Victoria and Justin: Cotopaxi Volcano

It's Wednesday 3rd September, after a nervous night sleep and a rather difficult breakfast to stomach, it was time for the challenge to begin. My mountain guide, Romal, arrived at Papagayo Lodge (located just outside the Cotopaxi National park, at 2800m), we went thru all the gear I would need for the summit climb; ice axe, crampons, harness, carabiners, helmet, head torch, gloves, and more. At this point I started to realise this climb could be a little tougher than i'd first anticpated.

We set off at 11am, by jeep, to "the parking lot" at 4500m inside the National park. From here we hiked up to the Refuge at 4800m, it took less than an hour, arriving with all our gear around 2pm. After some lunch, Romal took me up to the glacier at 5000m to practice moving across the ice. I was pleasently surprised how easy it was to get around with the crampons and ice axe, i was feeling much more at ease. After an hour on the ice, it was back to the refuge for some dinner and we were tucked up in our sleeping bags at 6pm. The alarm was set for Midnight, arghhh.

After a virtually sleepless night, it was midnight before i knew it, it was go time! Gearing up took me longer than usually, it was farken cold and i was still half asleep. Romal prepared us some soup, bread and coca tea. It was now 1am, time to go. For the first hour we ziz-zagged up the loose volcanic rock below the snow line. It was a beautiful night, the moon was near full (so no need for the head torches). I was feeling strong. We arrived at the snowline, attached our crampons and fixed up the rope lines, and headed up the glacier. It was pretty tough going from the start, walking straight up to avoid the risk of avalanche. We reached our first crevice after the first 30mins, it was about 40m deep and a half a metre wide, we jumped over it, fark, this is getting serious now! (It was the first of 4 crevices)

We stopped for break after the second hour, at about 5200m, we were making good time and I was still feeling pretty good. We moved forward, although during the next hour the weather started to turn, the wind was picking up. Looking back down I could see all of Quito lit up in the distance, it was pretty spectacular. The break after the 3rd hour was much needed, i was starting to feel the burn but still plenty left in the tank. Only 2 more hours i kept telling myself. During the fourth hour the clouds came in, the wind was howling, i was starting to wonder "what the fark am i doing up here". We stopped again after four hours, i pumped down the water and some Ecuadorian style wine gums (note: if you leave them in your pocket they will freeze, as had the wine gums....).

It was the last hour now, it's now snowing and i keep telling myself to "just keep pushing". It gets quite boring putting one foot in front of the other for over 4 hours, plenty of time for thinking, i covered lots of topics; where we might live in Sydney (North vs East), what car I'm going to buy next, the potential outcomes for Formula1 next year, the wallabies world cup strategy, the list goes on. Anyway, Romal notice I was starting to feel the pinch, he keep me updated with our progress, "only 600m to go"..."only 200m now". We reached the summit at 6:05am, after five hours of climbing. The sun was up but we could not see much thru the blizzard. I was broken but i still had to get down. It took us 3 hours to decent to the refuge. About half way down we came out of the clouds, it was a beautiful day (just not on the top, arghhhhh). An amazing experience!

check out a few pics at the link below (no login required)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=109281&id=500060686&l=f4426eb79d