When I decided to come to Ecuador for January 2022, the first thing I noticed in doing a little research was the impressive altitude of the many volcanoes in Ecuador, many ranging from 15-20,000+ feet. In comparison, the highest peak in the US outside of Alaska is Mt Whitney at 14,500. So naturally, I decided I was going to conquer one of the volcanoes (with a guide, of course), given that the treks are just one night and rather affordable! I chose to do Cotopaxi, the second highest volcano in Ecuador, because it is supposed to have one of the best views, it only takes one night, its exactly 6 feet higher than Kilimanjaro (crazy coincidence, right?), its pretty well known and its kinda cool cause Alex Honnold did it a few weeks back lol. I originally hoped to do Chimborazo, the highest volcano in Ecuador at 20,000+ ft, but it cost a lot more! (What’s cool about Chimborazo is that it's technically the “closest point to the sun,” although several thousand feet less than the Himalayas, it is the largest protruding point from the equator! Woo!) As per my previous blog posts, my hikes in Quito and Quilatoa gave me the acclimitazation base that I wanted to get, but I was sooo nervous all week because this was kinda a solo expedition for me, and it would be my first time ice climbing!
Check out all the gear they had ready to borrow!
Luckily the guys at Ecuador Eco Adventures took good care of me, except for making sure I had an outer jacket…. Given that it was the coldest night of my life, I’m quite proud that I did it with just two fleece jackets and a raincoat! I liked that my trek included all the gear as part of the cost, since I was traveling light with just a backpack. What’s cool about Cotopaxi is the accessibility of the summit. There is a Refugio that sits right at 4800 m, just a 1000m below the summit. The first day, all we had to do was walk up 45 minutes from the parking lot to the refuge and got to have a really cozy evening dinner and stunning sunset over the Avenue of the Volcanoes. Bedtime was at 7 PM for me, but you don’t really sleep when the refuge gets down to 40 degrees and you can’t shut up your mind from the oncoming challenge. After maybe an hour’s rest, I was the first hiker up and ready at 11PM for breakfast and my gear check, and after waiting for the entire rest of the climbers (who were all very slow-pokes), we finally started out at 12:30 AM.
The Refugio had a rock wall inside! I also tried coca tea for the first time here.
I was able to split the cost of my trek in half by hiring a guide with another climber, who was the sweetest Ecuadorian girl that was my cheerleader to make it to the top! Let’s be honest, I wanted to turn around half the time but I couldn’t do that and ruin her chances of summiting too…. None of us really knew what to expect because the mountain is considered “non-technical,” so it consisted of wearing crampons basically the entire time, as the mountain was covered in snow, and we had to walk with ice axes to steady ourselves and arrest us in case of a fall. We also walked with harnesses on and tied into each other with a rope, again in case of losing footing on the snow. Other than that, there was one crevasse which just felt like kinda climbing out of a hole, but not like the gaping chasm that I was anticipating.
We are so disoriented in the second pic. But we made it to the summit!
Unlike my experience climbing Kilimanjaro, this climb wasn’t as long and personalized, so I felt like my guide was really tough on us. Of course I wished we could’ve stopped to rest more frequently, but he’s right that we would freeze out there if we rested too long! About every 30 minutes, we took a 5 minute rest break to drink water and eat snacks. I hate to admit I barely drank any water (maybe one liter all the way up), but altitude does weird things to your body. I took one Advil to subside the headache from the altitude and did a lot of whimpering because of the pain of putting one foot in front of the other. Come 3:30 AM, we got to the steepest and last section before the summit, and this is when it got freezing. I'm not trying to say I'm all that tough, but the guides said it was a particularly freezing night for the summit. Between 3:30 and 6:00 AM, it was snowing, windy, icy, and all I had for a buff on my mouth was a thin bandana that had crusted over with snot (sorry TMI), so my lips turned blue and stayed that way for a few hours. We kept going up.
We were keeping a steady pace so we ended up somehow, someway reaching the summit basically exactly at first light, a few minutes early than we hoped. It was so freezing cold I managed to take one pic and one video, took in the stunning 360 degree sunrise, spotted a lava flow from a nearby volcano, smelled the sulfur from the active portion of Cotopaxi, and we were all very excited to turn back around and warm up. We really did that!
The views coming down, and me in my mountaineering gear!
Believe it or not, the descent was the scariest part for me! As the snow warms up in the day, the avalanche risk increases, and now that it was daylight I could see the steep snow banks that we were walking along, which gave me a bit of fear of heights. While it took 5 hours to get up, we made the descent in 1.5 hours and our knees and feet were very thankful to finally touch the bottom! It was such a surprisingly fast and smooth adventure, the only real negative thing that happened was the altitude sickness caught up to me when I was back down the mountain, and I couldn't keep down any food for 24 hours despite being starving :(
My helpful but tough guide, Patricio. They served corn tamales after the descent-- my fave!
Needless to say, Cotopaxi was such a humbling time for me and I am so thankful I did it, as a challenge to myself and to test my limits! Not only was this the coldest temperature I've ever been at, it was also the highest I've ever been before! Gracias Cotopaxi por la aventura y para compartir su belleza. Hasta pronto <3
