Ecuador High Altitude Expedition:
Dec 17-31, 2010
Climbers: Tim Turay, Kat Lange, Stuart Lowden, Tamsin Ainscow, Ahmad Baasiri, John Davis, and Ruth Hartmann.
Lead Guide: Pepe Landazuri
Pepe called at 7:40 pm with this update:
“Hello again! We are calling you from near the base of Cayembe at about 4,500 meters. We got here around mid-day today. It was cloudy again this morning, but it is improving now quite a lot. cloudy. We can see the beautiful summit of Cayambe now and a few stars.
Today we went on another walk to get further acclimatized. Everyone is doing marvelously with their acclimatization!
We had lasagna for dinner, and that was pretty darn good if I do say so myself! Right now everyone is resting and digesting.
Tomorrow we’ll spend the day on the glacier. We’ll go over snow and ice climbing skills, glacier travel skills, and crevasse rescue. Since we have multiple guides for this training, we will divide up based on experience level among the climbers so that we can spend lots of time on the basics with those who need it and for the more advanced climbers, we can work on more advanced skills.
Here are some messages from our climbers:
John: ‘I want to say I’m sending my love to Brian and Samatha. We’ll never stop. We went on a hike today and everyone’s doing great.’
Ruth: ‘It’s clear and absolutely amazing. Pepe is cooking really good food, too. I have ‘inspiration’ written in my new underwear. I got new underwear today. Today it says Climb The Mountain! We have to drink so much everyday… Everytime I go to the bathroom I feel inspired. Pepe forgot my pole yesterday so he had to run back up the mountain to get up. He’s great!’
OK – that’s it for now. We’ll call again tomorrow and give you an update. Bye for now!”