-Jeffery Rasely
In this case, I was chasing an angel. While there's much to report these days, I thought I’d start with a fine little tale about a well-traveled ring and how it finally made it to the place it belonged.
The South of America |
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“Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains.” -Jeffery Rasely In this case, I was chasing an angel. While there's much to report these days, I thought I’d start with a fine little tale about a well-traveled ring and how it finally made it to the place it belonged.
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"Los Andes son como una mujer" ("The Andes are like a woman.") -Juan Andres, an Ecuadorian friend from work, sharing some local male insight "Zack, you've got to get down here," and the wheels were set in motion. Zack and I don't travel together unless hiking boots and a harness are on the packing list, so we expected no less than an adventure on this trip. He arrived Friday, and our plan was to hit Ruccu Pichinca (15,406 ft.) Saturday, Cerro Imbabura (15,190 ft.) on Sunday, and attempt Nevado Cayambe (18.996 ft.) on Tuesday night. The first two went off without a hitch, almost too smoothly. The last, and the subject of this photo-tale, turned out to be 36 hours of intense highs and lows that only a glaciated peak over 5,000 meters on the equator could provide. Here's the story... “Ver el esfuerzo y sacrificio de personas que luchan por su propia cumbre, y no hay mejor escuela para la vida, que la propia madre naturaleza.” "To see the effort and sacrifice of people who fight for their own summit, and that there’s no better school for life than Mother Nature herself." - Fernando Campoverde, Ecuadorian Mountaineer and Club Sangay guide reflecting on why he loves mountaineering. For those of you that don’t know the first half of the story, Lynsey and I attempted the summit of Cotopaxi last December. If you’d like to read the original entry, you can find it here. To recap, we basically encountered a “perfect storm” of shabby equipment, unprepared lungs and legs, frozen hands and feet, and indescribably sickening digestive gas (from me, to be clear). We didn’t make the summit, and left knowing that we had underestimated the mountain. Nearly a year later, I was resolved to make a return, prepared this time, and see what was in the cards for me in the slopes of this icy giant. “I tramp a perpetual journey.” ― Walt Whitman, Song of Myself Friends, family, and readers, hola de nuevo! Time has flown since our return from the U.S. in August, but in the good kind of way where a steady, fulfilling routine gives way to a stream of days and months. Though rains made Cuenca grey through most of September and October, a streak of sun has now found us, intense and beautiful at 8,000+ ft. to warm the days before the chilly nights. News abounds on the work front, adventure front, future front, and just the everyday life front. Yup, it’s just life now in Cuenca. “...just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars. It has the nakedness of the world before the first man – or of the cindered planet after the last” ― Fosco Maraini, Secret Tibet We met our guide, Cristian, at about 10:30 am for a gear check at the hosterìa before heading to the mountain. Gulliver Expeditions, the guide service, promised to provide the technical and high-cold equipment, and we were responsible for the rest. As Cristian went through the checklist I quickly pulled them from my pack - layer after layer that would keep up warm above 15,000 feet. Cristian looked our personal gear over and commented, “You have good equipment,” to my immense pleasure and satisfaction. I stole a glance at Lynsey to say, “see, this is why we have all this stuff!” but she only gave a slight roll of the eyes at the positive gear reinforcement I'd just received from our guide. We packed up a beat-up Land Cruiser and headed for the park.
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November 2014
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