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| Top of Rumiñahui |
For three weekends in a row, I went climbing. There were two mountains left that I wanted to go to for a long time, and the third was just a bonus.
The first one was the south peak of Rumiñahui. I've already been to Rumiñahui, but I went to the north peak. Rumiñahui was one of my favorites. My neighbor went to the south and showed me pictures, and I got jealous. The south peak is lower, but it's a bit more complicated and requires more rock climbing. 9 of us went and we all made it to the top. Like most of the volcanoes in Ecuador, the rock was really loose and crumbly. We had to rappel down a steep, crumbly section, because it was too dangerous to just climb down. While here, I found a morel mushroom at around 13,000 ft. We also saw three condor nest in the side of the cliff, but no condors.
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| Sincholagua |
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| Top of Sincholagua |
The next weekend was Sincholagua. The is a big fat mountain next to the large snow-capped Cotopaxi. I saw this one about a year ago, and have wanted to go to it since. We had to leave at 4 in the morning, because it was going to be a long hike. Our little bus got stuck in the wet grass, so we started from where it got stuck. Sincholagua became my new favorite snowless mountain in Ecuador. We had great weather and even better views. At the tiny summit, there's a drop off that goes down hundreds of feet. We all had to walk very carefully.
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| Steep section on Cotocachi |
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| Top of Cotocachi |
The final mountain was Cotacachi. This is pretty much the last one on my list of easily accessible Ecuadorian mountains. I would still like to go to Iliniza Sur, but I'll have to do some convincing to Amber. Cotacachi is almost always in the clouds. I've only seen the whole mountain a few times from Quito. For this one, we traveled north, back home into the Northern Hemisphere. I had heard this was a somewhat challenging climb, with lots of rock climbing parts, but I didn't know exactly what I was in for. This day, like most, the mountain was cloudy and very windy. Once we got to the steep section, we put on our harnesses and started scrambling on really loose rocks. At one point, there was a 60 ft steep wall section with an endless drop at the bottom. Because it was cloudy, we really couldn't see how far it went down. It was just an abyss. The guide set up a fixed rope up the wall, but we weren't attached to it. It was just there in case we fell, we might have a chance of grabbing it. Almost every rock we stepped on could be pulled out with enough force. Many didn't need any effort at all to come out. Putting all my weight on one rock felt like playing Russian Roulette. We finally made it up the wall and up some more steep parts, dodging rocks that people above me were kicking loose, and to the top. It was cold and windy, so we only stayed for a little bit. The way back down was more nerve wracking, because now the clouds had gotten denser and all the rocks were wet and slippery. Very slowly, we got back to safer ground. I was pretty tired after this, but not physically, more like when you drive in a bad snowstorm for 5 hours, thinking you're going to crash the whole time. We road in the back of a truck to get back to the bus, and I was a little sad that it might be my last time going with this climbing group. We'll see.
Interesting fact: Many Ecuadorian cities/towns are known for a specific specialty, often food. For example, Salcedo is known for it's multi-layered fruit flavored ice cream, Cayambe is known for Biscochos (dry biscuits), Gayallabamba is Cherimoya and avacado town, Latacunga has the Chuchucara, Montecristi is Panama hats. I know there's more, but these are the only ones I can remember right now.
