So we left for Cotopaxi in a camioneta on Saturday. We walked a short way to the refuge at the base of the mountain. We spent the rest of the day chilling out, playing cards, eating noodles, and then trying to get a few hours of rest before the climb.
We woke up around midnight, got ourselves and our gear ready, and left at 1 am. The moon was full and lit up the red soil around us to the point where we could turn off our headlamps. Off in the distance a lightning storm raged around the head of another mountain, giving us a spectacular show of sheet lightning effects.
After about an hour and a half we reached the beginning of the glacier. We strapped on our crampons and roped ourselves together and then began the the three-and-a-half to four-hour trudge through the snow and ice. We walked along narrow paths edged by sharp inclines leading down to precipitous drops. We leapt small crevasses that seemed not to have a bottom. When the trek started getting long and our energy waned, we trudged--left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot--up steep inclines of soft, loose snow. As we climbed the last of the narrow and steep path that led to the top we muttered encouragement to each other.
And then we crested the summit and my eyes filled with tears.
I dropped to my knees in front of the massive volcanic crater, a few hundred meters deep. Steam rose from within bringing with it the smell of sulfur. In every direction the mountains of the Andes loomed in the distance. The valleys below were flooded with a thick ocean of cloud, ever so slowly rolling up over the crests of the little hills and washing down the other side. The sun was newly risen and the multicolored fire of its birth was just disapating into the clouds and clear blue of the horizon. The snowy peaks of the tallest mountains in Ecuador jutted up through the clouds to stare back at me.
The weeks of preparing to climb this volcano; the large amounts of money I spent renting gear and making the trip; the cold, rainy ride in the back of the pickup truck; the pain that shot up my leg every time I slammed my foot to the ground to make sure I had good footing on the ice; the six hours of climbing uphill in the middle of the night: the ten minutes I spent at the peak was worth every bit of it.
