sv evi

On Sunday evening, Riki and I had the opportunity to attempt to summit the volcano Chimborazo, Ecuador’s tallest volcano at 20,534 feet. The summit of Chimborazo is also actually the closest point to the sun (closer than the summit of Everest), because of the bulge at the Earth’s equator.

I wasn’t too sure about our chances, seeing as we hadn’t trained at all. The points in our favor: we live at 8,500 feet so are a little bit acclimatized; Riki rides his bike a lot; I play Ultimate Frisbee once a week; Riki summited Cotopaxi, at 19,350 feet in 2007; I have some mountaineering experience having summited Rainer twice. My previous highest altitude was 17,800’ at Thorong La pass in Nepal, and I didn’t feel very good that day. I had a headache, came back down & vomited, and decided to descend further in order to escape the malaise I felt.  The points against us: Riki was sick the week before, he had gotten a blister on his bunion on his right foot during our hike in Cajas the weekend before, Riki’s shoulder is still recovering from his reconstruction surgery, and I am pretty out of shape.

My mom is visiting right now, and she volunteered to watch the kids so Riki and I could do the three day Chimborazo trip. She managed to get all the kids to Tomu’s soccer game, take Tomu & Jade to school and pick them up Monday, and even take Luz to her child development class at my friend Lore’s on Monday morning. Tomu & Jade spent Saturday night at a friends, and Luz wouldn’t let my mom pick her up out of the crib Sunday morning when she realized that Po Po was the only one there. She kept asking: mama? Papi? Momu? Jade?

We booked a guide and a tour online. The tour included 3 meals, one night’s stay in the hut in the National Park, and all the gear needed for climbing (ice ax, crampons, helmet, headlamp, balaclava, mountaineering boots, gaiters, harness, etc.).

Saturday morning we left at 8:30 am on a bus to Riobamba. All the buses in Ecuador seem to play violent action movies at either super loud volume, or too low volume to hear. This bus ride Wolverine was playing. The road is so windy, and the bus drivers take the curves so fast that your body rocks back and forth in the seat, so you have no chance of sleeping.

We got to Riobamba & took a cab up to Chakana Mountain Temple, our first night’s lodging. The tour company recommended that we stay there to begin the acclimatization process. Our cab driver was so interesting. I asked him how the strike had gone, and he said, “bastante bien” (pretty well). He told me that Chimborazo province has the most indigenous people in all of Ecuador, and that they were really strong during the strike. He said he was a strike leader, and they had captured 16 of the Ecuadorian policemen and held them hostage for 6 days until they would admit that the policemen had killed two protesters. Then he told me how 200 buses left from Riobamba, a city of about 500,000 people for Quito to protest. The military blocked their way with tanks, and they burned the tanks and kept going. Man! Talk about badass. The taxi driver caught me up on the current talks with the government, and said he didn’t think there would be any more strikes because elections are coming up in 2021, and if President Moreno continues to try to implement these economic measures, there will be more strikes and it won’t be good for his re-election.

We arrived at Chakana, at 13,780’, and it immediately began to downpour. So we sat by the fire in the dining room, played cribbage, drank coca tea & ate popcorn. Riki won—I think I’ve beaten him perhaps once in my life at crib. We listened to an episode of The Moth Story Hour, and they talked about having a Pitch Line, where you could pitch your story in two minutes. Riki asked me for my story pitch, and I began talking about my aunt Evi. Do I start with her being lost at sea on the Niña? Maybe that grabs the listeners’ attention best. Or do I start with a million other stories that show what a unique, trailblazing person she was? I just talked, and ended up crying of course.

I had to pump milk in order to keep my milk supply going for Luz. It’s so convenient to be able to help her sleep while traveling by breastfeeding, and we have a few long trips coming up. While pumping, I felt so grateful that I haven’t had to do this every day since Luz was born, as I had to when Jade was a baby, while working full-time. This was my first night sleeping away from Luz since she was born.

On Sunday morning we took a twenty minute walk into this gorgeous canyon where about 15 people were rock climbing! It was a tight canyon, with green grass & a waterfall at one end. Most of the routes were sport routes, and it was cool to meet Ecuadorian climbers. I saw the same light and joy in Matias’ eyes that I know shines in mine when I’m climbing, or thinking about climbing, or talking about climbing.

Unbeknownst to us, our lodging sat on the rim of the canyon above the climbing wall. Chakana lodge is the red roofed building. Surprise!

At noon Sunday our guide Patricio, whose nickname is Pato (duck) or Don Patito (Mr. Duckling), showed up right on time to take us into the National Park. He was a short bald man, 51 years old, with huge calf muscles. I asked him how many times he had summited Chimborazo, and he said he had lost count. He began climbing mountains at age eleven. I figured that was a good sign. In this week alone he was guiding Chimborazo Sunday, another mountain nearby Monday, Cotopaxi Tuesday, and Chimborazo again on Friday.

We made it up to the Carrel refugio, elevation 15,750’, around 1:30 pm and began trying on mountaineering boots and sorting the rest of the gear. Pato made us a light lunch of guacamole, bread, tomato, and cheese, then sent us off on an acclimatization hike to the Whymper refugio, 650’ further up the mountain.

Chimborazo graveyard

We had dinner at 4 pm, and laid down to rest at 5 pm, with our alarms set at 9 pm. I had a slight headache, and took an ibuprofen before going to sleep. I fell right asleep, but Riki didn’t sleep at all (maybe 15 minutes!). In contrast to Cotopaxi, which often has 20 parties attempting to summit on a given day, there was only one other party attempting to summit with us. Pato said that Cotopaxi is more popular because the summit is lower and therefore more accessible, and it is not as steep.

After eating a banana, we filled our thermoses with coco tea, donned our gear, and set off at 10 pm. While we rested, there had a been a storm, with lightning, which dumped about a foot of new snow. Another party who were planning to sleep in tents at the High Camp, at 17,390’, had to abandon their plan and hike out because of the storm. But the sky was mostly clear, with some clouds. A gibbous moon shone down on us. Riki said to me soon after we began: “Sabes qué? Te amo.” Do you know what? I love you. I felt like hell for the first 1,300’ or so, until we stopped to rest. I still had a slight headache, and I felt nauseous, and the snow kept balling up under my left boot, which was annoying me. I had my headlamp on also, which made me focus on the bit of illuminated snow in front of me, and prevented me from taking in the beauty of our surroundings.

After a short rest, some coca tea, and a piece of dried mango, I remarkably felt a lot better. My headache and my nausea went away. I turned off my headlamp and the beauty of climbing above the clouds, by moonlight and starlight, really helped me and gave me strength. We kept on through the fresh snow, heading up. We roped up & put crampons on just before traversing beneath a jagged rock band called The Castle on steep snow. Pato led the rope team, I was in the middle, and Riki last. On top of the Castle the views were amazing, just vast openness, rocks jutting up from the cloud layer. We passed the other party, who were headed down because one of their party was sick. As we got higher, I had to really concentrate on doing the rest step, and exhaling audibly and forcefully, which in turn makes you take deep breaths in. To me it was so interesting how your world can shrink to just putting one foot in front of the other, just keeping up with the rope leader. Riki later asked me what I was thinking about, and said he was thinking about so many things, about sailing, about other hard things he had done in his life. I can’t remember what I thought about, I just felt present in the moment, happy to be in such a beautiful place, and hoping I could keep going and make it to the top. Riki said to me at some point, “I”m going to remember this forever. Te amo.”

We reached a short, steep snow section that was pretty sketchy because of the snow conditions being so soft and unconsolidated. We stopped, and Pato went up to set up some protection. I was nervous for him! Then it was my turn, and I was nervous for me, even though I was on belay. I used the pick of my ice ax to dig in the snow, my crampon toes to dig in the snow, and my hand to grab rocks on the left hand side. Riki seemed to come up the scary part with ease.

We continued up until we got to the glacier, at 18,810’. Pato dug a snow pit to check the snow for avalanche conditions. He didn’t like it, saying that we could potentially get up the glacier, but it would be too dangerous coming down, and would likely avalanche. At this point it was 3:30 am and we had been climbing for 5 ½ hours. He said that we were in good physical condition, we were making good time, and that had it not been for the snow condition, we would have made it to the top. I guess you never know…but the summit was still 1, 700 feet away! That’s a lot of rest steps and deep exhales. I was bummed that we had to turn around, but also a tiny bit relieved that the decision to turn around was made NOT because I (or Riki) wasn’t able to keep going. 🙂

On the way down, I went first on the rope, then Riki, then Pato. It seemed to take forever to get down, plunge stepping on the steeper parts, and following our tracks from the way up the whole way. That steep section was scarier going down, though I was on belay. We needed our headlamps now, because the moon had been covered by clouds. We finally got back to the hut at 6:15 am, and I had nothing left. I collapsed on my bed to sleep for a few hours before beginning the journey back home to Cuenca. We had some gorgeous views as we neared the refuge again in the dawn light, but we were too tired to stop and take a picture. It looked like we could see to the Pacific Ocean, though I’m sure that’s not true…just layers and layers of blue mountains sticking out above the clouds.

We packed up our stuff, had breakfast, and headed out. Then we had to wait for 90 minutes at the park entrance for the agency’s truck to come get us. That was pretty annoying, when we just wanted to get home, and we knew we had a long bus ride ahead of us. Finally the truck came and took us to a town outside Riobamba where we could catch a bus to Cuenca. The bus to Cuenca came within 5 minutes…and it was the exact same bus we had taken 2 days before. Same driver, same ayudante, and yep, Wolverine was playing again. This time I was so exhausted I did sleep for a few hours. We got home at 5 pm, and it was pretty sweet to see the kids again. A huge thanks to my mom for watching the kids so we could have a 3 day mountain adventure!!