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Copyright © 2004 by Manfred Pfluegl. All rights reserved.

November 1 - 30, 2004

Mountain Refuges in Ecuador

Preparing for the Ascent of Ecuador's most Famous Mountains

by

Manfred Pfluegl

Keywords: Chimborazo, Chimbo, Cotopaxi, Cayambe, Ilinizas, Iliniza Norte, Illinizas, Illiniza Norte, refuges, huts, refugios, Alpinismo, Andinismo, Alpinism, Andinism, mountaineering, tourist, travel trip report, travel log, travelogue.

This page is intended to help people preparing to climb some of the famous peaks in Ecuador without an agency and without a guide. It should help those mountaineers to bring the right stuff and set their expectations. In the second half of November 2004 my brother Franz and I successfully climbed Iliniza Norte, Cayambe, Cotopaxi, and Chimborazo. We did all 4 peaks solo (no rope) and without agency and guides. There was no major logisitical difficulty.

Preparation:

We did Fuya Fuya, Imbabura, Quilotoa Crater Loop, Cuicocha Crater Loop, etc. as warm up and preparation. We found the tiny village Quilotoa (between 3900m and 4000m) a good place for adaptation to the altitude. In Quilotoa it is easy to do 3 different day-hikes at 4000m and spend 3 nights at 4000m. Services are very basic in Quilotoa (limited food selection, expect cold nights, possibly without electricity [we had a 1-day power outage due to heavy rain]). In total we spent 2 weeks in Ecuador preparing ourselves, thereafter it took us 12 days to do the 4 peaks. This left us with 4 days of relaxation/sightseeing/shopping at the end of our vacation.

Equipment:

Standard equipment should include: sleeping bag, your own food for the hut (soup packages, bread, etc.), rope, harness, crampons, ice axe, headlight and 2 sets of spare batteries, sun protection for face and lips, sun glasses for glacier, etc. What you can leave at home is cooking equipment.

Weather:

On Ilinizas the weather was perfect, on Cotopaxi changing (heavy winds delayed out ascent by a day), on Chimbo the weather was bad on our first attempt and we had to turn back after only 3 hours, on Chimbo on the second attempt the weather was good up to the top but bad on the way down, and on Cayambe the weather was terrible from the first to the last minute. On all mountains there was more snow than usually in November. They say it is due to "El Niņo". While we were there there was snow fall (between 5 and 60cm) on all mountains except Ilinizas.

Reference temperatures from November 1, 2004 at 18:00 (sunset time) are:

Other Observations:

The gloves of my brother were stolen in the Ilinizas hut. Walking sticks of a German tourist disappeared while we were at the Cotopaxi Refuge. Watch your stuff.

The Cotopaxi National Park was closed due to a government-employee strike from roughly October 20 till November 20. The Cotopaxi hut was open despite the strike. One had to take a smaller entrance road from Machachi to be able to enter into the Natl Park and get to the Cotopaxi hut.

A question raised frequently is "How much water to carry for the summit ascent from the hut to the peak?". Milage varies widely and different people have different needs. Here are just my 2 cents. I am used to drink little during exercise. I usually have a good breakfast before the ascent where I typically drink nearly 1 liter of hot tea. I carried 1.75 liters of water (with a touch of salt to prevent any possible freezing of the water bottle in the backpack) on all 4 summits. From these 1.75 liters of water I drank only 0.75 liters on each of the trips and when arriving back at the huts I always still had 1 liter of water left. The water I consumed, I drank evenly on the way up. Typically on the last hour of ascent and the descent I didn't drink anything anymore. So for me, carrying 1l of water would have been enough, the second liter was for emergencies. What you should do is measure your water consumption on comparable training hikes and bring accordingly plus 1 liter for emergencies.

How about transport to and from the huts? There is plenty of transport (pick-up trucks) available to get you to the huts. Once at the hut it is usually difficult on the spot to get transport to get back to town. So, you should pre-arrange your return trip. My recommendation is to agree on price and drop-off location (usually the parking lot, but some drivers don't go all the way [e.g. Cayambe]) for both legs of the trip. You should also fix date and time of the trip to the refuge but keep the date and time of the return trip open. Get the mobile/cell phone number of the driver and tell him that you will inform him by phone call about the time you want to be picked of for the return trip. At the refuge, you can now wait (days if necessary) until you have good weather for the summit attempt. Once you bagged the summit you can then "beg" at the refuge any of the guides if you can use their mobile/cell phone for a local call to your driver for the exchange of a little payment like $1 or $2. We did this on two of the mountains and it worked well. The guides nearly all have mobile/cell phones but they are hesitant to loan them out. So, you need to ask very kindly.

Trip report:

A detailed trip report is available on http://manfred.pfluegl.at in English and Spanish.

Huts, Refuges:

This information only applies to people that spend nights in these refuges without an agency and guide. If you pay an agency then the guide will take care of everything (e.g. cook for you, etc.).

 

    

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