Last Saturday, we decided to go for a little hike to the top of Guagua Pichincha. Pichincha is the volcano makes up the western edge of the Guayllabamba Valley, where Quito resides, and has two peaks: Rucu and Guagua. In Quechua, Rucu means old and Guagua means young. Rucu, the elder, is inactive and the shorter of the two. We chose to summit Guagua, which is taller and has an active crater. This process involved driving around to the other side of the volcano and even a substantial way of the side of the mountain itself. I was disappointed in how far up the mountain we drove, leaving a rather brief summit attempt. We had been hiking for under an hour when we reached an elevation marker that read 4,781 meters. It felt odd, I was standing on the top of a mountain over a thousand feet taller than Mount Rainier and I really didn't feel like I had earned it. It was extremely cloudy around the peak of Guagua Pichincha, which limited visibility significantly, so we took pictures next to the monument and began to mill about, wondering what was in store for us next.
As we began to explore a bit further along the ridge of the mountain, the wind began to pick up, briefly clearing the clouds from the summit, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was another summit, at least 20-25 meters taller than the marker that we first encountered. As we were walked along the ridge to our next goal, we were treated to sweeping views of the mountain slopes around us, though the crater of the volcano remained completely full of soupy clouds. From the true summit, it became clear that we had climbed the highest we could, but we chose to explore a bit further for the fun of it.
At the beginning of the day, I was excited about the sense of accomplishment I would feel upon reaching the top, but with our car ride wiping out what would surely have been at least half of our summit experience, that was not the case. I was, however, completely enamored with the scenery at the top, the beauty of which redeemed the climbing experience and, in the end, made for a very satisfying day.
The first picture from the false summit.
Suddenly, a new summit opens before us.
This is much closer to the real summit.
You can see how the how the ridge has cleared up, but the crater is still full of clouds.
A few weeks ago, I sat down and talked with a mountain climbing agency here in Quito. For prices far more reasonable than in the U.S., they can take me to the top of Cotopaxi, which stands a whopping 19,300 feet above sea level. I will publish more on that as it develops.
