Climbing Rumiñahui Central (15,240 ft)
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On Wednesday, April 30th, we woke up in the Hacienda Los Mortiños after a full night's sleep. My first task of the day was to pick up the shoes beneath the fireplace in the hallway. There, I ran into Pablo, who was looking for his own shoes in the dining room's fireplace. The fireplaces in the hacienda are not embedded in the wall like the one I have in my house. Instead, they are metal cylinders with a glass door that completely encloses the burning firewood inside the container, and they are lifted about 30 cm off the floor. At the top, they have a tube that carries the smoke out of the house; I suppose it exits through some opening in the roof. On its way up, the tube warms the air around it. The space underneath the fireplace is where we placed our shoes to dry. There is no need to explain the smelly consequence of this action...
At 7 am, as usual on this trip, we went to have breakfast in the dining room of the Hacienda. This room has large windows overlooking the mountains: The Cotopaxi directly through the front window; the Rumiñahui through the window on the right side. The sky was partially clear, and we were able to enjoy a good view of both mountains. Shortly before 8 am, Ciro arrived to pick us up in the Toyota. The plan was that he would drop us off at the base of the Rumiñahui and later pick us up there once we descended the volcano. Then he and Pablo would leave us in the Tambopaxi hotel, where we would spend the next two nights, while they returned to Quito.
At
8:10 in the morning, we were all ready inside the Toyota, setting a punctuality
record: only 10 minutes later than the agreed time. A few minutes later we
checked in and entered the Cotopaxi National Park, we stopped by Tambopaxi to
drop off our bags, we met Alfredo, a Venezuelan who has been working at that
hotel for four years, who would be in charge of attending to us, and we continued
on the road to the Limpiopungo lagoon, which is where the trail to Rumiñahui
begins.
The
hike started at 9 am with a change of plans: Ciro decided to join us instead of
waiting below. When Pablo asked him what he would do if it
rained (Ciro had no rain jacket), he replied, 'I’ll run back to the car.' We began to walk
under a partially cloudy sky with a cold wind. As we climbed, we got warmer,
both from the exercise and because the mountain sheltered us from the wind,
unlike the lagoon, where we were completely exposed. The vegetation on this
hike is more paramo-like, although there are quite tall bushes. The hike is
steeper than Pasochoa, it is also drier and rockier, and I thought it had
better views. We reached the summit at 1:20 pm, greeted by an intense hailstorm
that made us turn around and descend immediately.
The return
happened almost without incident and, except for a couple of falls, one of
which broke Carmen Teresa's blue walking pole, it would have gone unnoticed in
these notes. At 3:55 pm, we arrived at the parking lot. Then Pablo and Ciro
dropped us off at Tambopaxi, said goodbye, and returned to their homes.
Fact Sheet:
|
Distance: |
11.280 m |
|
Altitude Gain: |
+775 m/2,543 ft (Start: 3.870 m/12,697 ft - Rumiñahui:
4.645 m/15,240 ft) |
|
Time: |
6 hours 55 minutes (4 h 20 m up plus 2 h 35 m down) |
|
Difficulty: |
Middle to high |
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