It’s been another couple wonderful and challenging weeks in Ecuador. Three weeks ago, we climbed Cayambe, the tallest point on the equator. Our team included Henri (an Ecuadorian mountain guide), Bryce (Ecuador summit instructor), Kelly, Bekah and I. Early in the afternoon, after a bumpy 2 hour drive in Henri’s Toyota Land cruiser, we arrived at the mountain hut! The hut sits at 15,000 feet looking out towards the peak of Cayambe.
The Refuge of Mt. Cayambe
The view from the refugelooking towards the top
Our sleeping quarters
We spent the afternoon eating, playing cards and farting (a negative part of the high elevation experience)! After dinner, at around 5pm we went to bed. Our group woke up at 11pm. To climb Cayambe safely, you must climb while the suns down. We gathered all our gear, put our head lamps on and walked out into the dark cold evening air.
The evening was really clear and the moon shone almost bright enough that we didn’t need our head lamps. About every hour we took a break from hiking and stopped for water. Finally, at about 6:30am, we looked up at the summit of Mt. Cayambe. I thought to myself there’s no way I’m going to make it up that. Kelli decided she couldn’t go on because of altitude sickness. Brice and her turned around to go down. Bekah and I continued the tough uphill ascent.
This looked alot more intimidating in real life! 
We climbed straight up for about 10 or 15 minutes. Each step we were carefully digging our crampons and ice axe into the snow. Finally, we reached a spot where Henry had us sit down on a high ledge and wait as he climbed around the ridge. Once he was at the top, he tugged on the rope connecting us to him. We began climbing straight up again for another 10-15 minutes. At the top, where Henry stood, pulling the rope as we came up, the mountain leveled out but it wasn’t the top yet. We continued on a flat straight path until Henry stopped suddenly. He began examining the snow around him using his ice axe to check the strength and thickness of the glacier. There was a deep crevasse ahead. He drew a line in the snow and told us to jump as far as we could from the line. We all made it over the crevasse with no problem and continued on a 30 percent incline. After another 15-20 minutes of walking we made it to the top of the peak. My final feelings didn’t even matter once we reached the top. As my jaw dropped at the wonderful view, we looked out at the rugged terrain of Ecuador. The sun was just beginning to rise, the day was clear and mountain peaks were in sight every way you could look. There was a warm glowing and inspiring feeling stirring in me.
Henry informed us as soon as the sun warms up the snow begins to shift and therefore we didn’t have very much time to get comfortable at the top. We descended the 8 hour summit in 2 hours. After getting to the bottom we were all warn out and ready to sleep for the 3 hour drive home. Except to our surprise, we ran into a little problem on the bumpy mountain ride down. Henry get stuck driving in a rut immediately he cranked his wheel to get out. And the land cruiser veered straight into an earthy wall on the mountain road. The whole left alignment was in a deep rut and the truck was leaning on the wall. We all stood looking at the damage unsure of what to do. Finally, Henry started looking at how we could get out of the rut. The truck looked really stuck and we weren’t sure how we’d get it out. No vehicles passed by for two hours because we were still on a desert mountain road far from civilization. We worked for those two hours collecting stones and using our ice axes to scrap away the dirt from underneath the axels. Then Henry got back into his truck thru the passenger door. I didn’t even think the truck would move but to my surprise he drove right out of the rut. The damage wasn’t even very bad. The mirror was pushed in but that was easy to fix. And the front bumper had a few dents. Finally, we were on our way home again. And I was able to get a good sleep once we got off the scary, bumpy mountain road.
A before and after shot of the Land cruiser stuck!
