What I Learned Climbing Chimborazo, Ecuador’s Highest Peak

What It’s Like To Climb Chimborazo

It’s 10 pm, I’m at 4,850 meters at base camp, facing a Chimborazo climb, and I can’t sleep. High altitudes tend to do that. I lay there, feeling the panic that little oxygen brings, and am writing a death note to my family.

Is it a little dramatic? Probably. But I’m also about to go up to 6,263m, and I’m anxiously reading blogs about the experience, which sounds terrifying. I’m not sure why I’m doing it.

At 11 pm, we suit up. I shove my crampons and mountaineering boots into my bag, grab some water and snacks, and look at my guide, Frank, a local man of 50 who has probably been up and down this mountain a hundred times.

We begin our trek with a two-hour hike up rocky terrain. I tell Frank that I can go faster, but he’s adamant. “This is the pace until we reach the top.” An hour in, I understand why. I am gasping for breath and feeling slightly dizzy. He’s not breaking a sweat.

The Snow Line

Two hours in, we hit snow. We sit down, and I switch my hiking boots for a pair of mountaineering boots. I strap on my crampons and take out my ice axe. I feel the chill even after just a few minutes of not moving.

The wind is howling over the mountain. We begin to walk on ice, and the first thing we hit is a little ice bridge, about two feet wide, with a sheer rock wall on one side and a steep, 80-degree icy slope on the other.

I am not really afraid of heights, but this terrifies me. I’m roped up to Frank, but I can’t help thinking that my 190-pound frame would drag this 130-pound Ecuadorian man with me if I fell. “Don’t fall,” I think, but I feel myself trembling.

A Steep Climb

The next six hours are a brutal climb up icy switchbacks along a 70-degree slope. This mountain isn’t “technical,” but I feel unprepared for the severity of the conditions and climb. It’s testing everything I have.

I keep looking up the slope, as far as I can see, to see where the other climbing groups are. All I can see are the faint lights of headlamps far up the mountain. No matter how much I climb, they stay just as far away. It feels endless.

My chest aches, my stomach feels nauseous, and I am scared. Scared of falling, scared of dying, scared of failing, scared of hurting. I tell myself I will walk 20 steps and then briefly stop to breathe. I keep this pace for hours.

All the while, Frank tells me to hurry up. He doesn’t really need to tell me this…