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July 26, 2000 Greetings from Ecuador! On Monday evening, July 24, 25 climbers from around the world left advanced base camp for the summit of Chimborazo.... 2 made it. I'm pleased to report that I was the other guy on the rope! Chimborazo lived up to her reputation and more. To put it bluntly, she's an evil bitch. (And I say that with the utmost respect for her) When we arrived on Monday at about 4:00 PM, we hiked up to base camp at 16,500 feet. The mountain above us was completely shrouded in clouds. Scouts from the night before reported that no one climbed more than 1,000 vertical feet on account of a nasty storm near the summit. They reported sustained winds of 65 mph with gusts at the top of 105 mph. Needless to say, our spirits were not high. We hunkered down and chatted with the other teams. There were climbing teams from Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, and Holland. We were the only Americans. At 11:00 PM we awoke from about 2 hours of sleep to check the conditions. To our surprise, the winds had abated and the mountain seemed to be out of the clouds. (It was pitch dark so it was pretty hard to tell, the moon doesn't rise over the summit until about 2:00 AM. We spoke with the other teams and came to a mutual decision to go for it. At 11:30 AM we began our accent. At this point it's necessary for me to describe why Chimbo is so evil. First of all, the route to the summit is long, about 4,200 vertical feet which takes about 8 hours to gain. Even in the most ideal conditions, this is a test of one's patience, stamina, motivation, will-power, and most of all, concentration. Most mountains, as I have already described, defend themselves with the use of heavy snow. Chimbo uses ice as her weapon of choice, and lots of it. She uses vertical ice walls, seracs, glaze ice, rock laden ice, ice falls, ice crevasses, and some sections where the ice was as smooth as a skating rink. For the first 3 hours, all I could see was the 2 foot circle of light at my feet from my headlamp... nothing else. Left foot... Right foot... Stop... Breath. It seemed like endless torture, absolute misery. For the next few hours the light of the moon began to illuminate the slope, just in time to allow me to see the extreme exposure beneath my feet. Picture this... climbing up a steep slope constructed of ice as smooth as glass, nothing holding you to the mountain but a quarter inch of steel from each of your crampon frontpoints. You look down between your legs to see a runout of more than 4,000 feet. Believe me, it's enough to loosen your bowels. It was about this time the teams split-up. The team that we were climbing with decided that the risk was too great and that they didn't feel strong enough. They decided to turn back. Looking down the glacier, I could see the headlamps of several other teams, some coming up, but most going down. We were now a summit team of 2. I was tied-in with a man named Diego Zurita, I will never forget him. I had met him on Cotopaxi and his reputation preceded him. Diego is one of the finest mountain guides in South America. His claim to fame is that he has reached the summit of Cotopaxi more times than any other person... more than 300 times! I knew we would make it. Continuing up the glacier, we entered an area that I will never forget. For the last 2,500 feet to the summit, Chimbo had transformed the glacier into something from out of this world. The entire surface of the glacier was covered in penitente. This is tough to describe, but penitente are ridges of ice that run across the surface of the glacier in the direction of the prevailing wind. In this case, they ran from the top down. The ridges themselves range anywhere from a foot high in some places, to well over my head in others. This made it not only difficult to climb, but also to navigate. In addition, there were several times when we would climb over a ridge only to discover a gaping crevasse on the other side. The crevasses were unbelievable, the ice within the walls was the deepest blue that I have ever seen. The outer rim of the crevasses were laden with icicles that gave the impression of huge teeth surrounding a giant mouth. We continued on. We were about 500 feet below the summit when Chimbo delivered her final line of defense. A huge crevasse crossed our path as far as the eye could see. At some parts it was wider than 50 yards. First we climbed to the left for about 35 minutes. The crevasse ended to the left in a giant unnavigable ice-fall. Back to the right, we climbed for more than an hour until we discovered a section that was only about 2 feet wide. The problem was that the uphill side was about 3 feet higher than the side we were on. Conjuring up every once of strength that I had, which wasn't a whole lot at 20,000+ feet, I sprang as high and hard as I could, gripping the other side with my crampons and ice axe, I scrambled to the top of the uphill side. I was breathing so hard that I thought for sure that my heart would burst straight out of my chest. (I would later discover that it was at this moment that I burst a capillary in my right lung, a little painful, but according to a local doctor/climber from Sweden, nothing to worry about.) The next 500 feet of glacier turned out to be the most difficult climb of my life. First of all, we couldn't see the summit due to the penitente. It seemed like we would never make it. Take two steps, rest for 20 seconds, take another two.... rest... on and on. Finally, the steepness of the ice gradually lessened... we were at the top! Another 50 yards and we stood atop the highest volcano in the world. What a feeling of accomplishment. To the East we could see as far as the Amazon rainforest, to the West we could see the coast and the Galapagos Islands beyond. Unbelievable. We sat for about 10 minutes before deciding to head down, the realization set in that we were only halfway home. The decent was absolutely grueling, I have never felt such pain in my life... yes Mom, worse than Outward Bound. We were completely spent. Every step shot electric volts of pain throughout my body. Mentally, it took every ounce of concentration to keep my feet below me and myself on the mountain. When we reached the crevasses on the way down, we would stop for about 10 minutes before attempting to cross them. A lapse in concentration there would mean certain death. We continued down. After about 5 hours of decent, we reached the rocks that meant were off the glacier. A wave of relief flowed through me. Another hour and we would be at camp. An hour later we rounded the last corner to base camp. I couldn't believe my eyes... the entire group of international climbers was awaiting our return. One by one, they came up to congratulate us and help carry our gear. I can't describe the sense of pride that I felt at that moment; pride for making the top, pride for being an American, and pride for being the man I am. We sat and had tea with the group and exchanged stories. Some of the climbers we knew from previous mountains, some we had just met, others were awaiting their chance to climb. I could have stayed there for days. The drive back to Quito took four hours. Every minute, I realized that my condition was worsening. As the adrenaline wore off, the pain set in. Every muscle in my body ached, and my knees were the size of grapefruits. The reason I am sending this message today, is because I have been in bed for the last 24 hours. The good news is that I've almost fully recovered and I'm looking forward to coming home. I have had a wonderful journey and I appreciate the fact that you have taken the time to read my messages. I know it seems strange, but it helped me and made me stronger to know that there are people out there who care a great deal about me. I have enjoyed writing these stories, I hope you have enjoyed reading them. During my travels, I have met several prominent climbers from around the world. Plans for next year's adventure have already begun to take shape. See you back in the States! Nathan. |