|
Volcán Rumiñahui and Volcán CotopaxiDec 10, 2004
|
|
Volcán Rumiñahui. Of course, just like my other volcanoe pictures it is...
Me at the summit of Volcán Rumiñahui.
A view from the summit of Volcán Rumiñahui.
| Climbing to the summit of Volcán Rumiñahui, 15,449ft. was absolutely, positively the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It was a climb of 2,555ft. over 3 miles of trail from the climbing refuge to the summit. The climb took 4 hours with the last hour being the last 300ft of altitude. It took every ounce of strength and all of my will power to make it to the summit. The last bit of the climb, I had to stop every few steps to catch my breath and let my heart slow down to a somewhat reasonable rate. Upon reaching the top I was completely spent, but it was all worth it. Once I got to the top, the views were amazing. It was a little scary, too, because the backside of the summit was basically a vertical drop for about 1500ft. The climb down and walk back to the refuge took another 2 hours. My legs felt like spaghetti and I´m not exactly sure how I made it, but I did. I had supper and went to sleep at 8 in the evening and slept until 8 the next morning. The next morning I awoke fairly refreshed and ready for Volcán Cotopaxi. The plan was to drive to Volcán Cotopaxi and climb 750ft to the refuge at 15,789ft(340ft. higher than the summit of Volcán Rumiñahui). There we would practice on the nearby glacier with the crampons and ice axes. We would have supper and go to sleep at 7PM and wake up at midnight to start the climb to the summit at 19,347ft. The climb would take about 7 hours to cover 3,556ft. of altitude change and would be a distance of about 4 miles. Well, we got to the parking lot and I started my climb to the refuge. About half way to the refuge I was sucking air and was completely exhausted. I knew then that I wouldn´t make the summit of Cotopaxi. But I still had to climb to the refuge if I wanted to sleep inside and out of the cold. It took me about an hour and a half to reach the refuge. When midnight came around I just kept on sleeping. I was a little disappointed that I didn´t make the summit of Cotopaxi, but I am happy in knowing exactly what my physical limits are because I am quite sure that I reached them. Maybe, if I hadn´t climbed Volcàn Rumiñahui the day before or Volcán Guagua Pichincha the day before that, I might have been able to climb Volcán Cotopaxi. That´s a pretty big "maybe" though. I didn´t have any problem with altitude sickness. Some people were throwing up and some people had headaches. It might have helped too if I had been in a little bit better shape before attempting it. |
Advertisement 
|
