Climbing the Volcanoes of Ecuador
December 1, 2007 — Landed in Quito, Ecuador last night with no trouble at all. Was met by the lead guide, Jose Luis Peralvo. From the start, I liked Jose Luis. Very nice, very knowledgable, and fun. Lodging in Quito is very good... no ruffing it so far. I was surprised to find my iPhone works well here... have been able to get and recieve emails, even got a phone call from Hlee this morning... super clear connection too!
Here´s a quick scoop on this area and the objectives of the trip:
Ecuador is located in northwest South America and is about the size of Oregon or Colorado. Major economic drivers for the country are bananas, oil, flowers, and shrimp. The currency is actually now in US dollars... you pay in US cash, just as you would in the states making things pretty easy!
From a geographic standpoint, this place is exotic! What really caught my attention is the large number of active volcanos. Whereas sources are somewhat conflicting, I´ve heard that there are anywhere from 19 to 40 of them! To be fair, active is (by some) defined as if the volcano has erupted in the past ten thousand years, there is a high probability it will erupt again. Could be tomorrow, or not until the year 2525.
When an eruption takes place, nasty things like pyroclastic flows, cone collapses, lahars, lava flows, and ash flows may occur. Eruptions can turn day to night, filling the sky with ash. In 1660, Quito was buried under a layer of ash 15 inches thick. More recently in 1999, an eruption combined with high winds found Quito dealing with volcanic ash again. Whereas the amount of ash on the ground was far less (less than an inch), it was enough to shut down the city´s airport for days; ash as it turns out is very destructive to machinery (such as airplane engines). Motorized street cleaners often do not work as their filters get clogged. To deal with the problem, a reported four thousand people were assigned brooms and spent the next four days sweeping the runway!
Today, eleven volcanos are actively monitored for seismic activity. One of the lot is the mighty Sangray, the most continuously active volcano in the world... it has been know to erupt up to four hundred times in single day!
From a climbing perspective, it´s all about the Big Ten... these are Ecuador´s ten highest mountains, each active volcanos and each towering over 5000 meters (16,400ft). Because they are volcanos, these mountains tend to stand alone... like other volcanos such as Mount Fuji, Kilimanjaro, Rainer, and Hood. For a climber, this means easy access. You can drive quite near the mountain and after some reasonably short trekking, make an attempt at the summit. In contrast, mountains like the one I climbed in Argentina (Aconcagua) involved a few days of long hikes just to access the mountain. In addition to easy access, the mountains are interesting. The following quote states it well:
“The mountains are beautiful but above all exotic. On the same climb one can fight tropical vegetation, stroll up a glacier, and look down the crater of a live volcano.”
Michael Koerner, The Fool´s Climbing Guide to Ecuador and Peru (1976)
For our expedition, we´ll be attempting to summit three mountains:
- Cayambe (18,996 ft) - the highest and coldest point on the equator and the only point on earth where you can have a latitude of zero degrees and a temperature to match! It´s common to smell sulfur while climbing, remember, this is a volcano!
- Cotopaxi (19,347 ft) - This baby is nearly perfectly symmetrical, making it one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. It is the most popular mountain in Ecuador and the Andes overall. It is as perfect as Mount Fuji, but twice as big with a base 14 miles across. In the local Quichua language, Cotopaxi means ´necklace of the moon´ or ´mountain of moonlight.´ The mountain erupts every 100 years or so... last time was 1877, so perhaps it is due. The incline is some spots is about 40 degrees and at the summit, you look down into a huge volcanic crater!
- Chimborazo (20,701 ft) - For many years and before the Himalalyas had been explored, this mountain was considered the highest in the world. It is Ecuador´s highest peak.
For now, we´re acclimitizing, an important aspect of any climb. Fortunately, this adjustment to altitude process in taking place in the interesting city of Quito. Over two million people live here at an elevation of 9,350ft, making it the second highest capital city in the world. The city is located just 15 miles south of the equator, and because of this proximity to zero latitude, there are only two seasons (wet and dry). Also, Quito does not have flucations in amount of daylight... with only slight modification due to a little wobble of the earth´s orbit... sunrise and sunset are consistently at 6am and 6pm, respectively... all year long. Weird, huh?
I spent the bulk to the day walking around the city´s Old Town... also known as the centro historico. It is considered the best-preserved, least altered historic center in Latin America. With very appealling streets, open air sidewalk cafes, monasteries, churches, and plazas, it was beautiful introduction to Ecuador. Picture of city street here
So far, I´m feeling fine. I did wake up with a headache, but that is fairly normal going from near sea level in Atlanta to this sort of atltitude in one shot. I´m now drinking a lot more water... staying hydrated is one of the best ways to combat altitude sickness. I did swing by the local pharmacy to load up on buy some cipro (a surefire way to deal with any stomach issues that may emerge (ps, thanks to friends from Peru trip for heads up on this stuff) and also tried to buy some diamox (acetazolamide). Diamox is known as ´magic´ for altitude sickness... it basically makes you breath faster, thereby getting you body to pump more oxygen into your system. As it turns out, you can only buy this stuff at the hospital here... they gave me something called anautin instead. In any event, I´m simply getting such meds as a precautionary measure... my hope neither will be needed.
Read more from Ecuador in the blog.