Orizaba and some other Mexican Volcanoes, 12/25/12 - 1/4/13

[Bombadil]

Mexico Volcanoes, 12-25-12 - 1-4-13
Climbers: Arm and myself.
Mountains:
La Malinche (14,640 ft), http://www.summitpost.org/la-malinche/150260
Izta (17,159 ft), http://www.summitpost.org/iztaccihuatl/150193
Orizaba (18,490 ft), http://www.summitpost.org/pico-de-orizaba/150192

Arm's photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/winterhiker/Mexico#
My photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/pcushing21/Mexico

Suggested Listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dkBxot3tfvE

Cliffnotes Version:
12-25, Fly into Mexico City. Bus to Puebla.
12-26, La Malinche (14.6k).
12-27, Bus to Amecameca.
12-28, Cab to Pass of Cortez. Hike to 15.1k camp on Izta.
12-29, Altitude sickness. Pack up camp and descend to Amecameca.
12-30, Travel to Tlachichuca.
12-31, Travel to 14k on Orizaba. Rest.
1-1, Acclimatization hike to 15.6k on Orizaba.
1-2, Orizaba summit. Descend to Tlachichuca.
1-3, Travel to Mexico City. Mas Tequila!
1-4, Fly home.

Arm and I kicked of the trip right, having a few Sierra Nevada Celebration Ales to celebrate Christmas at Logan. We flew into Mexico City late on Christmas day and since my spanish was a little rusty I opted for the line that read "cuerpo cavidad busqueda" thinking it translated into "friendly arrival committee". They weren't so friendly about emptying all my gear out of bags and proceeded to do a taste test of the orzo I brought thinking I might have stashed some yeyo in there. We caught a very late bus to Puebla and the next day we started up on La Malinche (flights were much more expensive to fly into Puebla--neither of us cared for Mexico City one bit and would advise others to simply avoid the city. The rest of Mexico you'll encounter on a climbing trip is radically different, for the better). We hired a taxi driver for the full day and it was an incredible bargain (< $100 US). We didn't start hiking up until sometime around 3pm and tempted fate wearing shorts and a cotton shirt. Arm and I both felt the altitude almost immediately as we started up the trail, this 'little' warmup on La Malinche was taller than anything in the lower 48. By 12k we were both hitting our max heart rates with every push. There was no need to feel for our pulses to calculate our heart rate, it was evident from the monster bass drum playing 3+ beats per second right between our ears. We made it to the summit just before sunset as an undercast was forming and the sun was setting behind Popo. It was quite a sight.

Orizaba from Malinche, about 50 miles to the East

Orizaba off in the distance from Malinche

Sun setting behind Popo

Voldemort approaching on Malinche. Neat undercast forming.

 

[Bombadil]

part 2: Izta

<continued>
Amecameca below the Pass of Cortez was our favorite city/village of the trip. Getting there was a bit tricky as we missed our stop at the nondescript turnoff on the highway (easy to do since there's no signs or announcements, monitoring our progress via GPS was rather helpful). Arm attempted to get us out of the jam by asking a local in his best spanish "can we trick a friendly taxi driver into driving our sorry asses to Amecameca?" but unfortunately the literal translation came out more along the lines of "can a grouchy asshole taxi driver drive us halfway to Amecameca, then trick us out of more pesos?" In comparison to US taxi rates though it was still a bargain, even when getting ripped off. The hotel in the center of town was about $18 a night for 2 beds, sans tv. Of course, luxuries such as a shower curtain were extra. It was a lively town with great street food and a neat festive atmosphere.

On the 28th we got a ride up to the Pass of Cortez between Popo and Izta but unfortunately our taxi driver refused to drive us the extra ~5 miles and 1000 feet over rough road to the La Joya trailhead. In hindsight we should have waited by the entrace of the road to hitchhike because the hot dry walk to La Joya at 13,000 feet drained us much more than we ever thought it would. We had heard a lack of snow had made for very hard ice so we brought much more gear than needed, another mistake. Due to the lack of snow we also had to carry all our water for 2 days and the ~6 L / person was not at all adequate with the road walk factored in. Before setting out we met two folks, Sarah and Jacques, who were bicycling from Vancouver to Argentina (http://peacewheel.wordpress.com/ ) which reminded us of a film from the Banff Film Festival a few years ago.

After a brief rest at the trailhead we headed up the beautiful grassy trail to 14k where the route became super dusty with loose gravel. The sun set as we approached the col at 15k and we had trouble finding the route. We had to climb loose sand where virtually every rock you touched would start sliding downhill. It was like climbing a 45 degree sand dune with 60 lb packs except at 15,000 feet. We set up camp at 15.1k in a small clearing on the rocky ridge. As we were setting up camp my mild headache became pretty debilitating and as I started walking around as if in a drunken stupor I knew I was pretty sick. I briefly sat outside looking down at the bright lights of the 4th largest city in Mexico, Puebla, as Arm decorated the Trango in xmas lights. I didn't get very much rest that night.

The next morning I felt even worse and knew if I continued to ascend, if that were even possible, I'd be in a lot of trouble. I offered the remaining water to Arm so he could summit but he was content to descend, viewing it as a good acclimitzation hike for Orizaba. Arm generously took the tent for the descent which I greatly appreciated since I was unsteady on my feet. We hitchhiked back to the Pass of Cortez and I slept most of the taxi ride back to Amecameca. Our glorious afternoon siesta back at the hotel at 8k was priceless. I surely felt like at least 100 pesos ($8). Arm and I found a nice spot for dinner where a 4 course dinner for both of us came to < $20. The server would bring over whole avocados like they were breath mints--fantastic.

Izta, 'The Sleeping Lady' from Amecameca

Popo from Amecameca

Izta on the long dry road walk

far, far too much gear makes for weight training right?

climbers relaxing by the trailhead

grassy trail on Izta

hard work and no play...

Popo from 14k on Izta

gravel traverse to the col at 15k

Arm soaking up the afternoon sun

nice spot for camp with a full moon looking down to Puebla

 

[Bombadil]

part 3: Orizaba

<continued>
On the 30th we traveled to the town below Orizaba, Tlachichuca, which surprisingly had a direct bus from Puebla. That was an interesting bus ride as I'm sure we had about 30 people on the bus beyond the seated capacity (cue Entrain's 'Mexican Bus'). But for a 90 minute bus ride that cost around $5, a nice bargain. We stayed with the Reyes family that runs Servimont. It was an old soap factory/ climbing museum with a bunk room that probably could sleep 20 or 30 clients but there was never more than a handful of us there since business isn't so well down there right now. Sr. Reyes sat down with us and gave us plenty of beta on the route and strategies that have worked well for others which we certainly appreciated. The Reyes family was top notch in our opinion, just like staying with friends. The hearty, delicious dinners and breakfast that Sra. Reyes cooked was quite appreciated.

For New Years Eve we got an afternoon ride up to the Piedra Grande Hut at 14k and we wisely brought a tent since we had heard nothing but bad news about staying in the huts. The area around the hut smelled foul, probably from the high traffic and dry weather. It's frequented by families that drive up and explore the area around 14-15k. The fact that you can drive up this high gets a lot of people into trouble and in fact we no sooner arrived and were walking past the hut that we were treated to a close view of someone getting sick. There was a lot of that in the couple days we were up there. Also due to the complete lack of snow/water (Sr. Reyes told us it hadn't rained/snowed in Tlachichuca since early October) we were kind of stuck at 14k. The Jamapa Glacier didn't start until 16.5k, far too high for us to be able to camp at without a longer acclimitization period. So with our 30 L water reserve brought up to 14k we camped just by the little hut, knowing the 14-->18.5k summit day was going to hurt.

Arm brought up a small bottle of champagne to celebrate New Years but we both fell asleep by 10 pm. I awoke a little after midnight and enjoyed the fireworks going off some 6000 feet below us in the small villages around Orizaba. I felt pretty good the next day with a nearly normal resting heart rate at 14k. Arm had some stomach issues, probably stemming from a questionable breakfast in Amecameca 2 days before so I set out to scout out the route in daylight. The route follows an old aquaduct briefly before it disappears from getting oblitereated by rockfall as you ascend a steep and loose 800 foot pile of rocks. At 14.8k the route mellows and climbs gently to the Labryinthe at 15.6k, a justifiably named maze of rock and ice. After one quick look at the boilerplate ice I figured climbing it once in the middle of the night would be enough for me and headed down after stashing my climbing gear at the entrance.

Arm and I overslept a bit but were the first ones heading up the route that night at about 2 am. Half an hour later we saw some headlamps stirring at the hut and thought someone was lighting off fireworks by the hut. We realized later it was a a pair of climbers trying to use their stove with leaded gasoline (a note on fuel in Mexico: we found Wal-Mart carried Coleman cannisters but were unable to find any white gas but it didn't really matter since there was no snow to melt and Sr. Reyes will sell you white gas anyways). Arm indicated he wasn't feeling 100% and was going to head down so when two Germans and a Mexican climber caught up to us at the entrance of the Labrynthe and I opted to continue on with them and we'd tackle the Labrynthe together before spreading out on the Glacier as we all climbed unroped. We didn't feel like messing with the hard ice especially since we only had 1 ice tool between 4 of us so we kept to the climbers left and found a route up that was mostly low grade bouldering with a couple of delicate traverses over ice.

I was pleasantly surprised with the Jamapa Glacier, it wasn't nearly as hard as we had prepared ourselves for based on beta from locals we ran into on Ixta--but a fall coupled with a dropped axe would have been curtains since the runout doesn't mellow until the scree fields at the edge of the glacier. The 2000 foot climb from the start of the glacier at 16.5k to the crater rim (18.5k) took nearly 3 hours. The sights were incredible with a solid undercast making for some great eye candy. I snapped a few pics and took a short video as I topped out on the glacier for the short walk on dirt to the summit. The climb down was uneventful, except having a bit of a tough time descending the Labryinthe where seemingly every turn was blind into a steep icy pitch so we spent the better part of an hour and a half getting way off route but once below the ice it was straightforward to sideslope back to the 'trail' at 15.6k. We had a hearty dinner that night down in Tlachichuca with some cervezas, tequila, and red wine to celebrate with a trio of Americans that did an acclimitization hike up on Orizaba as well. All in all it was a great trip and worked out far better than we could have hoped for. It was definitely beneficial to have some flexibility in having rest and travel days. A new challenge for us was the dryness of Mexico. While it was great waking up to sunny blue skies every day it did create new challenges in terms of having to carry all your water which really limited your mobility.

Pat & Arm
pcushing21 at yahoo dot com; winterhiker at gmail dot com

nativity scene in Tlachichuca

Orizaba

14k camp adjacent to the aqueduct

relaxing at camp

Labyrinth = fun

dawn on the glacier (and not my gloves)

a pair of climbers reaching the crater rim

summit memorials

glissading was far too fast for comfort unfortunately

hole in the undercast. long way down

above the Labyrinth. not the best quality pano with some creases in the stitching but it was nice spot for looking back up at the glacier

rough sketch of the route. the lower portion of the Glacier has receded, exposing the Labyrinth.

 

[RollingRock]

Wow! What great pictures. I'll read the report when I get a chance. It brings back memories when I climbed Popo and Orizaba many moons ago. Thanks so much for taking the time to share! I'm sure you'll never forget this trip. What's next on the list?

 

[JacobH]

Awesome TR! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Daniel Eagan]

Wait, you're knocking off NE Hundred Highest like crazy and then grabbing these as well? Remarkable photos, will read the report later. Congratulations, you are an inspiration.

 

[Bombadil]

Wow! What great pictures. I'll read the report when I get a chance. It brings back memories when I climbed Popo and Orizaba many moons ago. Thanks so much for taking the time to share! I'm sure you'll never forget this trip. What's next on the list?

Thanks RollingRock and others for the kind words! Mexico far exceeded my expectations and was a beautiful countryside. Arm will have to comment on his own goals but for me I'm hoping to get a small team together for Denali in '14 and do some more technical PNW climbs or maybe some South American climbs as prep for that.
Pat