Party Rock is in the mount tonight

Iliniza Norte

After the first week of my geology course, we headed out to the field in Banos, a city nestled by mountains south of Quito and known for its outdoor activities- rafting, zip lines, all that good stuff.  Alas, as it was a field trip, we didn’t get a chance to do all that.  On Friday, after the 3 hour ride down from Cumbaya, we stopped at out hotel to drop off luggage and grab lunch.  From there, we loaded back into the bus, and drove an hour down a narrow rode from the Inter-andean valley, over the Real Cordillera, the eastern half of the Andes, and to the edge of the Amazonian basis, following the Rio Pastaza through its steep canyons- a lot of times, we had to take tunnels through the middle of mountains rather than skirt their steep flanks.  The views were incredible, and waterfalls abounded.  We stopped outside of the town of Meras on a cliff overlooking the floodplain of the suddenly wider river, then turned around for the stop ridden trek back to Banos. Each of our stops was primed to put us in a different litho-techtonic unit, geologically distinct segments of the Andes separated by faults.  Along the stops, we got to check out different levels of metamorphism in the rocks, studying how they were affected by the forces that formed the Andes and changed from igneous to metamorphic rock.  While it was interesting, it dashed my previous assumptions that the three main types of rock were hard, classic, and party.  Sigh.   At our last stop, almost back to Banos, we saw where the river formed a massive waterfall and cut into a thick lava flow laid down by Tungurahua Volcano, which is still very active and overlooks the city, 2300 years ago.  It was pretty impressive how well the landscape hid a flow that was only 100 FEET THICK.  You know, just a tad bit of lava.  That night after dinner, a group of us went out to the thermal bath on the edge of town.  The town has a massive canyon to the front, and steep mountain, basically a cliff, behind it, with the hotspring set at the base of a waterfall on the end of the cliff.  

The waterfalls outside of town- between the two, you can see the inverse V that marks the boundary from lava flow on top, and bedrock below

The next morning was spend looking at rocks in the canyon at the front of the town at the base of the big bridge crossing the river.  A narrow trail passed from the city level to the old, lower bridge, half way between the main bridge and the river.  And by lower bridge, I mean the rather sketchy and decrepit bridge.  But it can’t be that bad right- there were only a few missing panels.  As we walked down, Ben continued his usual teaching style in the field- forcing us to focus on our own observations.  We arrive at a rock face, and then spend a few minutes examining the rock individually, looking at the fractures in the surface and swinging the rock hammer to break off samples so we could see the inside of the rock, free of its external weathering.  When we reached the bottom bridge, we quickly crossed to get back on solid land, and got a look at the city side of the canyon, which had more exposed rock.  The view was impressive, and again we could see the clear line between the bottom bedrock and the thick lava flow above.  We also had a clear view of the city’s sewage being pumped into the river, dribbling out of a pipe high on the cliff face.  If we were in the US, such an impressive canyon would be a state park, or at least a municipal area and the sewage would be treated (probably), but this is Ecuador, and people have to live wherever they can, with what every they can.  It makes you realize why good health and low income tend not to live hand in hand.  

Figure A: How not to build a bridge

the first view of the Ilinizas- Sur on the left, Norte on the right

That afternoon, we drove back towards Quito, to the small hostal where we prepared for out ascent of Iliniza Norte.  The night was great was we were joined by not only the Esteban the Great, our tropical ecology professor, but his son, Juan, both there to summit the peak with us.  We crashed early after renting crampons and helments, to prepare for our alpine start.

At 430, we rose to the sound of rain, and ate breakfast hoping for it to end, which it quickly did.  Our bags loaded, we jumped in the backs of a convoy of pickups and made for the mountain.  At our first sight of the mountain, I realize that rain on the peak wasn’t what we had to worry about- except for exposed black rock, the whole 16,818 foot summit was white with snow.  Not only was it the tallest mountain I’ve been on, but by far the most intimidating.  From the end of the dirt road, below the snow line, we started out hike, stopping periodically to exam geologic features, like a thousand year old layer of ash from Cotopaxi.  As we mounted a snow-coated ridge to the summit, we saw Cotopaxi itself.  The most icon volcano in Ecuador, it’s perfect cone was coated in snow.  But who needs an idealized volcanic cone when I can have the jagged majesty of Iliniza?  At the top of the ridge was the refuge, a single room abode stocked with bunks and a single staff member.  I was rather surprised that you could buy hot foot so far up the mountain. But we had no time for that.  Joining Esteban & Juan, 5 of us began our bid for the summit.  Shortly after leaving the refuge, we put on our crampons, rather awkwardly, and feeling like pros, started up a steep snow slope towards the first summit-bound ridge.  I’m gonna be honest, at some points, I was rather sketched out, as we hiked up the steep slope by digging our crampons into the snow, sometimes clicking against the rock underneath, and came onto the ridgeline.  It felt like I was summiting Everest-  with clouds on both sides, crossing the narrow, snow covered ridge from rock outcrop to rock outcrop.  Being unable to see how far the sleep snow slopes fell away was very eerie, and I made sure I placed each step with care.

some jerk with Cotopaxi in the background

Estaban "the man" Suarez.  And Laura.

the recommended daily dose of huge scary mountain

Esteban admitted that he had never seen the mountain with this much snow, and after a particularly treacherous climb on a narrow band of snow around a tall, dark stone pillar, we stopped to consider it a summit attempt was still viable.  We were only 100 vertical meters below the summit, but that last section was nothing but vertical, ice covered rock.  In the epitome of irony, seconds after Esteban said we should turn around, we lost Juan and Kaitlin.  And by lost, I mean they lost they footing and slid into the fog down a boulder-strewn, 70 degree slope of snow that stretched for thousands of feet down the mountain.  Because they were side by side when they fell, they tumbled together, and Juan wasn’t able to stop his fall until he was almost lost in the clouds, driving his knees and elbows into the snow.  Kaitlin tumbled into the void, and we had a few moments of stunned silence before she finally called up that she was ok.  That stunned silence applied to all of us, except for Esteban.  When he saw what was happening, he, in true bad-ass fashion, flung himself down the slope after them.  He paused only to make sure his son was ok, then continued sliding down until he reached Kaitlin, helping her before she ran the risk of sliding again.  After that, it was pretty clear  that a summit attempt was out of the question, and we began the slow descent down the treacherous snow slope to meet up with the rest of our party.  We later learned that the other group turned back before the summit- though for not as cool a reason as us!

a plant