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
Pepe called late Monday night (Dec 26th) with the following report:
"We had an excellent day on Guagua Pichincha. Everyone was again feeling strong and set a good pace throughout the day, and we easily made it to the summit at 15.670 feet.
Mackenzie was feeling good again today, so I am glad to say she joined us for the acclimatization ascent and did really well!
[This afternoon (Dec 27) Gavin sent a photo of Mackenzie and himself near the summit.]
After the hike, we drove north towards Cayambe (which is our first big climbing goal) to Hacienda Guachala. We had an easy evening and a great dinner, and now people are thinking of heading to bed.
[At that point, Mark came on the sat. phone]
Hey there from high in the mountains of Ecuador. We had a terrific day today – a beautiful hike – and now we are at a gorgeous hacienda. This place is beautiful. And we just had an EXCELLENT dinner!
We are very happy to be here, and I am glad to say, everybody is acclimatizing quite well and feeling very good. We are looking forward to getting up to the hut on Cayambe tomorrow. We are having a lot of fun together, and we are quite excited to be going higher. We'll give you another report tomorrow. Good night for now."