The Peculiar Beauty of Discord

The stony slope was mocking

and pitiless.

The chirping greens

and browns below

could not fathom my

lifeless, grey choice.

The high-pitched scree

erased my progress.

The frenzied beat

of my thoughts

out-of-sync with my body.

Fling a boot forward,

gasp. swear. shriek.

shift my weight

this is what I deserve

plant and push

cry. grunt. SCREAM.

swing the other leg,

fuck it all

slide back oh so close to where I started.

But not quite.

Eventually,

the ground leveled and cleared,

and quieted,

and began to descend

the other side of the mountain,

and I found

the peculiar beauty of discord

is when it stops.

At the entrance to a wood, I stood

in the silence between the songs.

********************

Distant falsettos and bass lines,

scattered drum-taps,

gather and gurgle on the wind,

unhurried,

congealing into chorus;

the rain begins its hiss-patter percussion

on the leaves overhead.

My breath escapes, is replaced; I kneel

to put the cover on my pack,

a crinkled blue forcefield,

and I walk;

a hushed football

on the mossy undergrowth

of a dampening forest.

Except when you don't. Because, sometimes, you won't.

There is a lot that can be learned from failure.  Failing 5 times, however, indicates that a certain stubbornness of character may have been inhibiting those generous heaps of said learning.  Or, perhaps, as five times is a precise stubbornness, it could just mean that I'm a little slow.  Regardless, I won't need a sixth.

I give you Andy vs. the Volcano (who knew this would be so one-sided?).

Volcán Cotopaxi is the centerpiece of Cotopaxi National Park, just an hour south of Quito once you finally get out of the city, heading south on the Panamericana highway.  Peaking at 5,897 m/19,347 ft and having last erupted in the 1940s, it is one of the highest active volcanoes in the world.  Additionally, this ridiculous, glaciated volcano can be seen from Quito on clear days.  Although these are somewhat rare, as it has to be clear in and around both Quito and Cotopaxi, the result is that the volcano is very closely associated with the city, and is a popular climb for visitors and residents alike.

Cotopaxi, from the roof of my apartment in Quito.

The process has changed a bit since the refugio closed, but basically, as hopeful climbers, you will arrive at the parking lot on the mountain at about 1 pm.  You then tote all of your gear and food up to the refugio, which is a sweaty, somewhat panting climb of about 45 minutes with that weight.  Finally, you will claim a cot and crawl into your sleeping bag, emerging only to use the restroom and to eat lunch and dinner.  You get as much sleep as you can until 11 pm or midnight, when you wake up, put on all of your gear, and eat a little more.  From the time you start (usually between midnight and 1 am), the average climber takes about 6 - 8 hours to reach the summit, and about half of that to descend.  Not being able to stay at the refugio adds some time to your climb, but it is easier to sleep and rest at lower, warmer elevations (the refugio is at 4,864 m/15,953 ft).

The tilt of the world up here can become unsettling, and I
always feel a bit like an intruder on borrowed time.

Failed Attempt 1: The Eye-Opener

This very first attempt was made in December 2010 after having been living in Quito for about four months.  Before moving here, most of my experience had been hiking and backpacking trips.  I had some climbing experience as well, but not much, and nothing above 11,000 feet.  In short, none of us knew what we were getting into.  This was the first and last time that I saw good weather on this climb.  Unbelievably good weather.  The problem?  It was the first day of good weather in months, so after climbing to about 5200 m/17,000 ft, we had to turn around because all of the accumulated snow from the previous weeks was creating avalanche danger.  We did get high enough to learn that this was nothing like anything any of us had done before.  Not only are you walking up an outrageously steep slope of snow and ice, you are doing so in an oxygen-deprived environment that turns even mundane physical tasks into soul-driven efforts.  I will also never forget how overwhelming the stars were that night with such little atmosphere and light-pollution to diminish them, and how during our descent, they dissolved into the grays, purples, and oranges of one of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen.

Lisa, Alyssa, and I enjoying our consolation prize.

Failed Attempt 2: I Can Smell Your Sulfur

On the second failed attempt, we made it much further.  Almost to the top...we were within 200/650 vertical meters/feet from the summit when altitude sickness and exhaustion got Lisa, and we had to turn back.  The weather on this trip could be best described as a constant, cruel, icy wind that enjoyed pointing out the flawed description of our climbing apparel as "impermeable."  The layer of ice coating our gear stayed about one inch thick, as new ice would accumulate to compensate for that which was melting from our body heat and slowly dampening our inner defenses of long johns and fleece.  While there was no sunrise this time, just a slow, indiscernible transition from black to gray, Cotopaxi is beautiful in many shades.  Because we got so much higher on this attempt, the ice falls and glacier formations were presented to us.  The silence of isolation, the eerie, dreamy light, and the gray void around us made it easy to imagine that we were walking through an alien world.

This is the view from the summit into the crater of Cotopaxi,
where puffs of smoke remind successful climbers that this
is still very much an active volcano.  Photo credit.

A short break near an ice formation, of which I was quickly
becoming a part.

Thawing out on the descent is not a very comfortable process.

Failed Attempt 3: Rough Initiation to the Heart-Breaker Route

On this attempt in October of 2013, I couldn't convince anyone to come with me, so I went on my own.  This is more expensive, but I just knew that this was going to be it for me.  I had sniffed the summit on the last attempt, which gave me a lot of confidence.  Also, as other climbers will likely agree, a mountain is easier to climb when you know what to expect.  The last attempt had given me knowledge of the normal route, and I felt that this was a big advantage.  I could tick off checkpoints, and know during the most difficult stretches about how much time they would take.  The psychological battle, I thought, would now be easier.  Unfortunately, due to glacier conditions (the damn things are always moving), the normal route was closed and my guide and I took what is known as the Heart-Breaker Route.  Rather than zigzagging up the glacier and going through really neat formations, this route leaves the refugio, goes below the north face of the glacier, and then straight up.  I mean straight, fucking up.  I cannot over-emphasize how straight up this is.  Also, there was once again bad weather, this time rain.  We left the refugio and hiked for about 20-30 minutes before deciding to head back to wait for things to clear up.  After shivering inside in my wet clothes for almost an hour, we gave it another shot.  This is the state I was in as we got to the glacier, and the Heart-Breaker Route lived up to its name.  At about 5200 m/17,000 feet, I once again had to turn around, this time because of my own altitude sickness and exhaustion.  

In yellow is the normal route, now closed after climbers died in an ice fall.
The Heart-Breaker route cuts further right after leaving the refugio, and then goes
straight up (as I believe I have mentioned) until meeting the normal route at the
crevasse labeled in the picture at 5,500 m.  Photo credit.

Failed Attempt 4: Keep an Eye on Your Guide

In one of the most absurd experiences of my life, the fourth attempt was ruined by our guide, who decided to get drunk before our climb.  A big change that had occurred between the last time and this one is that you could no longer stay at the refugio and start your hike from there, due to construction and renovations.  As a result, my friend Mike and I had to stay at a hostel just outside of the park.  While we were resting and preparing for the hike, our guide apparently saw this as a chance to throw back a few drinks.  A lot of drinks, as it turns out.  Unaware that this had transpired, we geared up and got into the car with him at about 10 pm.  He was not a very good driver to begin with, so when he continued driving erratically, we didn't immediately assume he was drunk.  That he would do something like that was not even a thought in our minds.  We entered the park and were heading towards the parking lot where we would begin our climb (adding close to an hour to the ascent), and were pulled over by the park guards for a) speeding and b) not properly checking in.  Again, still far from the assumption that our guide was drunk, we were now thinking that he was just fairly inept as he argued for 45 minutes with the guards before they ultimately let us continue.  Finally, we started the climb, with the guide in front, me following, and Mike in the back.  Right away, he was stumbling and unable to walk in a straight line.  He couldn't get his headlamp to turn on.  You know, by hitting the only button that it has.  He fell completely down twice after tripping on large, obvious rocks in the path.  During breaks (he needed 3 of them in less than half an hour), he could barely keep his very bloodshot eyes open.  And then there was the smell.  This wasn't detectable in the car, but once he started walking and sweating, the rum was pouring out of him.  Mike and I let this go on until it was blatantly obvious, and asked him several times if he was "okay."  When he didn't take this out, we told him that we were turning around because he was drunk, and we wouldn't be tying ourselves to him while he led us across a glacier.  In a classic drunk line, he told us that he had only had two beers and was fine.  This was obviously not the case, but when I told him that even this was too many, he said I was a pansy if I was drunk off of two beers.  Mike and I took the keys from him, and while I drove back, he heckled my driving from the back seat for 20 minutes before finally, thankfully, passing out.  The following morning, Mike and I walked to the Panamericana, flagged down a bus, and headed back to Quito on our own rather than riding with our guide.  We went to Ecomontes, the tour agency we had booked through, and were able to get our money back.  We put this towards the final attempt.

Every story needs a villain...

Failed Attempt 5: The Last Chance

Two weeks after the drunk guide, Mike and I found ourselves back on the mountain.  The weather forecast was promising the end of the rainy season and an unhindered climb to the summit.  The weather forecast was wrong.  With sustained winds of 50-70 km/hr and rain, sleet, and snow the whole way, we made it to about 5,300 m/17,400 ft before I once again had to call it off before reaching the top.  Being cold and wet puts additional stresses on the body at high altitudes, and apparently that is my breaking point.  Altitude sickness is no fun.  When I stopped to catch my breath, I felt fine, and got angry at myself for taking a break and interrupting the rhythm of the climb.  But then the nausea returned and increased with each step forward, and my eyes started to swim.  This is not a good feeling to have when climbing up (have I mentioned yet that it is steep?) the tilted shelf of a glacier.  Your cramponned feet have been jammed at odd angles into the slick slope, and the weight of your own body pressing on them is a constant reminder of your own potential energy, ready to carry you sickeningly downwards with a single misstep.  You want to feel at your best while doing this.  At altitude, you settle for feeling okay.  You turn around when you don't, and so I turned around.  Mike would have been able to keep going, and I hate that he couldn't because of me.  The weather made summiting unlikely anyway, although a few groups managed to get there that day.  What is really frustrating is that I have been that high and higher and been fine.  But I need to realize and admit that over 5,200 m/17,000 ft, I become unreliable.  My conditioning doesn't seem to matter.  If I encounter bad weather, it is very likely that I will have to turn around.  The problem is, at this elevation, there is quite often bad weather.

This mountain's got me all hung up in a prickly perch...
Photo credit

Where do I go from here?  Well, luckily, most mountains in the world peak below this elevation, so I can definitely maintain this hobby when I move to Barcelona at the feet of the Pyrenees next year.  Also, as mentioned previously, I love backpacking and hiking trips, and I have gotten away from that since I have been in Ecuador.  Here, most of the "hikes" are really climbs, and so I embraced it.  But perhaps the time is approaching to throw a week's worth of supplies in my pack, find a trail, and get back to my roots.

These failed attempts at summiting Cotopaxi hurt my ego a bit.  But while my oxygen efficiency may have been proven sub-par, there are some positive takeaways as well.  I threw myself at this mountain, and left nothing on the table.  My natural stubbornness was honed into a productive focus as I trained and prepared for each attempt (though I may or may not have participated in a flip cup tournament the Friday before the first climb).  I pushed my limits, but ultimately, made good decisions about what was important, and always made it home.  And having learned these limitations, I will be leaving here in a few weeks at relative peace with the fact that I wasn't able to achieve this goal.  I will not be trying to climb this mountain again.  Probably.

I Do Not Offer the Old Smooth Prizes, But Offer Rough New Prizes

Climbing is hard.  Often, it downright sucks.  At high elevations, you don't feel like yourself.  Your body doesn't really respond properly to your brain's commands.  This even though you are decently acclimatized from living in Quito at 2,800 m/9,500 ft, and find yourself on mountains regularly.  The weather almost never cooperates, and still in the best of conditions you consistently find yourself too hot and yet freezing cold at the same time.  Comfort does not, as a concept or a reality, exist here.  So, a very natural and very difficult question that I have both heard from others and asked myself many times is 'why on earth do you do this?'

On Imbarura, our idealism would soon be shattered.
Photo courtesy of Jamie Bacigalupo.

First of all, I am not a masochist; there is no pleasure in my pain.  The pleasure comes when the pain ends at the summit.  The summit comes after having cursed for hours, loudly and frequently, about my life choices that brought me to that mountain. Due to low oxygen levels, it's possible that the cursing is only in my head, and all that escapes my mouth is an exaggerated, communicative pant.  This is how I climb.  Based on this very unromantic reality of dragging my ass straight up an unrelenting slope of a mountain for hours on end, I can only conclude that one of the primary reasons I continue to climb has to do with the limitations of memory.  We are simply not capable of remembering pain, be it physical, emotional, or both.  We of course remember THAT something hurt, but we cannot conjure the actual feeling that we experienced.  We can imagine it a bit, but we do not really remember.  And this is a good thing; otherwise, think of what cowering and panicky creatures we would all become after a few decades on this planet.  Anyone who could remember these things too vividly would almost certainly remain always at home as a vegetative, fetal lump, and therefore unlikely to pass on their genetic material.  Because this is not the case for most of us, we are the beneficiaries of our imperfect memory.  We continue to do irrational and probably harmful things, like living in Kazakhstan during the winter, or cooking bacon in our underwear.  Or falling in love.  Or climbing mountains.  

Stopping on the slope to take in a view

But this alone cannot explain my motivation to climb mountains.  What is the appeal?  There are two reasons I have been able to come up with:  the challenge and the discovery of it.  I am not convinced that this is a comprehensive description, but hey, we all live with uncertainty.  Deal with it.  

The obvious physical challenge of climbing is appealing as someone who has always played sports, enjoys the outdoors, and likes to stay in shape.  The psychological element, however, is less understood.  Am I conquering nature by reaching the top of this ancient and savage pile of rocks?  I don't think so.  The knowledge that at any point I can just stop, turn around, and walk home can become seductive.  I think that conquering this impulse to stop when things get hard is a more accurate view.  I also feel it is a way to both create and address a problem that can be solved.  Just get to the top.  In normal life, the solutions to our problems tend to be more complex.  Or perhaps we cannot find a good solution at all.  The mountain becomes a simplified effigy of these problems, and one that can be overcome with the single-minded, straightforward method of putting one foot in front of the other, and throwing all of our energy into the task at hand.  It's a little like making a list of the things we have to do, and including 'eat pancakes' along with more formidable tasks, such as 'find a job.'  Even though it is a small act, there is great satisfaction that comes when you can cross it off of your list and say 'Hey, I'm halfway done!'  Come to think of it, maybe I should stop climbing mountains and eat more pancakes.  

Cloudy days offer their own beauty

These mountains are also about discovery.  You know, in the Christopher Columbus sense; you discover them for yourself (unlike Columbus, please do not try to rename landmarks in your honor, claim the mountain for Spain, or participate in genocide).  There is no replacement for experience.  Reading about places and listening to stories have given me countless hours of enjoyment, but it is just not the same as going somewhere.  If it were, there would be no difference between travel blogs and traveling.  This impulse to discover things for myself has had both positive and negative manifestations, and the jury is still out on its overall utility.  Regardless, I am living in South America because of it, and by extension, climbing mountains because of it.  Pushing myself to my physical and mental limits has resulted in a good amount of self-knowledge as well, when I can reflect honestly on the experience.  There is also something else...something more basic that comes with going out to a mountain in the middle of nowhere.  I've always failed at putting this part into words, but this may be what Walt Whitman was talking about in Song of the Open Road:

Walt Whitman Photo Credit

"The earth never tires,

the earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first,

Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first,

Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well-envelop'd,

I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell"

I wouldn't say that I am looking for spirituality on mountains.  But when I can pause and look around and see the world below mixed in with the clouds, when I can smell the earth and hear only my own two feet shuffling through the knee-high grass in an otherwise silent world, when I find that my constantly racing mind has for a moment stopped trying to figure everything out, I feel very much at peace.  

The reflections from this blog post were brought to you by Imbabura, a giant, extinct volcano near Otavalo in the very north of Ecuador.  If you are in Quito and want to start exploring the surrounding mountains a bit, I highly recommend booking with Paypahausi.  They provide guides, transportation, and some high-energy snacks (though you will probably want to pack something more to eat) for $45.  The schedule they follow resets every couple of months, and is designed to prepare climbers for Cotopaxi.  However, you can join for as few or as many trips as you want.  It is also a great way to practice Spanish and to meet fellow climbers!  

Photo Credit

Climbing Rucu Pichincha

At the beginning of the hike

One of my favorite things to do around Quito is to take a day to climb Rucu Pichincha.  The fact that a 4,696 m/15,406 ft mountain lies so close to my home is often too good to pass up.  Within about 20 minutes, I am no longer in a city of over 2 million people, but in the Andes mountains, trying to pretend that I am much further away from civilization than I really am.  To reach the beginning of the trail, just follow these simple steps.  Feel free to modify and/or personalize:

1) Leave your apartment and get into a taxi.  State that you wish to go to the Teleferico, and allow the driver a few moments to declare a price that is at least twice as much as it should be.

2) Depart this taxi, amicably if possible, and repeat this process until one uses the taxi meter, one names a price you know to be reasonable, or you become too fed up with the inane process and say screw the whole thing.

3) Provided you reach the Teleferico (the cable car that takes you to the trail head at about 4,000 m/13,000 ft), you will buy a round trip ticket for $8 and change.  If you are lucky enough to have been in the country for at least 3 years, you can present your expired Censo card that can still get you half price.  If you are really lucky, the photo for your Censo card will have been taken at the beginning of a misguided "Movember" experiment, and you will carry around something that looks like this for several years:

Congratulations!  You have reached the trail head.  Many people come up here for the views, while others march on.  To approach the summit, you follow a ridge line for about 1 - 1.5 hours to reach the rocky outcrop that marks the highest point.  This part of the hike is when you tend to work up a sweat, so I wear a light-weight shirt that I change out of at the end.  The temperature will often drop dramatically as you reach the rock, so be prepared.  From this point until the summit is about 1.5 - 2 hours for most climbers.  The most difficult and disheartening part is crossing the scree field just before the rock scramble to the top.  Trying to climb directly up this loose sand and rock will result in sliding back 1 step for every 2 you take forward.  Side effects of this at high altitude include holistic self-doubt, uncontrolled sobbing, and the total loss of hope.  So don't.  I recommend cutting diagonally and to your right across this part and finding a sturdier route further up to cut back to the left.

This part of the trail is easy to follow when you can see the peak in good weather, but it is not very well marked and the mountain is a bit of a cloud magnet.  If you've never been before, it's a good idea to find someone who knows the way.  On weekends, there are a lot of people on the mountain and you can usually follow the lead of other climbers, provided that they know what they're doing.  All in all, just remember that although this is one of the easier climbs in the country, it is still a massive, towering, extinct volcano and can be dangerous if the weather turns or if you're not paying attention to where you're going.  There is a rock scramble situation at the top that does not require ropes, just caution, but this can be difficult for people with a fear of heights.

A view of Quito from the top of the Teleferico as the sky tries to make up its mind

The ridge line to to the summit 

One of my favorite things about climbing Rucu Pichincha is that although I have done it many times now, I always see it in a new light.  At its most stunning, the hike affords views of the surrounding glacier volcanoes: Cotopaxi, Cayambe, and Antisana.  More commonly, however, it is somewhere in between scary fog and beautiful mist.  Today, I was able to climb during the weather pattern that most closely resembles a multiple personality disorder.

The clouds can roll in quickly and disorient climbers...do not underestimate this mountain!

At the halfway point with Mike, with the grey void in the beyond

When I started out this morning, the mountain was so engulfed with storm clouds that my taxi driver laughed at me, very hard, for a good 45 seconds.  This may not sound like a long time, but really any strong laugh unassisted by others becomes disturbing after less than 15 seconds.  That's science.  But I am glad I persevered, because despite being rained on at the end, it was a very rewarding hike, and the first in a series that I am planning this spring in order to train for the two highest peaks in Ecuador: Chimborazo and Cotopaxi.  Besides, a little rain never hurt any one (says the guy who sat down in a piping hot shower immediately upon returning home).