Private Ecuador High Altitude Expedition - Dispatch #4 At Guachala Hacienda

Private Ecuador High Altitude Expedition - Cayambe - Cotopaxi

July 5th to July 14th, 2011

Climbers: Jennifer Peeks and William Barrera

Guide: Pepe Landazuri

Pepe called at 7:40 pm Ecuador time July 11th with this dispatch:

"Hello again from Hacienda Guachala!  Well after the last time I called in the middle of the night, it snowed a lot.  After deciding there was no way we could climb today, we went back to bed, and when we got up in the morning, we had 50cm of fresh snow on the ground!  It is not what we were expecting.  

Usually if there is a problem it is because of high winds.  But there always seem to be sunny skies in July.  What happened?!!%%##  

So we had an easy morning with the big hut to ourselves.  We left at 10am to drive down to the hacienda.  The drive normally takes an hour and today it took three hours because of all the snow.  It's really crazy.  I have never seen snow like this in July.  This is summer!  

Anyway we're having a great time despite the weather.  After we got here we had a nice lunch and then Jen and William took a nap.  Now it's evening and we'll have dinner together in a few minutes.  We are committed to eating very well so we are ready for Cotopaxi and nature's challenging elements.  We must fortify ourselves!

Tomorrow we will head to the lodge called Chilcabamba in Cotopaxi National Park.  I made some calls this afternoon, and the weather has been a lot better down there, further south from us.  Hopefully the weather pattern stays the same there for the next couple of days.

OK, we'll keep you posted on what's happening down here."

At that point in the call Jen came on the phone and said that "the weather has been frustrating the last two days, but the trip has been absolutely great."  We then read her the messages that have been posted by friends and family on this blog.  She said is was excellent to be able to get all the news and updates on what's going on at home.  Whenever the team calls in at a time when the AAI office is open, we will keep reading the messages that are appearing.