Blog #8: Mountaineering Expedition

2015 Ecuador Semester students and guides on the summit of Cayambe

For the past 16 days the 2015 Ecuador Semester has traveled on foot (with some vehicle assistance) from Palugo farm to Antisana and then on to Cayambe. They have spent days in glacier school learning the ropes of mountaineering. They were given the opportunity to split into two groups for three long days of independent student travel, and many chose to attempt the summit of Cayambe. Many succeeded at summitting, all came back changed.      

      What is dream? The dreamer said as he wove his hands into earth,

      And as he spoke the dreamer woke and he stumbled down the mountain of birth;

      For landscape captures mind like twine

      And humble scribe returns with rhyme:

Palugo land of relaxation, farewell my fellow comfort

And salutations to terrain of pain, suffering limbs of limber

The sun is greeting us, day one and Palugo disappears with strides

Finding highlands, wrath of winds, penetrating rides

Bringing sticks along the way

for fire struggles to remain

Trudging through the mud and streams

While the weight on our backs is gained

Bigger packs with bigger gear

Makes heavy tracks with bigger fear

But discomfort has not begun

We are not here to have good fun…

Prepping meals in frigid chills

While tent stakes battle winds with thrills.

Waking with the stars above

And putting on our warmer gloves

Appetite and lungs in darkness

Feeling flatter than a starfish

Pushing to the top of the ridge

Immersed in fog, get cordinance

The dreamer says, I cannot go on.

But the mind is murkier than the body is strong

Endless ups and downs of doom

To break your brains, bring energy to ruin

Stumbling over rocks and grasses

Reaching Lake Muerte Pungo in lower masses

Visits from foxes in the night

Their eyes shine yellow with slyness in sight.

The night is colder than Grace’s feet (cuz Grace’s feet are cold)

And many struggle to maintain their heat

But alas, warm milk of powder awaits

Breakfast of granola makes up late

We must push for our teachers have left us with Dan

Declan and Lilly to lead us through highlands.

However upon our way we blink

See two Ecuadorian cowboys that think

That is takes five hours for 18 K’s

To get to the camp of Antisana’s base

But this solo isn’t about getting to our goal

It’s all about the love in our group on the whole

The fog immerses us into swamp

The longer the grasses the harder we stomp

And on the radio riddles of bars and knives

If we don’t answer we won’t get resupplied

The thunder is rolling as the as the hills are too

And teachers rejoin us with the rising moon

Walking in darkness with moonlight alone

The stars that compliment summits in moans

Of fog, the equator is the hotspot of constellations

Ella gives animal crackers with patience.

Well, when we first saw Antisana we thought he was a cloud

For the snowcapped glacier of death is loud

Yet Papa Antisana is often very soft

And hiding in precipitation never taking wafts

Of appearance but we scurry up the surface, greeting him with crampons

Drinking water running down his body getting camp on

Making oatmeal with whisper stoves with blister hands

Isiah Davis pumps the stove and saturates with gas

And naturally this results in finger/arm combustion

He runs to the water like an otter in utter indigestion (he’s fine now)

Wake to shake moraines with legs and reach the icy glacier

Finding balance, climbing walls of ice like spicy phasers

And sun defeats the chill with will, de-layering/layering days

For Tita Antisana never solidifies its ways

And we’re crazed with belaying and clawing over surfaces

With ice axes, techniques from France, America with purposes

Joining together in ropes and harnesses

Reaching the highest points of our consciousness

For glacier school is cooler school

You have to jab your feet in, fools!

In ice, heels low but not too high

Self-arrest could save your life

Sliding down the neck of Antisana

And digging in our ice axes holding us on a

Wall of ice with a long way down

Having woken and 3:00AM we rest on the ground

But later that evening we wake in the eve

To push to the summit in four rope teams

The night is the holder of stars over ice rocks

And we reach the high saddle before 6:00AM

The sun hits the south summit, neon white

That turns to yellow as darkness turns to light

And sight is endless as freeing of mind

For 5,850 meters is high

Is a place of awakening, wakening life

The suffering to reach it erases our strife.

Sleeping for hours in physical recovery

Mentally get clarity and ready for the lovely

Independent travel trek, kilometer counting

Legs as motor vehicles through the Andean mountains

Shouting, listening for Tupac and Roberto

Hiding in the bushes, scary like a scarecrow

Also Isiah Davis has another mishap

Falling off a cliff while peeing, like a fish-trap

(but he’s fine now)

The mud sucks Declan under the surface

Black cows in the distance get us nervous

Thinking that they are bulls, they’ve been known to stampede

Semester students, camp in the swamp - no dry feet

Little bugs sucking on our blood till we’re nothing

Continue to the road, drive to lunch munching

Emily Hughs meets us, treks to our next camp

Belongings remaining everlasting damp

Coming down steep tall grass for the resupply

Dinner from Adela makes our taste buds fly.

Now solo, you know, semester splits in half

Two nights trekking with your bros through the laughs

But struggle of teacher-less terrain and other obstacles

Paramo gives four seasons in a day, it’s impossible

Picked up, driven to a lunch buffet

On semester goes to the mountain Cayambe…

Lower camp set on the flat grasses

Recuperate from solo before the lightning flashes

Rest, eat bagels with melted cheese in the sunshine

Take down camp, moving up to the baseline

Of the mountain to wake at 11:00

In the PM for a summit push to heaven

Third highest peak in the land of Ecuador

Thirst in the streets for her beauty and galore

Such deadly moraine to the glacier, yes sir

Looking over we Antisana and we’re less sure

That this summit is summit-able for semester

Some meters higher and packed with competitors

Alas there’s no stopping semester 2015

We will turn this glacier into whipped cream!

And as the sun rises the peak gets closer

Finally we’re highest as we’ll get on semester

Crampon down to moraine, to the base camp

Take down, walk down the road for the bus and

Rain comes so we hitch a ride in a dude’s truck

Driving down Cayambe’s slippery slopes is a must

Finding our bus like a sketchy intersection

Hopping on, on to Palugo is the question?

Yes it’s actually over as the rain falls

Semester sleeps and away pain crawls

Pain that we’ll miss to the ends of our lives

Let Cotopaxi decide…

“I feel closer now to what I’ve left behind,

And the small breaths of my body are ready to receive our rising day.”

                        ~Mayah

Zander, Dan, Isiah, and Mayah in glacier school on Antisana

Merin working on his ice climbing

Lily in a crevasse ice climbing

2015 Ecuador Semester students and guides on the saddle of Antisana

Isiah and Merin on the summit of Cayambe

Jamie doing a handstand on the summit of Cayambe (Jamie also did Vermont Semester '15 and did a handstand on Mt. Abe)

A rope team heading down the glacier of Cayambe

View of Cotopaxi from Antisana

Landscape that was a common sight for students during independent student travel