Message-Id: <v01540b0aaf1d2d39b806@[192.174.2.173]>
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 10:25:42 -0800
To: pinhole@exploratorium.edu
From: pauld@exploratorium.edu (Paul Doherty)
Subject: Chimborazo
Hello Pinhole
I'm back from Ecuador where we climbed Cotopaxi but not Chimborazo.
The weather on Cotopaxi the day before our climb was a snowstorm.
However just as we started our climb from the refuge at 15,000 feet,
the snow stopped.
We started to climb at 1 AM to take advantage of firmly frozen snow.
We hiked uphill for an hour on 10 cm deep snow over volcanic tuff, then
stepped onto the glacier. We roped up, took ice axes in hand, and put on
crampons for safe glacier travel. Bob Ayers, Paul Morgan and I are old
hands at this and though all 24 people climbing Cotopaxi that night stopped
at the glacier at the same time we were the first ones to head up the
mountain.
The view down on the tops of the cumulus clouds in the amazon which were
illuminated by internal lightning was awe inspiring.
The climb was superb over 20-35 degree snow covered ice, crossing crevasses
via ice bridges. We reached the summit at 8 AM. It was cold enough that our
water bottles were freezing (-5 or -10 C) but we enjoyed the summit with
its crater for half an hour.
We then returned to the refuge by 11 AM.
Chimborazo on the other hand had not had snow for a long time so that there
was a 500 m long region of steep black ice. Just before our planned
climbing date for Chimborazo snow fell continuously for days, creating an
extreme avalanche danger. So we decided to return another time.
Ecuador was great.
Paul Doherty