I was a little worried about how the altitude would affect me. As you'll remember from before, I felt terrible on my first visit to Quito, as well as during my time in Cuzco, and those two cities are only about 3,000 meters above sea level. Here I was planning on conquering a mountain at 5,897 meters. The recommended acclimatization program for Cotopaxi requires climbers to spend at least 5 nights above 3,000 meters (e.g., in Quito) AND doing at least two training climbs to about 5,000 meters (a couple of nearby volcanoes provide a good opportunity for this). I cut a few corners, i.e., only spent 3 nights in Quito plus one in the PapaGayo hostel (a little higher than Quito at 3,200m), and the highest point I had been to was Quilotoa's 4,100 meters. Ah well, "lahjattomat treenaa", as we like to say in Finland. ("Practice is for those who lack talent").
The day was off to a less-than-perfect start: we were scheduled to leave PapaGayo at noon, but by 12:30 my guide, Fernando, had not shown up. Around 12:45 Fernando called to say his car had broken down, but he was on his way (using a bus) and would arrive within an hour. In the meanwhile, I should check the equipment with one of the Gulliver Travel Agency guys at the hostel, and grab some lunch so we'd be ready to leave as soon as Fernando got there. The Gulliver guy furnished me with fleece pants, a GoreTex jacket and pants (to go on top of the fleece ones), climbing boots, crampons (metal frames that fit on the boots, with 4 cm steel spikes for traction on the ice), an ice pick, a headlamp, gloves and "gators" (a Spanglish version of "gaiters", i.e., protective sleeves worn on the lower leg that stops snow from getting in your boots). I then stuffed my face with a double-decker cheeseburger, accompanied by PapaGayo's delicious orange-strawberry-mango juice (I'll have to try making some once I'm no longer living out of a backpack). Fernando showed up around 13:30, and we were off in a clanky old Landcruiser dating back to the early 80s.
Fernando, a native Ecuadorian, was a nice guy who spoke pretty good English. Probably around 35 years old, his leathery face was tanned to a coffee bean color, he sported a thin moustache and longish hair. He was probably around 165 cm tall, weighed maybe 55 kg, and I had no doubt he would totally kick my ass on that mountain. But it was good to know I'd be roped into someone who could definitely handle the climb. On the drive up, Fernando spoke about his move from Quito to the countryside in search of a quieter, less stressful life. He mentioned living with his Ecuadorian girlfriend and having a daughter, and also spoke about a Swiss girlfriend he had previously. Fernando clearly had great memories from his trip to Switzerland and climbing the Matterhorn - possibly his only time abroad, as he talked about getting to Miami Beach one day as a distant dream (I did however have to burst his illusion about Miami Beach being filled with Baywatchesque model babes...)
We got to the Refugio (base camp) around 16:00, and had to climb about 300m up from the parking lot (more like a dusty dirt field) to the shelter. I had to stop to catch my breath maybe 5 times during the climb, and we were only going from 4,200 to 4,500 meters. "Damn", I thought, "if this hike is this tough, how much worse will it be 1,400 meters higher with the snow and wind?". Oh well, too late to back off now. In the shelter (a two-storey concrete building with a fully equipped kitchen and dining room downstairs and a huge dorm upstairs) Fernando cooked up some hot soup and tea. We met his younger brother who is also a mountain guide, and was taking another client up at the same time as us. His client was a British guy, a former London City headhunter, who had quit his job to travel the world for a year, basically planning to wait out the worst of the economic slump. Both me and the British guy had elected to go solo (i.e., just one client with the guide), because while this is a more expensive option, it pre-empts the risk of having to abort the climb due to someone else having problems. There were three large American rope-teams, with maybe 6 climbers per team, who were clearly taking this risk very seriously. One of the climb leaders (they had their own American guides) basically told his team that if any of them did not have spare batteries for their headlamps, they were not allowed to climb the next day. The US teams had pretty military discipline, e.g., setting their departure time as "0030 hours exactly".
After the soup, Fernando and his brother Willy walked me and the Brit through the equipment. We were shown how to attach the crampons, how to walk on the glacier so as to use all 10 of the crampon's bottom spikes (the two spikes at the front are only needed for ice climbing - Cotopaxi, while physically challenging, is more of a hike and does not involve technical climbing), how to wear the harness, how to use the ice pick during ascent and descent, and how to arrest a fall (basically, dig the ice pick into the ice and make sure you don't hurt yourself in the process). After this, we crammed down a huge pasta dinner. Having run a couple of marathons, I knew the importance of stocking up on carbs, and the Cotopaxi climb at 8 hours was actually twice longer than a marathon. So, despite still being full with the soup, I made myself clean my plate, then spread my sleeping bag on one of the beds upstairs and hit the sack, full as the proverbial Turunen's gun. (Again, works better in Finnish...)
In theory, we had a good 6 hours to sleep, from 18:00 to midnight. In practice, we had a dorm full of 30 or so climbers, each going to bed at random times, clanking their equipment around, testing their headlamps, chatting with their mates, etc. Add to this the fact my sleep rhythm was more geared toward going to bed at midnight, the room was freezing cold, the bed hard as a rock, and my makeshift pillow (a folded GoreTex jacket) not particularly comfortable, and I probably got 2 hours of sleep.
More or less at midnight, everyone in the dorm got up, donned their equipment, and after a light breakfast, headed out. The trips have to leave at this unsociable hour, because the climbing is much easier when the snow is at its hardest - as soon as the sun comes up, it starts to warm up the snow and make it softer, making the climb significantly harder. It was, as expected, very very dark. Slightly unexpected, the wind had really picked up during the night. We were greeted by a howling gust and snow flying horizontally in our faces. I was grateful for my jacket's hood, which provided some protection for my face. I attached my harness to Fernando's with the classic figure-eight knot, leaving maybe 5 meters of rope between us. Then we turned on our headlamps, and started the climb. The first 20 minutes were more or less on dirt, then we hit the glacier itself. At this stage we attached the crampons and started using the ice picks as instructed. The various groups of climbers had all left roughly at the same time, but as soon as we hit the glacier the groups started dispersing, with some moving considerably faster than others. Fernando and I were probably near the middle. All around, I saw nothing but darkness, falling (more like blasting) snow lit by my headlamp, and the distant halo from the other groups' lamps.
We deliberately paced ourselves, walking slowly and taking short steps. The air was very thin, and so even at this snail's pace, I felt my pulse racing at somewhere around 160 bpm as my heart was desperately trying to pump enough oxygen into my leg muscles. Every 20 minutes or so I had to stop for a minute or two, often sitting in the snow to conserve energy, and just catch my breath. While we moved, I just basically kept my head down (to put the hood between the wind and my face), stared at the patch of snow lit by my headlamp, and took one very deliberate step after the other, carefully digging my crampons into the ice. This went on for maybe four hours, with the boredom occasionally broken by passing or being passed by another group of climbers, or maybe digging in my backpack for a Gatorade or a chocolate bar. I briefly tried listening to my iPod to pass the time, but found that a) the tracks on my "Workout mix" playlist were far too fast-paced for this activity, and made me speed up and exhaust myself, and b) the iPod battery wasn't going to last very long in this temperature anyway. After maybe three songs I gave up and settled for listening to the howling wind - it was impossible to hold a conversation with Fernando due to the wind and the fact that I was constantly so out of breath.
During some of the breaks, I would ask Fernando how high we were. "4,800" came the first reply, then "5,200", "5,400"... He had told me beforehand that the first 600m of ascent were steep, then we would hit a slightly easier section with a long traverse, and the final 100m were again brutally steep at 60 degrees ascent. Around 5,500 meters we hit a couple of cool crevices that we had to cross via narrow ice bridges. Fernando went across first, but given he was probably 25 kg lighter than me, there was still an element of anxiousness when it was my turn to cross. Both bridges held fine, though.
At 5,600 meters (I was really hoping we would be at least at 5,700 when I asked Fernando for the altitude figure) I was starting to really feel the exhaustion. We had climbed maybe 4 hours, the approaching sunrise was just starting to provide a little light, and my legs felt like lead, my heart was ready to explode, and my lungs were screaming for air. The last 200 meters of ascent took 1.5 hours and were pretty much a willpower game; I had come this far, and was not about to give up without getting to the summit. The last 100 meters, where the ascent became steeper than ever before, were especially bad. I would climb maybe 30 steps, using both my ice pick and my free hand for support (basically crawling up on all fours), then collapse in the snow panting. At sea level, I don't think this hike would have been such a big deal, but at almost 6 km higher, it felt worse than either marathon I had run, or the Officer Training Course graduation march. I was seriously doubting whether I would make it as close as 50 meters below the summit.
But when we did reach that summit, the feeling was unbelievable. We made it! YEEAAHH! Here I was, with zero mountaineering experience, and a half-assed acclimatization program, standing at the top of the world's highest active volcano. 5,897 friggin' meters, baby! The wind was even stronger here at the top, and the falling snow severely limited our visibility, so we missed out on some of those postcard-perfect views, but at that moment I couldn't care less. I dug out my camera (almost freezing my fingers off in the process), and snapped a couple of shots of what I could see - the outline of the crater, a couple of fellow climbers, my snow-covered backpack and ice pick. The Brit climbing with Willy arrived at the summit a little after us, and took a couple of photos of me with Fernando. Veikka Gustafsson ain't got nothing on us!
My backpack and ice pick at the top of the world (well, at least Cotopaxi)
Me and Fernando - can you guess which is which?
We only spent maybe 10 min at the summit, as the wind made it really cold. Then it was time to begin our descent. Fernando had gone first throughout the ascent, but for the descent, it was my turn to lead - the idea is to always have the guide higher than the client, so that if I slip, Fernando can stop my fall with the rope. F*ck knows what I'm supposed to do if Fernando falls, but luckily that didn't happen... The climb had taken us just under 6 hours, but the descent was supposed to only take 2 hours. It went by in a blur, and I spent most of the time fantasizing about either the warm shower that awaited back at PapaGayo, or the sunny Costa Rican beaches that awaited a couple of days ahead. By the time we got back to the Refugio, I was cold, wet, tired, but still ecstatic about what I had just done.
We grabbed a quick tea and soup at the Refugio, then drove two hours back to PapaGayo (after the wind claimed Fernando's sunglasses as a sacrifice), with me sleeping most of the trip. The folks at PapaGayo were kind enough to let me use a room to shower and change, and I started feeling vaguely like a human being again. I returned the gear, tipped Fernando $30 (pretty generous by local standards, but the guy got me on top of Cotopaxi - he deserved it!), had another one of those PapaGayo double-decker cheeseburgers, and got a bus ride back to Quito.
Back in Quito, I checked back in at Jhomana, spent an hour on the phone with Ulla at a nearby cybercafe, then thought I'd take a quick nap before heading out for dinner, as I was feeling super tired. 14 hours later, I was woken up by the beep of a text message arriving on my phone. It was 5 am, I had slept right through dinner and would actually need to get up in an hour to catch my flight. Well-rested, I took my time packing my stuff, checked out and caught a cab to the airport. A quick breakfast later, I was sitting on a plane bound for Miami, where I would spend 7 hours before continuing on to Costa Rica.
Hasta la vista, South America. I had a great time, and I will be back!
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