Cotopaxi : the attempt

Leave Quito at noon on the bus to Matachi, from Matachi hire camoneta ( pick up truck) to the hotel I have booked within the national park, called Tamopaxi, very nice actually, good food . I am the only one who has a beer or anything else to drink with their meal, This is very worrying. The hotel is at 3750m. this is why i chose it, a good acclimatisation venue. Strangely enough the electricity went off at 8.30. pm so what do you do now ? the nearest anything is 15k away! Read my book with my torch like I am 8yrs old.( different book) Wake early, not surprisingly, hire camoneta to take us to refugio on Cotopaxi, arrived there at 11am (god knows why) I am beginning to be p.....d off with L@@k. As you can see from the foto in Tambopaxi, L or for short (BGT, Bald Ginger Tosser) has an enormous collection of climbing/mountaineering gear, carribeinas, both locking & screw locking ect ect, chocks, deadman plate, belay plates, prussacs, slings ties, 12mm rope x 60m, figure of 8, harness, chest harness, iceaxe, icehammer, ice screws,pullies,plus these mechanical expanding chock things, anyway it was too much for the others as they sat there, eyes open wide in astonishment & wonder, I had lost the leadership race ! such gadgets & technical trinckets had them mesmerised. The King had been found, I would have liked to crown him with his glittering gadgetry but.....We left tambopaxi & took a camioneta to the carpark below the refugio at 4800m & walked up. Had a little lunch then went for a walk part way up the glacier to ensure we would find our route the next morning in the dark. After that we were subjected to a crevasse rescue training session( if anyone falls down a crevasse we will just pull him out I would have thought, useing all this equipment at 5500m + in the dark & cold all seems impractical to me, I´m just jealous of course) which I truculently take part in. I make the evening meal and whilst doing so discover BGT has picked up rice which takes 45min to cook! imagine how I felt, .... very pleased indeed .. chance to show him up as fallible. Went to bed at 8pm but no sleep of course. Up at 12.30am, there is no elecric in the refugio at this time so had to dress in the dark then collect all our gear, bloody nuisance! Leave refugio at 1.20am clear night & can see the lights of Matachi twinkling below. Daniel goes first as the first person is most likly to fall in a crevasse, & we dont want that to happen to our leader ( well I do ) then BGT, then me then the Kid. We plod ON & ON for hours in the dark, with hardly any stops, the wind picks up then it begins to snow, it starts to become light as we stop before a snow bridge over a cravasse. At this point another group come back down and we hear some garbled info ... ther has been an avalanche up ahead on the route & an Ecudorian guide has lost his ice axe in it, yet another group come into sight making thier way down, at this point it is becomeing light" avalanche danger, avalanche danger," cries BGT " we´re going down " looking at me he tells me to put my drink away & get moving, "hey wait a wee minute" say I " we do not know what the hampden roar is here, it is almost light, we are probably only 200m vertical from the top, maybe we should find out exactly what the position is then decide," . "we're going down now, if you want we can leave you " he then kicks some snow and says "look slab that can slip anytime ". . They spend millions of pounds in the alps & elsewhere taking cores & analising them for potential avalanche danger & still it is a very inexact science, yet the BGT can tell with the flick of a boot!!! then the Kid starts down like the hounds of hell are after him & I rageing because there has been no proper discusion and reluctantly start down. They start almost running down the glacier & because we are short roped, we pull each other off balance, Finally I have had ENOUGH! I stop and unclip myself from the rope and tell BGT I will make my own way down , goodby. Arrive at Refugio & have a cup of tea then lie down as the camioneta will not arrive untill 12. I do not speak a word to BGT untill we drop him off at the bus station in Quito. Incidently in the camioneta the Kid asks him if he has heard of Bruce Chatwin he says eh ...eh... yea... but cannot elabourate because of course he has never heard of him ( he wrote a very good travel book called "In Patagonia" ) Being such a tosser he cannot admit to not knowing something.At Quito bus station, wordlessly, we very briefly shake hands. He is travelling to Guayaquil to meet his wife ( poor woman) and then he is travelling south. I feel so much better knowing he is farther and farther away with every passing hour, and in a month or so he will be back in Northern Alberta Best place for him.

Two attempted climbs two failures, He was a pretendy climber, like the golfer who buys the most expensive & extensive gear but hasnt a clue. There was an Austrian mountain policeman there with his girl friend, they managed to climb the highest that morning only 100m from the top but they turned back due to the weather. I asked him how they had managed & he told me , he looked round at all the rest who had scurried down " they dont want, no heart "