2019 Ecuador Cotopaxi Skills Expedition (Trip 6: June 01-10, 2019) Dispatch 2

2019 Ecuador Cotopaxi Skills Expedition (Trip 6: June 01-10, 2019) Dispatch 2

Ecuador High Altitude Trip Report

Guide: Romel Sandoval

Climbers: Chris B., Brian R., Mengezi N.

Hi Again!  This is Romel calling from Ecuador to let you know we have been on Chimborazo for the last couple of days but not able to climb the mountain.  

We stayed at the hut on Tuesday night and woke up Wednesday morning with the plan to move to a high camp on the mountain's flank.    We made it to the high camp area as planned, but it was so windy – and getting worse – that it wasn't at all practical to set up camp.  It was crazy.  

So we turned around and headed back down to the refuge for the night, thinking we could make the climb from there early Thursday.  It would have been a much longer day but probably still possible for our team to summit if we had decent weather.    

Wednesday afternoon and night it stayed about the same.  The wind was a little less strong, but it really wasn't much of an improvement.  So the team thought about climbing in the weather just to see how far we could get, or taking the other option which was to head down to the town of Baños, where we had planned to go after the climb.  

Baños is off the high plain of Ecuador's Central Valley, and is part way down a narrow river valley that leads to the Amazon Basin.  The town has palm trees and hot springs, so as we debated and put our noses in the wind, we came to the conclusion that Baños was the best idea.  So here we are, having left the alpine zone for a semi-tropical paradise.  

It has been really strange weather for June.  Usually it is quite nice at this time of year, but today (Friday) we have a warm rain.  We had a good breakfast and then headed out for a hike to a beautiful waterfall.  Everyone enjoyed being in the warm environment.  The intense green here is quite the contrast to the beautiful mountains where we have been, the land of rock and ice.  

Late this afternoon we are driving back to Quito where we will have our final dinner together before heading home tomorrow morning.

We've had a great trip and a fun time together !  Good food and great company in the beautiful mountains.  And finally, thanks for reading our news.

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