Caption: ¨Cotopaxi in all her hate.¨Although I was a participant in this epic struggle between good and evil I felt more like an observer. What struggle, you ask? It was the climbing of the 5,897 meters (more than 19,000 feet) of pure evil and the center of hell on Earth that is Cotopaxi.
It all started off innocently enough. Backpackers talk about hiking Cotopaxi as if it were a trip to Disneyland. No one properly prepares you for what awaits. I think this was the first of many traps the Devil laid out for us that we ended up walking right into.
The players:
Jesus aka Drouyn from the land of Oz,
Gigi, Z German the German aka, me and Drouyn.Gigi was visiting me on the typical one week American whirl-wind vacation. Being a lawyer based in SF this was her longest break from work in over three years, and you could tell. Somehow we decided hiking a mountain would be a good idea and luckily we managed to talk Z German and Jesus into it as well for some companionship on the walk to hell.
We left Baños for a long warm cramped jeep ride up to the refuge camp where we would be sleeping. We were acclimatizing in Baños at 2,000 meters for a few days before, if you can call that altitude acclimatizing. Along the way our driver explained some interesting facts about Ecuador. One, he says all the industrious indigenous people of Ecuador are immigrants from Boliva. All the lazy indigenous folk are native to Ecuador. Interesting fact. Second, the top 2 sources of income for Ecuador are its sales from petroleum AND money sent back home from Ecuadorans working abroad, mainly in Spain. That is insane.
We hike slowly up to the refuge at 4,800 meters to spend the ¨night¨ before hiking up. Arriving at 4pm we quickly eat dinner and go to sleep at 6pm to wake up at 11pm. We were tired due to the long ride and from a lack of oxygen but the cruel joke with the lack of O2 is you cannot sleep even though you are tired. Stacked bunk beds sleeping shoulder to shoulder with over 60 is our sleeping quarters. One of the special added bonuses of the altitude is it makes your intestines freak out. Trying to digest food at this height feels like two hands are kneading your innards and in the process everyone is leaking like a natural gas main. This was hell`s waiting room, and man did it stink.
After ¨waking up¨ at 11:30PM from one of the worst restless and stinkiest nights sleep in memory we all get to enjoy nice cup of tea and a fat throbbing headache. You try to choke down an apple or something even though you have no appetite, bordering on nausea, because you know you need the strength for the climb that awaits. Everyone is clomping around the wood planked floors with their hard plastic hiking snow boots, two layers of pants, three layers of jackets, two layers of gloves and a fleece hoody, snow goggles and a lantern strapped to your head.
At 12:30 we begrudgingly shuffle out the door of the refuge in pitch darkness having no clue what the next hours holds in store for us. Here is where there comes a bit of game theory. For each 2 people there is 1 guide. If 1 of the 2 gets sick both people of the group have to return with the guide, UNLESS one of them turns back before they put on their crampons (Metal teeth attached to your snow boots so you can walk on snow or ice without sliding down the hill. They look like you are wearing bear traps on your feet.)
Jesus and Z German are one group and Gigi and I are the second, each having our own guide. As we are approaching the point of no return, where you put on the crampons, Gigi tells me she is feeling nauseous and a moment later my guide says he has never seen anyone walk as slow as Gigi in his 4 years of guiding up the mountain. My fingers are crossed for Gigi to turn around before putting on the crampons because everyone in the group silently agrees there is no way she can make it to the top. Nope, she is putting on the crampons.
After walking a very slow 30 min more I ask the guide if we can make it to the top at this pace, and he flatly says no. So I suggest that just the men go and leave the the other guide with Gigi since she is now wearing the crampons and cannot be left alone. The guide explains he is fine with it but that Z German and Jesus must understand that if one of the three of gets sick we all have to go down since we are roped together in case one of us falls down a crevasse. They luckily agree and this puts pressure on me and places in an awkward position if I am to become ill. Now it would be my fault they do not make it to the top. They guys are cool and once we leave Gigi we excitedly start a jog up the hill to make our summit quest and to make up the time lost. I want to suggest slowing down in order to pace ourselves but I am now the invited guest of the group. I just hope my biker legs and lungs can keep up with their bounding energy.
At first the Devil Cotopaxi tricks us with a nice gradual incline and firm snow. Jesus is gingerly making his way up the mountain as if walking on water. We are in high spirits with our new found freedom and opportunity to make it to the top.
We settle into a good rhythm plugging along with sparse water breaks in the midnight hours. The sky is clear and starless due to the full moon washing them away with her brightness. We still have O2 and energy to enjoy ourselves and look around to appreciate the glacier that surrounds us and the desolate peaks in the distance bathing in the moon light.
We settle into a good rhythm plugging along with sparse water breaks in the midnight hours. The sky is clear and starless due to the full moon washing them away with her brightness. We still have O2 and energy to enjoy ourselves and look around to appreciate the glacier that surrounds us and the desolate peaks in the distance bathing in the moon light.
Caption: ¨My headlamp lights up liquid life.¨
2 more hours pass smoothly but with strained effort. The devil sees we are approaching.
The next 2 hours becomes a monotonous existence. My reality and field of vision is reduced to the rope between my two bear trapped feet, foot holds in the snow, and the sound of my dry breath going in and out like a steam train.Nothing else exists. I could be on the moon or in a desert or on this glacier. It is now all the same to me. I ask the guide, ¨How much time until we get to the top?¨
¨2 hours,¨ was his reply and the group takes a collective sigh. Sweet Lord, 2 more hour of this?! We were already spent and I could see each of our shoulders, including Jesus`, slump forward. We all juggled the thought of quitting but no one wanted to be the one so we continued. We continued miserably and with far more frequent stops as we approached the summit. Our ice axes were used as canes to slump our bodies over to catch our breathes. The higher we get the thicker and looser becomes the snow. Often you take three steps and fall back two, but you have to quickly recover because you are anchored to the person in front of you. At times you have to take one large step instead of two small ones and this feels as if the Devil has punched you in the gut and takes all your air away. You have to struggle to regain a breathing rhythm or risk passing out.
The closer we get the more I can hear the devil womb laughing. Jesus is carrying the spiritual load of the group and thankfully he calls breaks to spare us all. ¨10 more feet then a break,¨ became our mantra. The closer we get the higher we are with less O2, deeper snow so more difficult to walk, plus each step we take the more tired we are.
Caption: ¨Our guide, and clearly one of the devil`s helpers.¨
Yes, the final hill is in site. We all joyously work our way to the summit and find out, nope! that is NOT the top. We have to go down and around a crevasse then back up another 30min. This is demoralizing. On top of it, since I have been in the caboose position, I am the one to go down along the side of the crevasse first. I took a peak over the ledge, then into Jesus`s eyes, and realized it is an endless pit. At least 7 stories deep. I assume it is Cotopaxi´s butt crack.
Conquering all we make it to within 20 feet of the top, and for some reason my body cannot catch its breath. I try to sync up my breathing to my heart rate, which has been like a hummingbird for the past 6 hours, but I cannot. The group is tugging at my cord, eager to be at the top but my legs are firmly planted and I will not move until I can breath. I can only compare it to running a full speed sprint while standing still and you have that fish trying to gulp air feeling. You cannot take in enough of what your greedy body wants.
Caption: ¨Sunrise view. We earned that monkey.¨
I recover and get to watch Jesus reign over the raging bitchface that is Cotopaxi. Z German also celebrates by collapsing on the summit top and dry heaving for 10 minutes. Oh, success. It tastes so sweet. Jesus is content and I have the face of someone that is getting a hot branding iron shoved up my ass. Not happy. I was envious of Gigi snuggling up in the refuge while we were here. Instant karma, serves us right.
Caption: ¨Type II Fun in progress. I do not recognize myself.¨
Caption: ¨Being a good friend I had to take a photo of Z German dry heaving on the summit. A form of celebration, I suppose.¨
We give each other hard heart felt man hugs. Hugs that I imagine were given after war battles to your friends when you realized you are still alive and you won. The sunrise is amazing. There are clouds but only far off in the distance that add to the landscape and help with perspective. White topped mountains are seen in the distance giving their morning stretch and clearin their eyes of clouds. It will be a nice sunny day. We feel like champions.
We made the typical error and used up all our energy for the accent. Resting on the summit we drink water with newly formed ice cubes floating in it and we try to eat frozen Snicker bars to recharge. I was desperately looking around for a teleferico or cable car to get us down. Nope, only the big gaping vagina of Cotopaxi laughing at us while belching sulfur in our faces.
Caption: ¨The sulphur belching devil vagina of Cotopaxi.¨
Time to go down. I tried to butt sled it all the way down but Z German would not have it. He walked down with the determination of Arnold Schwarzenegger. If he walked it made my balls get crushed and tied up in my harness. The truth was at this point I was willing to sacrifice my balls. I was that tired. Jesus too was knackered. He would take two steps, trip over his own feet and go down like a Godzilla character on a building in slow motion, but this happened to all of us at least a few times a minute. The sun was baking our wills and we were ´over it´ and ready to be back in the refuge to complain in comfort.
The guide must have had a hot date because he was eager to get us down and end his shift, but that was not in the cards for him. ¨On the way up, very good. On the way down, very bad,¨ was his honest and correct assessment. We were walking with rubber crutches all the way down. I could hear, ¨Fucking hell. Dammit, Fucking damn it,¨ from each slip and ass slam from the guys behind. I broke out into giggles from sheer exhaustion.
Caption: ¨The sunny and comical rubber leg walk down.¨
I am not sure if this account sounds fun to you. Personally I found not one part of the experience ¨fun¨ or enjoyable. Not the miserable sleep, not the climb up and certainly not the hike down. The only fun there could be that came out of this experience was Type II Fun. Type II Fun is the kind where you are miserable the entire time you are doing it, but you reflect back after some time (in this case perhaps years) and think about the summit or the overall experience and say, ¨That was fun,¨ even though it was far from fun. If you like Type II Fun then the devil Cotopaxi is waiting for you, my personal hell on Earth.
As for me, I made up some new rules. NO more high altitude climbing. NO going above the tree line. I figure if trees cannot breathe then neither can humans.
**note: less than 50% of the people made it up that fateful day
¨2 hours,¨ was his reply and the group takes a collective sigh. Sweet Lord, 2 more hour of this?! We were already spent and I could see each of our shoulders, including Jesus`, slump forward. We all juggled the thought of quitting but no one wanted to be the one so we continued. We continued miserably and with far more frequent stops as we approached the summit. Our ice axes were used as canes to slump our bodies over to catch our breathes. The higher we get the thicker and looser becomes the snow. Often you take three steps and fall back two, but you have to quickly recover because you are anchored to the person in front of you. At times you have to take one large step instead of two small ones and this feels as if the Devil has punched you in the gut and takes all your air away. You have to struggle to regain a breathing rhythm or risk passing out.
The closer we get the more I can hear the devil womb laughing. Jesus is carrying the spiritual load of the group and thankfully he calls breaks to spare us all. ¨10 more feet then a break,¨ became our mantra. The closer we get the higher we are with less O2, deeper snow so more difficult to walk, plus each step we take the more tired we are.
Caption: ¨Our guide, and clearly one of the devil`s helpers.¨Yes, the final hill is in site. We all joyously work our way to the summit and find out, nope! that is NOT the top. We have to go down and around a crevasse then back up another 30min. This is demoralizing. On top of it, since I have been in the caboose position, I am the one to go down along the side of the crevasse first. I took a peak over the ledge, then into Jesus`s eyes, and realized it is an endless pit. At least 7 stories deep. I assume it is Cotopaxi´s butt crack.
Conquering all we make it to within 20 feet of the top, and for some reason my body cannot catch its breath. I try to sync up my breathing to my heart rate, which has been like a hummingbird for the past 6 hours, but I cannot. The group is tugging at my cord, eager to be at the top but my legs are firmly planted and I will not move until I can breath. I can only compare it to running a full speed sprint while standing still and you have that fish trying to gulp air feeling. You cannot take in enough of what your greedy body wants.
Caption: ¨Sunrise view. We earned that monkey.¨I recover and get to watch Jesus reign over the raging bitchface that is Cotopaxi. Z German also celebrates by collapsing on the summit top and dry heaving for 10 minutes. Oh, success. It tastes so sweet. Jesus is content and I have the face of someone that is getting a hot branding iron shoved up my ass. Not happy. I was envious of Gigi snuggling up in the refuge while we were here. Instant karma, serves us right.
Caption: ¨Type II Fun in progress. I do not recognize myself.¨ Caption: ¨Being a good friend I had to take a photo of Z German dry heaving on the summit. A form of celebration, I suppose.¨We give each other hard heart felt man hugs. Hugs that I imagine were given after war battles to your friends when you realized you are still alive and you won. The sunrise is amazing. There are clouds but only far off in the distance that add to the landscape and help with perspective. White topped mountains are seen in the distance giving their morning stretch and clearin their eyes of clouds. It will be a nice sunny day. We feel like champions.
We made the typical error and used up all our energy for the accent. Resting on the summit we drink water with newly formed ice cubes floating in it and we try to eat frozen Snicker bars to recharge. I was desperately looking around for a teleferico or cable car to get us down. Nope, only the big gaping vagina of Cotopaxi laughing at us while belching sulfur in our faces.
Caption: ¨The sulphur belching devil vagina of Cotopaxi.¨Time to go down. I tried to butt sled it all the way down but Z German would not have it. He walked down with the determination of Arnold Schwarzenegger. If he walked it made my balls get crushed and tied up in my harness. The truth was at this point I was willing to sacrifice my balls. I was that tired. Jesus too was knackered. He would take two steps, trip over his own feet and go down like a Godzilla character on a building in slow motion, but this happened to all of us at least a few times a minute. The sun was baking our wills and we were ´over it´ and ready to be back in the refuge to complain in comfort.
The guide must have had a hot date because he was eager to get us down and end his shift, but that was not in the cards for him. ¨On the way up, very good. On the way down, very bad,¨ was his honest and correct assessment. We were walking with rubber crutches all the way down. I could hear, ¨Fucking hell. Dammit, Fucking damn it,¨ from each slip and ass slam from the guys behind. I broke out into giggles from sheer exhaustion.
Caption: ¨The sunny and comical rubber leg walk down.¨I am not sure if this account sounds fun to you. Personally I found not one part of the experience ¨fun¨ or enjoyable. Not the miserable sleep, not the climb up and certainly not the hike down. The only fun there could be that came out of this experience was Type II Fun. Type II Fun is the kind where you are miserable the entire time you are doing it, but you reflect back after some time (in this case perhaps years) and think about the summit or the overall experience and say, ¨That was fun,¨ even though it was far from fun. If you like Type II Fun then the devil Cotopaxi is waiting for you, my personal hell on Earth.
As for me, I made up some new rules. NO more high altitude climbing. NO going above the tree line. I figure if trees cannot breathe then neither can humans.
**note: less than 50% of the people made it up that fateful day
