| Canadian buddies on Illiniza Norte, Ecuador. Trip Report |
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| Canadian buddies on Illiniza Norte, Ecuador.   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Pichincha and Cotopaxi, Ecuador, South America Date Climbed/Hiked: Aug 5, 2008 Activities: Mountaineering Season: Summer | Page By: HIGH EXPEDITIONS Created/Edited: Aug 20, 2008 / Aug 23, 2008 Object ID: 433416 Hits: 328 Loading... Page Score: 85.07% - 1 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Plans and changesMy french-canadian friends, Marie Michele, Marie Helen, Alan, and Romy (Austria) got everything set and done in order to hit a few peaks in Ecuador.
We started with Pasochoa, drove to the village of Amaguaņa early in the morning. The five of us were very excited of being able to climb such a beautiful mountain. Thirty minutes after we started driving up towards the Trailhead, an unmaintained dirt-mud road stopped us for reaching our goal. Our 4WD truck got stucked in the mud and slided downhill until it ended up stranded at the edge of the road. We got the truck out of the mud an hour later with the help of a farm tractor which pulled us out carefuly leaving no car damage at all.
It had no sense to keep driving up on such road conditions, so we opted to drive back to Quito in order to try on Rucu Pichincha's top.
We climbed up from the teleferico restaurant (4,100 m) to the summit. It took us exactly 3 hours to get to Rucu Pichincha summit (4,698 m/15,413 ft). Snaped a few pics and headed down back to Quito.Illiniza NorteOur next goal was Illiniza Norte, so 2 days later we left Quito and drove south to La Virgen Parking Lot (3,900 m) in Reserva Ecologica Illinizas.
 Illiniza Sur from Illiniza Norte
The weather was perfect, clear blue sky and almost windless. The five of us got to the Nuevos Horizontes refuge (4,700 m) after 3 hours of hiking. We spent the afternoon at the refuge playing games with 2 friendly germans and their guide Jacobo (ECU). The ClimbWe woke up at 5:30 am and an hour later we were heading up towards the summit by the ridge that starts at the base of the saddle formed by Illiniza Sur (5,266 m/17,277 ft) and Illiniza Norte (5,126 m/16,818 ft).
The morning was a bit windy and the route was covered by hard snow. As soon as we reached Pico Villavicencio the snow softened considerabily. We walked and climbed on mixed ice/rock surface until we got to a long traverse which took us to the very base of the summit.
 Illiniza Norte Summit (5,126 m/16,818 ft)
Alan, Marie Michele, Marie Helene, Romy and I kept going up avoiding a few exposed passes and joined Jacobo and his german clients at the tinny summit. We all felt so happy up there, did our best to take pictures of all of us, had box lunch, talked, huged and congratulated to each other and headed back down to the refuge.
It was awesome to spend a wonderful time with my friendly clients who became excellent friends before, during and after the climbs we did. Images
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Cordillera Occidental (Ecuador)
