Its only tuesday and it feels like its been a really long time since I climbed Rucu Pichincha on sunday. What can I say...it's been a busy week...or a busy monday and tuesday.
I spent most of last week getting psychologically ready for Rucu Pichincha. This is a mountain that everyone who was grown up in quito knows about, we live right below it. Rucu stands 4,660 meters tall, like a king. It is a volcano, but it hasn't been really active in thousands of years. Its son, Guagua Pichincha (quichua for baby pichincha), however did give us a scare back in 1999, covering our streets with ashes for days a couple of times during the year.
Climbing up to the top of Rucu Pichincha doesn't have to be hard. In fact its so close to Quito that it has become a normal place for national and international tourists to go to. And because of that there are easy ways to get up there, including a cable car and a pretty easy path that gets to the top.
Of course we didn't take the easy route. I am not even capable of imagining our guide Jaime ever taking any easy route anywhere. Instead we started out just outside of Quito through the Quebrada de Rumipamba. Where we started we must have been at 2,950 meters, which means that to get to the top of the mountain we climbed up around 1,700 meters. Now that I think about it, that is a lot of climbing, in fact it took us 7 hours to reach the top of the volcano.
We started out here because its quite scenic. The first hour and a half was a really steep climb through very lush vegetation. During this part of the hike I felt like a real explorer. Since its not such a frequented route you really have to push yourself through the forest, pushing aside branches and holding on to whatever you can get a hold of. By the end of the first half hour my hands and arms were covered in scratches and cuts...I guess my skin is just not tough enough. When we finally got out of the forest we started walking through the usual pajonal. I actually like this type of landscape better because you don't have to wrestle against feisty and thorny bushes, and you get to appreciate the scenery a lot more.
At this point we took a short detour to a smaller peak called Cundur Huachana (also known as the Quebrada de los Condores). This peak is 4,100 meters tall and it has a beautiful view of the valley and part of the city below.
We continued on our way, we were supposed to reach a small "cave" where we would meet another group of people who had taken the easier route starting at the Teleférico (the cable car). Once we met up with them we stopped to rest and gather our energy. At that point the whole group would split again. There were two options, you could either go up the Arenal or rock climbing through the Paso de la Muerte (it could be translated into the path of death).
Now the Arenal is much less scary, but it is a bit annoying to climb up that way. Its a desolate area with extremely loose soil so for every step you take you feel like you are falling back 2 steps. Its really much more fun to go down that way than up. However, the Paso de la Muerte is incredibly scary. You start out by climbing on a very rocky side for about an hour. Then you reach the actual Paso de la Muerte which is a short maybe 4 meters long path which is maybe 70 cm wide. And its rocky. And all you have are steep falls on each side. Its a famous spot for rock climbers, you do have to be very careful. I guess most people go across or climb it with ropes. We didn't because as I told you before Jaime is a fan of doing things the harder way. A couple of people have actually died here, but I didn't know about this until after I had crossed, and I am glad because if not I would have freaked out.
Now I can say I have crossed and survived. And I am so glad I decided to go this way and not through the Arenal. In previous posts I have written about my fear of rock climbing, so this was definitely a big step for me. The truth is I was terrified most of the time, but hey I made it across and I am proud of myself.
:D!
After the Paso de la Muerte I thought we would be pretty much close to the peak, but we still had an hour or an hour and a half of climbing to do to get there. So we climbed some more.
After actually getting to the top we had some food, rested for a bit and we started coming down. This time we took the easy way down through the Arenal and then through the path that takes you down to the Teleférico and then we took the cable car to Quito. It was a great day and a great climb.
