Volcanoes in Mexico

I got a couple of requests to write about my time in Mexico in February, so here it is!

Last fall, I was invited to join a small group climbing volcanoes in Ecuador and was determined to make it work, but the price was more than I could come up with on two month's notice.  I had gotten my hopes up and then back down about getting to travel and climb something big again, but my friend James also had plans to climb Pico de Orizaba in February, which had been on my radar for a few years as a very doable big mountain that was on my list.  When looking at the timing and price, it was astoundingly cheaper than I thought, and I was so excited to have a Plan B work out!  Fast forward, and I casually brought it up to my best friend Rachael, who without hesitation asked to join on the trip as well!  James was a great trip leader who had done all the communications and logistics planning for us with the travel company Nomada, we did a couple of Quandary climbs for training, and over the years I had accumulated the majority of the gear I would need to be successful and comfortable for the trip... so we were ready!

Our itinerary included three climbs: Malinche, Iztaccihuatl, and ultimately Pico de Orizaba (also known by its Aztec name Citlaltépetl).  I had gotten to go to Mexico City when I was 16 with our Spanish class and we'd gotten to visit the ancient Aztec ruins, and I didn't remember how almost all the names of places and streets etc. were named Aztec names (it took me days to figure out how to pronounce Izta, and I never once got Orizaba's given name).

A glimpse of Pico de Orizaba.  More to come!

Our first night in Mexico City was short, we were all exhausted from traveling (and Rach and I stayed up all night "packing" ... aka painting our nails and drinking wine), but we ended up having a super awesome taxi driver Roberto that ended up being our tour guide for the evening.  He helped us take care of finding an ATM to get money for the week, and convinced us all to try these fantastic street tacos made from literally every part of the animal you could think of.  I think James opted for tongue and other things, and I got one brain, one eyeball, and one "mixed" meat taco.  The ojos were chewy, and the sesos ended up being pretty soft and good (once I got my gag reflex to calm down and just objectively enjoy my street tacos!)

We all slept good, and were up around 5 the next morning to get picked up by Nomada, and we drove to hike Malinche.  It was a Sunday and the trail was moderately busy, much like the trails in Colorado would be on the weekend, too.  Malinche was roughly 14,600 feet, and the highest both Rachael and James had ever been (so far!).

It felt good to escape winter for a little bit and hike in "summer weather"

The trails were very dusty, and for the first of many times, we realized just how dusty, sandy, gravely, and scree-y the volcanoes were going to be.  We would have sections that were like climbing sand dunes.  You'd be to your ankles in sand.

The trail above treeline heading up, at about 13k

In the distance, we could see our next objective Izta sticking out above the clouds.  We had a moment of awe looking at it realizing that in two days, we'd be 3000 feet higher than we already were.

Photo taken by James, Rach and I celebrating a successful first summit!

Rachael and Bryce conspired to surprise me with summit Reese's on each of our three climbs, which just made me all mushy gushy and made me miss him that week even more!

Our whole group on the summit of Malinche.  Even though James, Rachael, and I opted out of being guided on the first two climbs, we ended up sticking together on the climbs and grew quite close!  Danny was from the UK, and Ben from Holland.  Our amazing guide Ana is on the far left.

Everyone felt great after day one, and we ended up staying that night in the lodging at the base of Malinche which felt a lot like a summer camp.  There were multiple bunk houses with rooms, a shower, and kitchenette.  It might have been my favorite of all the places we stayed, because Rach and I weren't going to get our hopes up to have hot showers that week, but we had hot showers at all the places we stayed.  The next morning we packed up and were en route to the visitor center at the base of Izta and Popo.  Popocatepetl (again, Popo for short because Aztec language is tricky!) is a very active cinder cone volcano that we got to see gasses spew from almost every day!  I'm a huge earth science and plate tectonic nerd and that was definitely a highlight for me.

That night we arrived at the visitor center at about 13,000 feet, which would be one of the highest sleeps I've had.  Sleeping at elevation is hard, and it's difficult to get a good nights rest.

Outside the visitor center was a sweet stray mama.  We worked through my trail mix together.

View of our objective, Izta, from the base.  I should have realized here just how many false summits we'd be climbing over.

View of Popo from the base.

We camped on our pads and sleeping bags on the floor of the visitor center, but hardly anyone slept.  Not only was the altitude against us, there was a group of people that worked at the visitor center that were watching TV loudly, and the center was one giant echoing building.  I eventually did get up and politely asked them to turn the TV down, but once I fell asleep, I was woken up a few times by eerie sounds.  I had to get up to use the bathroom once, but when trying to fall back asleep, I was jolted awake by what I swore was a woman screaming (HP reference anyone?) as if she were waking from a bad dream.  I never could fall back asleep after that and midnight came before we knew it.  We packed up, ate breakfast, and headed down the road to the trailhead.

Our first glimpses of the sunrise and a little hiccup from Popo.  This was several hours up the trail and I think we were about at 15k here.  We had just climbed up the loosest part of the climb out of a gully.

You can see Danny and Ana on the bump on the left: the first of the ups and downs that day.  We were at 16k here, which meant only 1000 feet to go, but we gained and lost that about three more times before the actual summit.

One of the glaciers, which we only needed microspikes for because it was in a flat crater.  Our route goes up that steep bank and up to the left toward to eventual summit.

Looking down the trail at a neat feature; it smelled strongly of sulfur here and I was reminded we were on a dormant volcano!

On the summit above the clouds!

Our group minus Ana and Danny; he made it to 16k and had started to not feel well.  The rest of us were pretty jazzed again to have reached a new high point!  It was so much warmer than I had prepared for; I was in my puffy but I was warm, and just in summer hiking pants.  The summit this day was 17,100!

View of the high glacier from the summit.  It was so spectacular to see!

On our descent, we ran into a Mexican army group that was also training on the mountain.  The guns were only a tad intimidating at first, but this group made us laugh a ton, and they loved having their picture taken with us!

Even though the hike was only about 9 miles round trip, we hiked about 13 hours and were so exhausted.  Our feet ached and we were ready to get on solid non-scree ground.

Another photo from James.  This was a view from the second of 4 passes we hiked over; we had hiked this in the dark so it was amazing to see the volcanic features and landscapes on the way back down.

I had felt pretty great the entire day, other than being a little sleepy from lack of a good nights rest.  This was the highest Rachael and James had been and Rach had started to feel a little a little crappy with the combination of her asthma and the altitude.  She trudged on and made it, I was proud!  We drove late that night to a hostel, and woke up fairly early to drive to the basecamp of our next and final objective: Pico!  Basecamp for Pico sat at 14k.  I was surprised with as popular as this mountain was that there was NO formal regulations for the bathroom.  You literally would just find a rock or ditch and go.  Think of the hundreds or thousands of people that ended up being?!  The first big rock of course you go behind was just littered with human waste and the further away you ventured the easier it would be to find a spot where you wouldn't accidentally step in anyone's poop.  I really really hope that eventually there is some kind of solution up there with a designated privy or pack-it-out system.

This was the view from our top bunk looking down to our guides and cook help.  We had a delicious dinner of bean and cheese burritos, avocado, salad, and spaghetti.

Our goal was to get up by 11 pm to get ready for the climb.  That photo was taken around 5 pm, which meant we would be lucky to get a nap in before the climb.  The bean and cheese burritos were FABULOUS, except for when they kept us all up flatulating profusely all. night. long.  Literally, every 5 minutes, my belly just felt so full of air constantly.  On top of that, I was very well hydrated and had to climb down from my third story bunk every HOUR to go outside and pee during the night.  I did not even fall asleep for five minutes that night, and when the alarms went off at 11 to get up, I was dreading how terrible I might feel climbing for another 13 hours on NO sleep.

We started hiking around midnight and Danny didn't last long into the hike.  He ended up getting a much worse upset stomach and turned around to stay at the basecamp that day.  We hiked for so many hours in the dark.  At one point Ana asked us if we were up for taking a short cut, since as a group we were pretty strong.  We happily agreed since it would cut off quite a bit of distance.  What this ended up meaning was that we would be basically ice climbing up icy rock with scary drop off's in the dark.

Climbing on icy rock was scary.  I was also worried for Rachael doing something like this when this was her first time in crampons and she was getting a crash course in real mountaineering.

If you're facebook friends with Rach, click here to watch a video she took of me while making my way up one of the ice walls.  It was a full body effort and I was so exhausted.  In all this heavy crampon use, Ben was wearing rented crampons that weren't fitted well to his boots and about 3-4 times we had to stop for what felt like 15 minutes or more while Ana helped him get them back on and secured, but they would keep falling off.  The three of us would have to wait with them, and I started to get miserable in the cold waiting.  The best way I can stay warm is just to keep moving, but we couldn't, we had to wait for our teammate.  Eventually he traded crampons with the other guide and they finally stayed on and we were able to continue.  It kinda reminded me of people that have to wait in line on Everest and it gave me a new appreciation for how long those wait times must be.  I ended up putting on every layer I had and started to worry that if my core temperature got too cold that my hands and feet would get too cold too.  I was trying hard not to get cranky because I knew this wasn't Ben's fault and I could also imagine how terrified he felt when he couldn't trust his crampons.  I ended up being in both my puffies the rest of the climb up.

We finally got off the icy rock and onto the glacier, which made the crampon climbing much easier.  But, at this point, it was a straight up and sustained steep climb with no opportunities to rest comfortably.  I had been praying and praying for the sunrise to finally come, because 7 hours hiking in the dark was starting to feel really defeating.  I had been able to use my camelback up until this point as well, but now it had frozen, so if I needed a drink, I would have to take my pack off to get my bottle out of my bag.  I was surprised no one else in the group needed a drink yet, so I just kept following, but I felt like I was falling further and further behind because I was starting to tank after having nothing to eat or drink for a few hours.  At one point I broke down and I had to stop to get a drink of my gatorade and electrolyte mix and eat a bite or two of a bar.  Rach had also stopped just above me and offered words of encouragement, and after I shed a tear of frustration and drank my electrolytes, I got my second wind.  We were around 500 feet from reaching the crater rim... we could do it!

The top was SO CLOSE!

Five minutes continuing to the right and we would be there.  Our first glimpse of the huge crater.

The hardest part was over and we had had such a great trip together already and this was the cherry on top -- to get to celebrate this accomplishment with my best friend.  

It was impossible to capture the whole crater.  Looking down over the edge into its depths and imagining 400 years ago what its last eruption looked like.

Summit hugs

So proud of our group!  The highest people in Mexico!!

Our way back down was not easy at all.  We were roped together, thankfully because Rach caught a crampon and tripped, and I felt like I was literally falling asleep while standing and I knew this was not the time to not be fully aware of myself and movements.  I needed to be completely careful of my steps because a fall would be a long slide down.  The rocky ice on the way down ended up being the worst part of the climb.  Walking on rocks and impenetrable ice in crampons is pure misery.

Looking down at the groups that were coming up.  I was thankful we had an early start.  The long train of people further down were our army friends again, also training on Pico!

The basecamp hut.  A welcomed sight after 13 hours.  I just wanted to sit so badly.

Looking back up at the route from basecamp.  If you look closely, right in the middle is a sliver of white on the left of the rocky/icy mountain.  That's the glacier and the direct route up.  You can basically see all the way to the top.

Screenshot of my Strava, which sadly glitched on the summit when I was taking pictures.  So, it at least got the climb up recorded and oddly enough the total time of the hike.  I like the satellite view where you can see the crater!

We had successfully completed all three of our goals on this trip!  Now it was time to take a day to sleep in, relax, and have a glass of wine in Roma Norte, Mexico City!

And that's a wrap!  We flew home the next day!  And that, friends, is an ENTIRE other story... :)

Thanks James for sharing all your beautiful photos.  To see them all, go take a look here!