El Pico de Orizaba
Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl National Park
Mexico City
We booked this trip on a whim. One of Laura's friends, Tracy, had mentioned she was putting together a Mexico trip in a few weeks and asked if we'd like to go. Laura called me asking what I thought and as usual, my response was "whatever you think, Babe." Her response to Tracy, "hell yeah, we're in! I always take advantages of this kind of opportunity". Details emerged and it seemed like a very unorganized group, so we decided to do our own thing. Orizaba was first on the list at 18,400+ feet. We hired a private driver for the few days we were there, so at the airport, we met Antonio. We headed for Orizba; but with the road to the hut at the end of a 4 wheel drive road, we had to switch to a Jeep Wagoneer in a small town just down from the mountain. This driver wasn't as great as Antonio and dropped us off about a mile from the hut stating bad road conditions. Off we went with our packs and water and made the hut in about an hour. At the hut I tried to make conversation with a few people who turned out to be guides for a group from Russia. One of the guides was quite rude to me and was unwilling to offer any assistance or beta whatsoever. All I could assume is that he didn't want to give us any information because we were unguided. We decided to try to get some sleep but to no avail. Waking up at midnight with a 1 am departure planned, we waited for the guided group to head out hoping we would be saved from breaking trail in the new snow that had fallen overnight. We left about an hour after the guided party and within a mile, we had caught the group. We had a friend in tow, a dog who seemed to be following us and just looking for some company, but as we passed the guided group, one of the people turned the dog down the mountain saying he would go snow blind up that high. Not sure what to think, we continued past without conversation. We noticed that now they were simply following our tracks, so we decided to take a bit of a detour from the standard route to try to distance ourselves from the group of 6. We went right, up a steep gulley and next to a frozen waterfall. Donning crampons, we ascended a steep and icy slope that landed us pretty close to the base of the glacier. About half way up the glacier and with the sun rising, we noticed that finally the guided group had come into view at the foot of the glacier. Only two of them continued, while two others turned back. It was at that point that I wondered if the guides thought we were competent or not. Laura even asked if I thought they would help us if we got in trouble on the mountain. Up the glacier we went, both exhausted from not sleeping overnight, we struggled. We leaned on each other, motivated each other and did our best to stay positive. Nearing the top of the sharply angled glacier, we were counting 20 steps and stopping to rest before the next 20. Laura kept saying "that is 20" when we really had only taken about 7 or 8 steps. We were both exhausted but together I think we can accomplish just about anything, and that day we did. We made the summit at 8am. It was a beautiful, sunny and light wind day on the mountain and both Laura and I were happy to have had each other for motivation. I think we leaned on each other more on this climb than on any previous mountain.
After our successful summit of Orizaba, we planned to climb Izta, another 18,000' volcano. We made the 6 hour drive to the national park and set up camp in the parking lot at the base of the volcano. Interestingly, Popo, which sits next to us had violently erupted just a few weeks prior and was puffing black smoke and steam! That night, while laying around and after dinner, we decided to take a rest day and skip the summit of Izta. I was altitude sick and plain out of energy. Laura agreed and we decided to hike rather than climb the following day.
We had arranged for Antonio to pick us up at 11 am so we could head to Mexico City and do some exploring for the day. We visited the Basilica de Santa Maria de Guadalupe, Chapultepec park and museum and March of the Ants in the park.
On our way back to the hotel, we had the unfortunate experience of being pulled over by the Federalies. They made Antonio and me get out of the car, while they hardly said a word to Laura and left her in the back seat. They searched the car and after about 15 minutes, they decided to let us go. No harm, just a weird deal.
The next day we decided we wanted to visit the Teotihuacan Pyramids. We explored for much of the day, and had a great learning experience from one of the store owners. She taught us about the obsidian rock, agave, different tequilas, and very unique statues and carvings from the obsidian rock.
No comments:
Post a Comment