Plan for Cotopaxi tomorrow

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We are at Los Molinas Lodge tonight. It is quite a lovely place, with seemingly good wifi, so I'm happy.

Our schedule has us going up Cotopaxi tomorrow night. Having had a difficult time on Cayambe, I had asked our lead guide, Juliana, yesterday for an alternate climb today. This evening she brought out her computer to show me alternatives. I had spent the day, however, considering Cayambe. My issues were intake mismanagement and lack of crampon glacier experience. An alternate peak may not give me the chance to work on those issues. So, I asked if I could climb Cotopaxi, but differently.

So, we have arranged for me to start 2 hours before the rest of the team, and stop every 30 minutes for food and water. I am hoping this change will address the dehydration and lack of calories I had on Cayambe. Cotopaxi is the best choice for the experience I need, so giving it a go.

And fixing those equipment issues.

Happiness is a Warm Shower

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I was mostly blah last night from the climb and the travel back, so didn't shower. We are back at Yanacocha Lodge today, so I knew that the showers were not hot, they were just slightly cooler than tepid. When I woke up at 6:15 to a teammate's accidental alarm, and, as I already had 9 hours of sleep, decided to embrace the cold shower.

Turns out, the tepid was "not enough hot water because everyone else was showering at the same time." The shower did start off cold, and I jumped in, but it warmed up as I cleaned up. Never quite sure if the water was becoming warmer, or I was becoming colder and the water warmer by comparison, I eventually put my head into the water to wash my hair and it was warm!

Mucho happiness!

One thing I don't understand at this lodge is how everyone is walking around in socked feet. These floors are COLD. I'm in my indoor shoes nearly all the time and my feet are still chilled.

A Successful Climb Doesn't Necessarily Need a Summit

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Well, that was an adventure. I did not summit. None of the team summitted. I learned a lot, and have a new highest point for me: 5000m (16404').

That said, this climb was a complete mismanagement of intake resources, coupled with significant equipment issues. Which begs the question, "Can a climb be awesome and awful, wondrous and a wreck?" Yes? Good, because this one was.

I had packed my summit bag and written up my checklist last night, so that I should be good to go immediately at wake up. Didn't really work out that way. I went through my checklist as quickly as I could, but was still far behind everyone getting ready to go. I think maybe one person didn't have his crampons on by the time I arrived at the stones to put mine on.

Cayambe Hut Notes

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We all went to bed around 20:00 tonight, to "rest" before starting the summit attempt at midnight.

We had arrived at the Cayambe Hut hike about 15:15, hiked up (still took me 22 minutes, though it felt like 10), and all piled into the bunks. The toilets are on the bottom floor, one set of bunks is on the middle floor, with a second set of bunks on the upper floor. Nominally, where we slept wouldn't matter, as we would be "asleep" for only three hours. Still, I requested the closest bunk to the toilets. The irony of this request was that I slept for the three hours, and Ts was up to use the toilets 3-4 times during the night, much to the heckling of his coworkers.

Juliana woke us at 23:02, with some grumbling from Tr about Ts' night movements, "No one was going to sleep anyway."

I suspect I was the only person who both fell asleep and had a REM cycle.

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