Antisana is Ecuador's fourth highest mountain. It is
pretty remote and offers some of the most interesting climbing in Ecuador.
Unlike the other big Ecuadorian peaks, there is no hut and a base camp is
needed. Despite its spectacular appearance and the quality of the climbing,
Antisana is only rarely climbed. This is due to a combination of two factors.
First, its moderate technical difficulty - there are no "walk-up"
routes on the mountain which means that those who attempt Antisana must have
good glacier climbing skills. Second, the fact that access to the area around
the mountain is restricted in order to protect the wildlife.
We were very excited about our coming summit attempt
on Antisana. Our team was highly motivated by the successes achieved in
the other peaks during the first part of the trip. In the morning of the 18th,
the weather was almost perfect – a very sunny day. We arrived at the
village of Pintag – a pretty village where we did our last grocery shopping. Then we followed a road that leads to
the Antisana farm that lies just outside the parkland. Once there we used a
secondary road to get pretty close to the base of the mountain. We set up camp at an altitude of 14,927
feet, and after a lunch we rested and enjoyed the views. Basically our plan was simple wake up
at 10 pm, have a light breakfast, and leave the camp at 11 pm.
May 19th
Luke and Nick were highly motivated, and it took us
less than an hour to reach the glacier line at 15,419 feet). It was a splendid night with a starry
sky so on the climb we could distinguish the landmarks of the mountain. We crossed a section full of crevasses
at 17,400 feet, and we were pleased to see that most of them were closed or had
good bridges.
We made good progress on the long climb, and at exactly
5 am, we faced the steepest part of the route – 50-degree ice – which led us
directly to the summit ridge. The
ice was in good shape and Nick and Luke did a great job on the very steep
ground. By 6 am we made the
summit.
It was a really exciting
moment, and we were extremely happy gaining our final success on our series of
climbs! Unfortunately the fog and
cloud that rise every morning from the Amazon arrived a couple of hours earlier
than normal and engulfed us, so on the very top we lost the views of the
surrounding landscape. We spent 15
minutes on the summit, took pictures of ourselves (!), and then descended the
same route. In just three hours we
got to the base camp and immediately focused on the serious business of food
and rest! It was a great day, an
excellent climb!
May 20th
After
a hearty breakfast, we proceed to dismantle the camp and at 11 o clock, so we
left the campsite for Quito. At 8
pm we had our farewell dinner. I
can say that we had a well-deserved celebration for our success in the Illinizas–Antisana
Expedition – 5 summits in 10 days with AAI!!! It was a great trip with these guys, and I really enjoyed
climbing with them a lot.
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