Ecuador High Altitude Expedition #1 – The Hermann Family – Dispatch 2

Hermann Family Expedition 

December 23, 2011 to January 3, 2012

Guides:  Pepe Landazuri and Freddy Tipan

Climbers:  Mark, Wendy, Mackenzie, Chelsea, and Gavin Hermann and Dave Garrabrant

 

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 3:52:42pm Ecuador – Hi there.  This is Pepe calling in with our second dispatch.  I am happy to tell that today we climbed Pasachoa at 13,776 feet.  The  weather was fine, and we got some nice views.  There were clouds some of the time, but it was fine.  Everyone enjoyed the hiking and scrambling, and we made the summit around 2:30pm.  We took our time coming down but still got back to the hotel at 5:00pm more or less. We had a very good day together.  It was great to be in the mountains!

Mackenzie wasn’t feeling too good today, but she is felling better now.  Tomorrow we are heading for Guagua Pichincha at 15,670 feet, so this will be another important step in our acclimatization.  When we are done with the hiking, we will drive north to the Cayambe area.  Cayambe is the first of our two major targets on this expedition.  We will spend our first night at a beautiful hacienda on its flanks.  They have really good food there too, so if our team members get tired hiking over 15,000 feet, they can keep their mind on the great rewards that will come at the end of the day!

That is our news.  We are looking forward to tomorrow’s hike, and for now we are just taking it easy here in the city.  There are lots of people out walking around, and it is a very nice atmosphere this evening in Quito.

Note to readers:  If you would like to leave a message for a member of this team, just go to the “comments” link at the bottom right of this (or any) entry.  The next time the team calls in a dispatch and reaches us in person (rather than voice mail), we will read them your comment.  If they in turn have a response for you, we will include it in the new dispatch.