Guagua Pichincha (21.08.2010)

Our breakfast was scheduled for 6.30am, so we could be picked up by 7am and make our way to the next mountain on our acclimatization – Guagua (‘baby’) Pichincha. Sadly the breakfast was pretty meagre for several hungry mountaineers, we got a couple of slices of papaya and a small croissant. It wasn’t exactly a substantial amount of food to go climbing mountains on! Fortunately we were going to be passing by a bakery/grocery store along the way to the mountain, so I picked up some extra fruit and things to snack on. Today, we drove up another mountain road leading up to a farm at around 3700m. It was pretty windy when we got out, and felt a lot fresher than the previous day’s balmy stroll! The remainder of the road continued up towards ‘Cruz Loma’ at 4100m, where a lot of tourist were getting out at to take pictures. From here, we made our way up a steeper but still grassy slope to join the track leading to the refuge.

It was pretty easy-going. We had a break inside the refuge a little while later, to have some drinks and snacks and generally take some shelter from the ever-deteriorating weather outside. It wasn’t that awful really – just windy and damp, but not raining properly. Unfortunately the cloud never really lifted off the summit, and so the rest of our ascent from the refuge, along the crater/summit ridge (I couldn’t tell which it was more likely to be because of the visibility) wasn’t filled with the spectacular views I had had in mind. Nevertheless, we all made it there to the pillar at 4781m in good spirits, took a couple of photos and then made our way swiftly back down and out of the wind toward the refuge again. We feasted on some ham, cheese and bread rolls for lunch after which it was straight back down to the bus and back to the hotel. Unfortunately it was another exasperating night of noisy street music and festivities around 2am. And if not that, it was the dogs barking........