2025-01-09 Toggle map

Thin Air

A group of people in colourful, warm outdoor clothing hiking up a sandy trail towards a building at the foot of a massive, snow-capped mountain with its peak in clouds illuminated by the evening sun This is how our hike up to the summit of Cotopaxi started in the late afternoon. We only walked up to the shelter at the volcano's foot in daylight to get some (pretty tasty) food and take a nap.

At 23:00 we would get up again, gear up in all our thick clothes, harness, helmet, ice pick and torchlight to start the actual ascend at midnight. Our guide led us through about 2 hours of sandy trails followed by another 4 hours over snow and ice before we reached the summit at almost 5900 meters above sea level.

Of course any spectacular view of the landscape in the light of a rising sun was obscured by foggy clouds. So we only peeled the gloves from our hands to take some quick selfies and started the descend - at least we had daylight now.