Alarms began going off at 2am. Slowly, our group woke up and finished last minute preparations to summit Ixta. We walked out of camp at 3:15 am. The hike immediately became a drudge. I was not super keen about hiking up hill at 15k feet at 3 am. The half moon was fairly bright, so I kept my head lamp on low, at least while we were on obvious trail. We carried water, harnesses, crampons, and gear to rope ourselves together for glacier travel.
Soon the trail disappeared. We stood at the bottom of a massive rock slide. People had obviously been traveling up and down it, so we began to climb it ourselves. You can never tell how big a hill is until you have climbed it. This hill did not have a top. It went forever and ever. Soon we were out of the slide area and climbing steep rock faces. I passed Joe and turned my headlamp brighter and picked our route up the treacherous face. At one point I wondered if I would even climb this in the daylight at sea level. Soon I passed a cross. It had a plaque in memory of some climber, dated February 2018. "Great," I thought, "I'm climbing where someone else died a few weeks ago." But my lightheaded and hypoxic mind drove me onward.
The sun began to rise as we crested the hill. We stopped and admired the sunrise, and watched the volcano belch. Looking down was almost dizzying. I've climbed steep mountains, but I've never climbed them this high. One slip and I would fall literally thousands of feet. I had a pretty stiff headache when I woke up. I downed a liter of water and took one Tylenol before the hike, and now at altitude my headache was wearing off. We walked some ridges up and down until we found the glacier. Right across the glacier was the summit. Joe and I stood at the edge of the glacier, almost 17k feet high, and surveyed the route to the now visible summit. He and I were the first ones there by several minutes, and we knew we could quickly cross the glacier and summit efficiently. But we had a group of 12 behind us that we were supposed to stick with.
A note on sticking with groups. We started with three groups. A fast group, a slow group, and a group that most likely would not be able to summit. That last group grew by a few members from the slow group voluntarily, and one involuntary. Doug made one person go back because they were stumbling and going really slow. Typical of acute mountain sickness. They were tough though, they wanted to continue. The slow group and fast group, smaller now, kinda of merged. This was the group Joe and I waited for as we drooled at the summit.
Everyone soon caught up and we began to discuss our options. We had reached our turnaround time and technically needed to head back to stay on schedule. We had a hotel reservation this night, and half of our group waiting lower on the mountain. We talked about finishing the summit anyway, and adjusting our schedule, likely staying one more night on the mountain. I really wanted to summit, and I half expected Joe to bolt for it any moment. But I was thinking of our next mountain, and the rest of the group below. I knew a lot of people would be disappointed if we didn't make the hotel tonight. It was also getting obvious that we were very tired and in need of some low altitude, comfortable rest. I suggested we turn around. The rest of the guys supported me for the above reasons. I think Doug was disappointed. I know Joe was. But this trip was never about mountains for me. I thought this was the best option for the group. Reluctantly, I turned away and began the trek down.
The trip down was scary. There was almost no room for errors. I focused hard on foot holds and hand holds and moving slowly enough to have enough oxygen to think and make decisions. Joe and I quickly bailed off the mountain. The rest of the group came slower, and some used ropes. On the way down the volcano exploded even more, darkening the sky. The wind blasted our faces with ash, and we smelled a strong sulfur smell. It was awesome. Ever since I first saw the volcano I wanted to see it blow from up on the mountain.
Back at camp I packed my pack for the trip down and relaxed in our tent waiting for the rest of the group to descend. It snowed off and on. Eventually we packed up our tent and headed down the mountain. My knees were tired. My legs were tired. My lungs were tired. When I reached the parking lot I had decended four thousand feet in one day, plus ascending two thousand. It snowed and rained and hailed and thundered as the rest of the group came down the mountain. I was already down, nursing my stomach ache in the little shelter where I bought a quesadilla two days ago.
We finally loaded everything into vans and headed for our hotel called Summit Orizaba. We stopped at a mall in Puebla to get food. I really need to learn Spanish better. I can speak it just fine, I just don't know the words I used to know.
Our new plan is to rest for two days, staying at the Summit Orizaba hotel, then attempt to summit Orizaba on Friday morning. We would probably camp at the trail head around 14 k feet on Thursday night and leave for the summit around midnight.
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