El Misti

I climbed El Misti this weekend.

El Misti is a volcano mountain close to Arequipa, Peru. It stands at 5822 meters (19,101 ft). That is just about exactly the same height as Mount Kilimanjaro for comparison. And, I did it with diarrhea the whole time. I think that increased the difficulty level three fold at least. I wasn't sick all week, but the day I climb the mountain, about 2 hours into the hike... bam, problems. Montezuma... his revenge is brutal. At times it was complete misery.

The mountain is not for the out of shape. I didn't get altitude sickness, but I was using altitude sickness pills and coca cookies. Even so, my heart and lungs were pumping hard trying to deliver oxygen in the thin air... for an extended duration. It was very difficult, a challenge for the spirit.

The first day, we were driven to the start of the trail at 3300m. We hiked with full gear (tent, sleeping bag, mat, 5 liters of water, food, other equipment) up to base camp at 4500m. My backpack weighed 60 pounds! We set up camp, ate dinner, then went to sleep at around 6pm. At 1am, we had breakfast, and started the hike to the summit a little before 2am with smaller day packs. Each day was about 6 to 7 hours of uphill hiking. I felt that both days were equally challenging, because of the heavy gear on the first day, and the thinner air on the second day.

The way down was fun. There are large volcanic sand chutes which we "skied" down to the bottom. The soft sand was very easy on the knees. There was only about one hour of non-sand hiking on the way down, which was a little bit tough on the joints.