Latin America

Christian was supposed to lead me to the peak of Chimborazo. He belongs to the kind of young experiences extreme sport guides.

The agency dropped us at the parking lot somewhere around 4900 meters above sea level. We then had a 2 hour ascent to the Campo Alto which lays at 5300m.s.n.m. Two guys helped to carry some mountaineering gear up to the Campo Alto where we then set up the tent. While the two helpers went back to Riobamba, Christian and I cooked some instant noodles and afterwards took a 5 hour rest.

At midnight we got out of our warm sleeping bags into the boots mounted with crampons. Harness and rope were assembled and we started to hike direction summit.

To a greater or lesser extent of 2 hours, we reached a steep passage. Christian pecked a hole into the snow and appraised the different layers. The entire time since we left the Camp I was breathing harder than ever before. The fact that I was exhausted and that he didn’t want to risk his life we decided to turn around and go back to the High-camp. He explained me in many different ways why we wouldn’t summit. I certainly started to annoy him with my permanent questioning and sure thing I could see it too, the snow layers were very fragile. A huge harder middle layer was the reason we couldn’t go further. Safety first, high risk of avalanches, too much fresh fallen snow on top of the old one layers.

Fudging, fudging, fudging moment. I just burnt a half month budget at a two day Chimborazo trip, without summiting it. ¡Carajo!

Maybe no new record made here. Bolivia - Huayna Potosí: 5646m.

Ecuador - Chimborazo: 5644m...
...or 5687m according to one of my geo tagged photos. 🤗 Let’s go with the higher number.Read more