Pico de Orizaba - November 21-28, 2009 Some Random Comments: - So how does one procure an invitation? Or is this an exclusive expedition?
(Post on WBSMB in response to Lori Williams posting that she’s headed to Mexico for Thanksgiving. This got the ball rolling for me.)- "I'm not mad at you."
(My wife, in a phone call to me as I was sitting at the airport waiting for the plane to leave for Mexico City. She was pleasantly surprised to find that I could be heading out for a one week expedition, instead of the usual two to three months. If you've heard the story of my cancelled trip to Asia in 2007, you'll understand why this was significant.)- WPSMB was the topic of conversation on a number of occasions. It seems we can't get away from it even when we're away from it.
- 1758: The number of miles my GPS displayed as the distance to our beloved Mt. Whitney from the summit of Orizaba.
- 18,511'. Throwing my altitude measurement at the controversy surrounding the height of the peak.
- HAT: High Altitude Teasing
(A new acronym to go along with HACE and HAPE that we developed in our hypoxic state at the Piedra Grande Hut. Lori and John were expert HATters. Heidi, Augustine and I were far tamer HATters.)- "I went from wondering whether I was too old for this to finding out that things still work."
(Me to John as we discussed our successful climbs on Thanksgiving night.) The Cast of Characters: - EL (Expedition Leader) Lori Williams
- HB (Hot Blonde) Heidi
(Needing to confirm that womanizer label attached to me by some.)(BTW: she's available and if you look at the photos, you'll see that I'm not lying when I say she is one beautiful woman.)- TE (Translator Extraordinaire) Augustine
- TBO (The Bold One) John
- (You know what you want to call me) Me
The Gang From Iowa: - Hanna
- Brian (aka: Gillum(sp?))
- Kyle
The German Strongman: - Sebastian Mogl
Babbling On About The Trip: Lori had a post on the board mentioning an upcoming trip to Mexico to climb Pico de Orizaba. I knew from having seen a few trip reports that it's over 18k. It’s been well over five years since I had been that high, so my interest was piqued and I inquired as to whether others were welcome to tag along. The answer came back in the affirmative. After a few days of searching for a cheap flight to Mexico City, I found an affordable flight for the holiday week and confirmed my intention to join the group. (BTW: thanks Lori for the very kind e-mail introduction to the rest of the gang.)
Knowing that the itinerary provided by Lori was very aggressive, I spent as much time high as I could in the couple weeks before the trip. On Friday (11/20), I headed up towards Horseshoe Meadows for a night at altitude with the intention of getting up a 3:00 am for another possible attempt on Mt. Whitney. The wind was blowing so fiercely that the car shook, making sleep hard to get. I woke up at about 1:00 am to find that the wind had dropped off. There were no clouds in the sky, so I knew that the possibility of new snow was nil. Despite that, when the alarm went off at 3:00 am, I turned it off and went back to sleep. I woke up at around 6:00 am and headed to my favorite breakfast spot in Lone Pine. By 8:00 am, I was heading up the "old" trail for a climb of Thor Peak via the SE Couloir. I hung out and had lunch on the summit before descending the Secret Route and the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek.
It was interesting to see that the tracks we made on October 17th were still around.
As I was heading down the Main Trail, I felt as if I was participating in a "Who's Who of Whitney" session as I passed by Walter Runkle, Bob Rockwell, Jay Du Nesme and others.
(Photos.)Airport security was more interesting than ever as my carry-on luggage got scanned, rescanned and rescanned again, I guessed that all of the camera gear, GPS devices, batteries, telephones, accessory cords, etc had the TSA Officers concerned that I may have been trying to sneak something by them.
The stop in Guadalajara was interesting in that I went thru the process of getting a visa, but didn't have to be subjected to Customs as my baggage had been checked thru to Mexico City.
I arrived in Mexico City and had a few hours to kill prior to the arrival of the rest of the group, got hungry and headed to Burger King to burn some time. Some time during the stay, the folks working there forgot that it was me who had placed my bags near the trash cans so it wouldn't be blocking the aisles of the restaurant. I was quite surprised to be the subject of a bomb scare as Airport Security and Police arrived and grilled me (I understood maybe 15% of the conversation.), requested ID and searched my bags.
We started to get a taste of the beauty of Mexico on the drive from the airport to Tlachichuca. The views of Iztaccihuatl and then Orizaba were stunning. We began to understand the massive isolation of the peak. It would be a gorgeous climb.
Dr. Reyes had a beautiful compound for our stay in town. The food was beyond excellent as we got to know each other a little better before our trip up to the Piedra Grande Hut.
We had more fantastic views of the mountain on the drive up to the Hut the next afternoon.
It was a real experience though, as the road was really bumpy in places and at one point John ended up in my lap and within moments, I ended up in his as we got bounced across the passenger compartment of the 4WD vehicle. How were Lori and Heidi able to stick to their seats? Catching either of them would have been a lot more fun.
No one seemed to be feeling any ill effects of the rapid rise to 14k. Dr. Reyes had warned us about doing much on that first afternoon, so most of us only went for a short walk. John, being the bold one, headed up to about 15,300' to check out the route up the mountain.
On Tuesday, we headed up for a two-hour acclimatization hike.
As we were only a little short of the top of the Labyrinth at that two hour mark, we decided we'd continue on to the top of it. We arrived in about 2:45 and everyone was feeling OK at about 16,150'.
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We felt good about how things would go as we descended back down to the Hut. Shortly after arriving, I felt as if my head was about to explode, putting the next day's ascent in jeopardy. The headache didn't go away, even after multiple doses of Ibuprofen, so I announced that I would not be able to make the climb on Wednesday and would hold off until Thursday. Hanna had been feeling some severe AMS symptoms, so she decided she needed to head down. Brian, Kyle and I discussed a Thursday summit attempt and it was good to know that I wouldn't have to go solo.
Lori had borrowed my alarm clock for their wake-up call and since I'm so keyed in to it, I woke up at 12:00 am when it went off. I was still feeling the headache, so I made a final decision that I couldn't join them and rolled over to go back to sleep.
Wednesday was a great rest day. I was starting to feel stronger, so late in the morning, I used the Pulse Oximeter to find that my oxygen saturation had gone from 84 to 96. I was finally starting to feel some confidence about making the summit.
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The weather for the group's climb was a complete mix of everything, as we experienced fog, rain, hail, sleet and snow at the Hut. (BTW: the Hut roof leaks.) Occasionally, we got a break in the weather and I headed out with the long zoom lens to get some photos of the group climbing towards the Crater Rim. Mid-afternoon, the group started to arrive back at the Hut after a successful climb. Congratulations to all!
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The group packed up and headed out. During the quiet time after they left, Sebastian joined in on my conversation with Brian and Kyle about Thursday's climb. We let him know that we planned on getting up at midnight and heading out some time around 1:00 am. He stated that he'd like to join us. Having overheard some of his conversations about climbing high in South America, we all agreed that it would be great to have him along.
Early sleep was nearly impossible due to the late arrival of an additional three climbers and a guide, but I managed to get about three hours of sleep between 6:00 pm and midnight. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't fight the alarm, was up, had the stove and some candles lit and was out the door for a nature call in one of the wonderful pit toilets (No photo by me...) within a few minutes. Brian's alarm had failed to go off, but the rest of the group was up in a short while due to the roar of the stove.
It was fairly warm outside the hut, so a fleece vest and wind parka with the vents open was sufficient for the start of the climb.
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We made Brian and Kyle's campsite (They had planned on camping at about 15,100', but changed plans when I said I was starting from the Hut due to my inability to carry gear (no pack big enough) up to their camp.) in about 1:30. On the way up the Labyrinth, I started to feel cold, so I put on a face mask and down jacket. We made one wrong turn to the right in the Labyrinth and ended up climbing a little steep, icy terrain. The one benefit of this was that we topped out much closer to the glacier than if we had stayed on-route.
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Gearing up at the Jamapa Glacier was a real chore as the wind was starting to bite thru all of my gear. I was now wearing everything I had, except for a thin fleece jacket, (Two pairs of fleece and a pair of wind shell gloves were barely keeping my hands warm. Taking two pairs of gloves off to gear up was not fun.) and mentioned to Sebastian that I would like to pick up the pace a bit to generate some heat. Brian and Kyle were OK with this as we started the climb up the glacier.
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The glacier climbing was extremely fun. The altitude didn't seem to get to me until we were approaching 18,000'. Then, each time I forgot where I was and tried to climb normally, I'd have to stop for a few minutes to get my heart rate back down as my breathing accelerated. Sebastian seemed to be interested in climbing the steeper sections of the glacier and I kept pulling him back to the right for the traverse to the ridge. After about the second time I yelled over to him, I decided I'd just head up in the direction I felt most comfortable with and we parted ways.
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I got some great silhouettes of him as the sun came up.
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I got tired of thinking that I was at the Crater Rim as I approached three false summits and was very surprised to see the summit cross as I finally approached flatter terrain. The climb around the Crater Rim had me thinking that I'd read a bunch more BS about the difficulty of the traverse around to the true summit.
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I stepped off of the glacier onto the summit ash at around 7:13 am for a 6:11 ascent. (I didn't realize I had climbed so strongly until the next day when I was reviewing the climb photos.)
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It felt really good to feel the warmth of the rising sun.
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A few minutes later, I saw Sebastian on the far side of the Crater Rim. He sat down to take a break and then joined me on the summit. Even though we had known each other for less than a day, we high-fived shook hands and embraced, celebrating a magical moment on the summit of the high point of Mexico. We hung around on the summit for quite a while, hoping that Brian and Kyle would arrive so we could do a group photo. After a while, I headed down to where I could get a better view of the climbing route, but could not see them.
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As we were heading down a few minutes later (about 150' below the summit), we saw Brain and Kyle. It was too far and would be too much effort to head back up, so we congratulated them and continued down.
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I was guessing that it might take half-an-hour to retrace our steps down to the base of the glacier. Boy was I wrong. It seemed endless. Sebastian was starting to feel the effects of hiking in to the hut and climbing the mountain the next day, so we took a few breaks on the descent. Fog started rolling in as we finished off the glacier and headed back down into the Labyrinth. We stopped by Brian and Kyle's tent to retrieve some gear and I "stole" their rope to lighten their load, since I was still feeling really good. Sebastian was starting to show some annoyance with my constant prodding to keep moving towards the Hut. He desperately wanted to sleep.
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We were back down at 12:02 pm for an 11:00 round trip time. We were both extremely pleased to have had such a successful climb.
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Our driver showed up at around 2:30 pm for the ride back down to town. After about two more hours of bouncing, we started the summits celebration. Shots of tequila and Mexican beer flowed before dinner out on the town.
We went out for breakfast and one more walk around the town on Friday morning. Everyone finished packing when we returned to the Reyes Compound.
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Our driver arrived a bit early for our ride to the airport. It was quite a shock to see the difference between Sunday and Friday traffic. We spent a few hours sitting in the airport lounge talking about the fun we'd had and the fun that is yet to come. We shook hands and hugged as Heidi, Lori and John headed out to board their flight home.
Written Saturday Morning: I sit here waiting for an early Saturday morning flight enjoying the memories. For me, it feels really good to know that I still have what it takes to do high-altitude climbing. The experience in Mexico has me thinking that more trips here and to South America are probably in my future. I'm pretty sure I'm no longer a Himalaya snob. I see the same passion for high mountains in Lori, John, Heidi and Augustine. I'm sure big mountains are in their future. I see the possibility of Lori and John making an attempt at Everest one of these days.
A spur-of-the-moment trip turned into an adventure that will provide memories that will last a lifetime. Friendships established and solidified that will probably last a long time. It just goes to show that the way I live my life, without much long-term planning, works as well as most. You may want to try it some time...
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The rest of the
photos.
I look forward to the trip report. 
