The highest peak in Ecuador is a 6268m high volcano called Chimborazo. For the last 5 months, climbing it has been an objective for me, a goal that I completed on Tuesday 15th of May at around 5:45 am 🙂

The particularity of this mountain is that due to the Earth’s shape not being totally round (a bit oval around the ecuador), the very top of this mountain is the furthest point from the center of the Earth and the closest point to the sun from the Earth’s surface, around 2 km further than the top of Everest!

I heard about this mountain when I was in Brazil, at the beginning of my trip, on a beach at Florianopolis. I met a Norwegian guy and we started discussing about travels and mountaineering, and he told me about Chimborazo, and about the fact that it’s the closest point to the sun from the Earth. Climbing it has been in my mind since then 🙂

During all the treks I did recently I was thinking it would be useful as a preparation for Chimborazo. After about 2 and a half months spent between Bolivia and Peru, being most of the time between 2500m and 3000m and doing treks even higher, I finally reached Riobamba in Ecuador, the closest city to the Chimborazo national park and peak.

I spent a day in Riobamba looking for a guide agency offering mountaineering trips to Chimborazo to eventually find one that offered a 3-days hike to Chimborazo. One day walking to the refuge, first night in the refuge, second day resting, second night a try at the summit and third day back to Riobamba. After checking the weather forecast, I postponed by one day to better rest and prepare for the ascent.

The first day of the trip is basically entering the national park and walking up to the refuge. In this national park there is also the biggest reserve of Vicuñas, a species of wild lamas. The entry of the park is at 4300m and the first refuge, Refugio Carrel, is at 4850m, a nice walk to test the altitude and see how my body would react.

On the first day the weather was absolutely terrible, it was completely foggy and rainy/snowy, I knew it could change quickly but I started being concerned about the conditions… On the way up to Refugio Carrel, I met a French guy who also wanted to try the ascent of Chimborazo, so we walked together to the refuge and eventually continued to the second refuge, Refugio Whymper, at 5000m.

I was happy to see that I didn’t have difficulties with the altitude, although on the way to Refugio Carrel I was feeling a bit dizzy for a short time, and obviously it was harder to breathe. But thankfuklly nothing more than that.

On the way down from Refugio Whymper to Refugio Carrel it started snowing quite a lot and it kept snowing during the afternoon. On that night there were 3 persons who where trying to go to the summit. During the last 10 days, only 2 persons reached the top, due to bad weather conditions and snow. I spent the afternoon and evening discussing with a Bulgarian guy who was also trying the ascent on the same night as me. Thankfully at the end of the afternoon the sky cleared out and during the night it was completely clear and starry!

On the next morning, as I woke up quite early (thankfully I didn’t have any issues with the altitude during the night), I checked the weather and could see that the sky was still completely clear!

After taking breakfast we saw the two groups coming down from the mountain, unfortunately none of them reached the top. Two of them stopped at 5900m as they were not feeling well and the other one at 6100m as she was tired and too late to reach the top. That’s also one thing to take into account, the summit has to be reached for the sunrise, as the higher the sun is in the sky and the warmer it is, the higher the risks are (such as rock falls and avalanches).

After talking with the unfortunate climbers (they explained the difficult parts and the snow and weather conditions), I went for a small walk to a close-by lagoon, Laguna Condor Cocha at 5100m where I spent some time hoping to acclimatize better. Around 10 am the weather started again to be foggy, though quite warm and withouth snow. It stayed basically like that the whole day and again I was a bit worried, hoping the sky would clear out during the night.

We had a short nap in the afternoon, hoping to get some rest and strength, had an early dinner at 5pm and eventually went to bed at 6:30pm to rest for a few hours, as we would wake up at 10pm to start walking around 10:30pm.

I admit that I didn’t really sleep (it was way too early!) and the nervosity didn’t help, still I woke up quite rested and relieved, as I could see the sky was completely clear and starry!

After a quick breakfast, we left around 10:30pm to the summit! We were 3 groups, 2 Swiss-German guys with their guide, the Bulgarian guy with his guide and mysefl with my guide, Fabian. With Fabian we where the first group to leave, followed closely by the others. Fabian was a great guide, he was calm and serene, he had a very good pace, slow but steady, and often asked me how I was feeling and taking breaks so I could rest.

The ascent consists basically in 3 parts: the first part is a quite easy walk to the Laguna Condor Cocha at 5100m, then walking up to El Castillo at 5500m and finally the walk up to the summits. Because there are two summits (actually 4 but only 2 are important): Summit Veintimilla at 6234m and Summit Whymper at 6268m.

We started walking and after a short break at Refugio Whymper we continued until a bit above the lagoon where we put on our crampons. As it was completely dark, we were walking with the headlamps during the whole ascent.

The walk until the lagoon was quite easy and kind of flat. The walk to El Castillo was a bit more tricky as it was steeper, although we could “zig-zag” and do traverses, but had to be careful about the rocks and the exposed slopes. We reached the top of El Castillo at around 1:15am. Then started the hard part…

The walk from El Castillo to the first summit, Summit Veintimilla, is basically 1.2km long for 700m height difference! It’s a straight line, without possibility to do traverses as the slopes are exposed to avalanches dangers, and no flat parts to take a rest… From time to time the slopes were up to 40°-45°!

During this whole part, I was solely focused on my feet, stepping in my guide’s footsteps, focusing on my breathing, raising my head only from time to time to watch the stars. As it was completely dark, we couldn’t see anything else, neither the surroundings nor the summit.

As we were the first group and there was some relatively fresh snow, Fabian had to make the way, which must have been quite dificult… From time to time the snow was hard enough so that we could step on it directly, some other times we would sink up to the ankle and slide down a bit at every step. But overall the snow conditions were quite good! As well as the weather conditions, it stayed clear during the whole ascent, withoud too much wind, although my feet were frozen during basically the whole time, as well as my hands.

We eventually reached Summit Veintimilla at around 4:45am! Though it was still completely dark, and cold at that point. I asked Fabian if we could try to go to the second summit, Summit Whymper while waiting for the sun to rise, he told me it was a bit dangerous as there was a lot of snow and he wanted to wait for the next guide to discuss the possibility to go there. Waiting for them we took out the survival blankets to keep warm and the second group arrived thankfully 5-10 min later. After some discussions we decided to go to the Summit Whymper, best way to keep warm was to keep moving!

From Summit Veintimilla to Summit Whymper we first had to walk down around 20m then walk flat and then back up for 60m. The problem was that there was quite a lot of snow and at each step we sank our feet up to the knee! The last slope was quite difficult, at more than 6200m high and with more than 6 hours walk, but we reached Summit Whymper at around 5:45am, right on time for the sunrise…

That was magical! The sky seemed to be on fire! A sea of clouds below, some clouds above, volcanos emerging from the clouds… Incredible! That was really the top of the world 🙂 I honestly almost cried when I reached the summit 🙂

We spent some time at the summit, enjoying the view, taking pictures before getting back to Summit Veintimilla. It is said that the gravity is 0.2% weaker there, I must admit I didn’t feel any difference 🙂

On the way to Summit Veintimilla we could see the shadow of Chimborazo on the land and the clouds 🙂 That was really impressive!

Back to Summit Veintimilla we rested a bit, enjoyed the view for a short time and started our way down. It was a bit funny because I could see for the first time the path that we had taken 🙂

The way down was actually really tough, walking down steep slopes straight, with tired legs, after some time my knees were completely destroyed… Though to make it a bit faster and funnier, we slided down a bit 🙂

I thought it was endless, I was really suffering on the way down… But we eventually reached the lagoon, took out our crampons and arrived at Refugio Carrel at around 8:45am under clear sky 🙂

Everyone who attempted the ascent to the summit reached it this night 🙂 Although we were only two to make it to Summit Whymper.

Back at the refuge, we rested a bit, took our breakfast and eventually went back to Riobamba where I rested the whole day and eventually slept 12 hours during the night 🙂

I’m currently on my way to Cuenca, a city in the south of Ecuador, where I’ll probably keep resting for some time 🙂