Chimborazo

I would love to be able to say I made it to the top. But unfortunately that will have to be for another time!

At a height of 6,310 metres, Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador and in the Northern Andes and because of its location on the equatorial bulge, its summit is the furthest point on the Earth's surface from the centre of the Earth. It is an inactive volcano that erupted for the last time around 500 AD.

We left Machachi on Wednesday morning and travelled southwards towards Chimborazo national park, down the Avenue of Volcanoes. We set off down the Pan-American highway (which incidentally has been described as the modern equivalent of the road system created by the Incas, running down through South America). We passed through Latacunga, the capital of the Cotopaxi province, only 25 kilometres away from the active volcano Cotopaxi. Latacunga has been destroyed and rebuilt three times, as a result of eruptions from Cotopaxi, the last one being in 1877. We stopped in Salcedo, a canton in the Cotopaxi province, which is famous for its ice cream. I have no idea how all the ice cream vendors make money as the whole stretch of road that passes through this town seems to be filled with ice cream shops, but I had an avocado one and surprisingly it was pretty good and weirdly really did taste of avocado. Finally, we passed through Ambato, which is the capital of the province of Tungurahua and famous for its Festival of Fruit and Flowers.

We arrived in the afternoon at Chimborazo National Park, where we stopped at the first hut at around 4800 metres and walked up to the second one at 5000 metres. We had dinner here and tried to sleep for a few hours before starting to attempt the climb at midnight. But the weather was not looking good. Even when we arrived at the second hut, it was snowing and we couldn't even see the mountain, let alone the summit, and from inside the hut it felt like the roof would be ripped off. But when we got up at eleven, the wind had at least blown the clouds away and it was a lovely starry night, so we decided to at least give it a go. We climbed 200 metres but the first obstacle was El corredor, a 30 minute passage where there is danger of rock fall, and in this case the danger had become reality and rocks were plummeting down the mountain. So with that, and the fact that it was still blowing a gale on the ridge, we made the decision to turn back. The mountain is certainly not going anywhere so who knows, maybe next time...

avocado ice cream in Salcedo

Ambato

Chimborazo in the clouds

Edward Whymper hut

we climbed up the far left hand side

vicuña

Chimborazo at sunrise