Quick summary of this email: Gabriel gets his butt
kicked by Cotopaxi.
For details, read on...
At 19,350 feet, Cotopaxi is considered to be
the tallest active volcano in the world. And I wanted
a closer look. I mean, what else would I do on this
vacation--go shopping??
So I hired a guide and all the necessary equipment
(did this last Sunday), and spent Sunday-Tuesday
climbing smaller hills to get into the swing of
things.
Yesterday morning, my guide and I drove from Banos
(5,900 feet) to the foot of Mt. Cotopaxi at 14,100
feet. At this point it became too steep to drive, so
we donned our heavy gear and climbed the 1,640
remaining feet to the Jose Ribas refuge, a big "cabin"
from which all trekkers base their Cotopaxi
expeditions.
The climb to the refuge was strenuous but not unduly
difficult, and I was keeping my fingers crossed that I
wouldn't be much affected by the major change in
altitude.
On the way up, we passed a couple of European guys.
They asked if I was planning on climbing Cotopaxi and
when I said yes one of them replied: "You're a f---ing
madman!" Looking at the gigantic mountain towering
above us, I actually agreed with him.
To put things in perspective, the refuge is at the
same altitude (15,750 feet) as the tallest mountain in
the Alps, Mt. Blanc. That's more than 1,250 feet
higher than any mountain in the continental United
States.
And that's just the refuge. The peak is at 19,350
feet. The only reason Cotopaxi isn't one big block of
solid ice is the fact that it sits right on the
equator. But it's one tall mountain all the same. (see
pics)
In the early afternoon, my guide (Milton) took me out
to the bottom of the glaciers and taught me how to use
the climbing equipment.
I had special climbing boots (similar to ski boots but
without the legs-forward angle), crampons (spikes that
attach to the bottom of the boots for climbing in snow
and ice), and an ice ax (which, amazingly, has quite a
number of good uses). Plus special goggles for the sun
so as not to go completely snow blind on the glacier.
One of the most memorable pieces of advice that Milton
gave me was on how to jump crevasses in the ice. He
said something like "make sure you have good footing
when you jump and don't look down--they can be very
deep." Great stuff.
Now, mountain climbs above the snow line are almost
always done at night. This is because, during the day,
the sun warms the snow and there is a much greater
likelihood of avalanches, falling into crevasses or
other such unfortunate events.
For this climb, the plan was to wake at midnight and
start climbing at 1:00AM. Since I was feeling pretty
tired anyway, I went to bed at 4:00 that afternoon.
I woke up at 8:00PM to total misery. The refuge isn't
heated and sits right below the glaciers, so I was
freezing. Plus, I had a splitting headache and felt
quite nauseous.
Simply put, I had altitude sickness. At higher
altitudes, there is less oxygen in the air so it
becomes harder to oxygenate your blood. Headache,
nausea and shortness of breath are common symptoms,
and it feels exactly like a bad hangover.
Normally, a couple days at the higher altitude and
your body will adapt. I had hoped that my climbs
earlier in the week had done the trick, but Cotopaxi
is so much higher than the hills around Banos that the
climbs I'd done hadn't been enough. Damn.
Milton gave me a couple aspirins for the head and made
some tea from coca leaves (yes, the ones they make
cocaine from), which is supposed to help with altitude
sickness. Despite my terrible misery, I thought the
tea thing was pretty darned cool.
And it worked. Within a couple of hours, the headache
and stomach ache were greatly reduced.
There were a couple of German guys at the refuge as
well who planned to summit Cotopaxi that night with
their guide. Those two crusty fellows had about as
much of a sense of humor between the two of them as a
Bavarian dung beetle.
Anyway, we all woke up and started gearing up at
midnight.
My headache was gone. My severe nausea was reduced to
a distant unease. I was tired and my body felt weak
(like the day after your fever breaks--you feel better
but you don't have much strength), but overall I felt
better than a few hours before. And I didn't have a
couple days to spare to fully acclimate.
I downed a couple Advils in case my headache decided
to make a second appearance and hoped my breakfast
(bowl of noodle soup) would get my energy and strength
going.
Climbing a mountain at night is quite a trip. The sky
was bright and the moon was full, so you could see the
terrain around you in a nightly glow. We all had
lights strapped around our heads as well, although at
times the visibility was such that we didn't need
them.
When we reached the glacier, we put on our crampons
and climbed. And climbed. And climbed.
The terrain was steep the entire time. My guide from
Banos, another Ecuadorian guide from the refuge and
myself were roped together for the ascent, in case one
of us slipped and started sliding down the mountain,
or fell in a crevasse. (See pictures below for an
example--they aren't mine but are from another
Cotopaxi climb.)
Climbing ice was much easier than climbing in snow.
Since the Ecuadorians weighed less than I did, their
feet only sunk a couple of inches when they were in
the snow, whereas I often found myself sinking past
the knee. This made for slow going and much cursing.
We passed fissures and crevasses along the way, and at
one point the trail passed right between two holes
that looked like they were 40 feet deep or more.
Milton yelled out to pass between these as quickly as
possible, and I didn't need to be told twice!
But I wasn't fully recovered from my sickness earlier
in the evening, and my strength never returned. I felt
weaker and weaker as we ascended.
Normally a strong mind can overcome physical pain or
fatigue, but it got to the point where my body just
said: "Gabriel, you've tried every trick in the book
to keep going up, but we're out of fuel. You don't
have enough oxygen, period."
The way I figured this out is that I simply collapsed
into the snow at 17,750 feet and couldn't get up.
My heart was on turbo. My breathing was quick and
ragged. And the feverish weakness I'd felt before
starting up had finally taken hold of my body
completely. I was thoroughly sick.
It had taken 3.5 hours to reach this point, and there
were another 2.5 hours to go to reach the summit 1600
feet above. In my weakened condition, I knew I
couldn't make it before sunrise.
I rolled around and stared at the sky. The stars were
big and bright, and I could see thousands of feet
below where the clouds lapped at the side of the
mountain. A shooting star raced across the sky to the
north.
It was beautiful, and I was at peace. I was also very,
very sick.
When I stood up to start going back down, I realized
that I was delirious. I couldn't walk straight,
everything was in slow motion, and my thinking was
completely muddled.
If the altitude sickness back at the refuge was like a
hangover, this was like being totally, completely
drunk.
The descent was a complete, uncoordinated blur. I
don't remember much of it, but I do know that I fell
countless times (good thing we were roped together).
At the end, my delirium got so bad that the guides
took off my crampons and backpack, reattached the rope
to my harness, and slid me down the side of the
glacier on my back. I remember staring at the sky and
wondering how on earth I'd ended up here.
We made it back to the refuge by 5:30AM and I was
completely out of it. I couldn't walk a straight line
if my life depended on it. I was staggering so much
that I missed the entrance to the refuge by a good two
feet. And going down the hallway to the dining room I
bounced off one wall to the next. I sat down on a
wooden bench and immediately passed out.
I woke up 3 hours later very, very cold. My entire
body was shivering. Even though they were acclimatized
to the altitude, the two Germans had turned around
before the summit as well from fatigue, and they were
back at the refuge.
I was still somewhat delirious, but much better. We
got all of our gear together and trekked down to where
the Germans had left their van and drove down the rest
of the way.
The Germans dropped Milton and I off at a small
crossroad since they were going to Quito. At the lower
altitude of 10,000 feet, my strength immediately
returned and the sickness went away. I felt great.
Which is good, because Milton and I ended up having to
walk some 20 miles with our heavy equipment before we
caught a logging truck to take us to the bus station.
So far, this story could be summed up as: Gabriel goes
to refuge and gets altitude sickness; decides to climb
further anyway and gets more sick; comes back down and
gets better. Simple enough.
But something was nagging at me. I've had altitude
sickness before, and seen plenty of others who've had
it, and I'd never heard of anybody getting delirious
from it.
So I looked it up on the Internet. At first, I didn't
find any reference to delirium as a symptom of
altitude sickness--just the usual headache, nausea,
fatigue and light-headedness.
And then I found this:
"Altitude sickness is a spectrum of illness, from mild
to life-threatening. At the "severely ill" end of this
spectrum is High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE); this
is when the brain swells and ceases to function
properly."
"HACE, once present, can progress rapidly, and can be
fatal in a matter of a few hours."
"...characterized by a loss of coordination that is
called ataxia. This is a staggering walk that is
identical to the way a person walks when very
intoxicated on alcohol."
"The treatment is immediate descent. This is of the
utmost urgency...delay may be fatal."
"People with HACE usually survive if the descend soon
enough and far enough, and usually recover
completely."
Whoa!
Good thing I didn't try to go higher, eh? Heh, heh.
Life sure is full of little surprises...
Anyway, I feel just fine now. Went to the hot springs
last night to unwind and I'm planning on taking it
easy until my flight back on Sunday.
Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better vacation.
Despite its dangers, even the Cotopaxi climb was great
fun. This was exactly the kind of break I needed.
Cheers,
Gabriel
