear rocks and ice falling somewhere above title.
El Refugio Edward Whymper is a simple method, not heated, a refuge to 16,000 feet. English is the name of the first climbers to the summit of the mountain. It is not. If someone believes, as timber transport up to 5000 meters, the fireplace the temperature by 3 degrees.
We drank “mate de coca” tea of coca leaf, which is also responsible for another product – this will be through the nose. That seems to help. We went hiking area for a short time, which is the sum of my acclimatization. Paco cook something and I fell asleep, after at least one hour before the start of the climb in eleven this evening.
Mount Chimborazo <b> </ b>
Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, about 100 kilometers south of the equator. At its peak is the farthest from the center of our planet. Country dimples on the equator, making the mountain Chimborazo, including Mount Everest. It is the nearest point of the sun on the earth, but also the coldest in Ecuador.
Paco, my guide, I woke at ten clock evening. He frowned when he saw my sleeping bag for a package less than football, and weighs a pound. My 13-oz bag frameworks do not seem impressed, either. In any case, even if it was below freezing in the hut, and said that I am too warm – like I said I did.
Paco did not speak English word, and I was learning the Spanish language. In our group, he and I, we had some problems with communication. I think that, for example, the “night” (a few hours) in the box was in the price of 130 $. He thought that I am a mountaineer.
In fact, I practiced once with crampons and ice ax in a sled hill near my house. I’m forty feet, while the people go with their sleds, warning their children to stay away from me.
I think Paco has told me that he had not, as I do with the role of submission rainsuit. He frowned at home ski mask oz When he saw my insulating jacket, feathers, a piece of poly rod with a hole inside my head, I wanted simply did not understand what he said.
I had not expected to rise slightly Chimborazo with such devices, but arrived in Ecuador on a flight from post, the only hand luggage. He had over 12 books on the package, starting at the moment when I wear all my clothes in the night, the weight on my back is irrelevant. The weight of my body, but it was not. Paco had to coax me mountain.
Glaciers around <b> Ecuador </ b>
Exit Glacier near the hut. Quick to hike in the mountains. I have the cleats for the second time in my life. During one of my many breaks ( “Demasiado” – too many who do not appear to understand when Paco explained Spanish), I noticed that the thermometer has brought me down 5 degrees Fahrenheit. I was not cold, but I was exhausted at times – the time that I am. As I sit, I felt like running up the situation, the mountain.
Have we (finally I have time) until the ice, hiking, climbing, jumping more columns to get from 20,000 feet. I also had to stop 19,000 and 18,000 square feet Quitting was mine. Paco’s is lying if I said with a laugh that the summit only fifty meters high. Perhaps it wanted to believe, or maybe my brain hypoxia slides. In any case, I returned to the ice.
We stumbled on the summit at dawn. Or rather, I fell. Paco seems somewhat vulnerable to the protection, was in his element at 20,600 feet. Dirtbag Joe, a nineteen years, the children in California with ten dollars in his pocket, borrowed equipment, and my Ramen noodles in his stomach, was waiting with a smile.
The sky was a beautiful blue color, which never reach heights. Cotapaxi, a classic of snow in the north of the volcano was visible from 70 or 80 miles. Chimborazo, the shadow fell on the earth forty kilometers west. Never before have I not seen how.
Handshakes around, and it was time for the mountain. Told me not to be on Mount Chimborazo when awake. She wakes at nine
Paco was looking at your shows and tells me to hurry up. In more and more to come. He wanted me to leave? When he came into the hut to nine hours, I had the stones begin to fall on the ice, the sun warms. Now, I understood. I need to rise in the refuge by nine. One thousand feet lower than the photograph with God does not show my knees tremble my Andean adventures.