Trip Reports

Antisana - 20 Dec to 3 Jan '10

Written by Team Member Thierry Levenq, January 2010

Antisana is the 4th highest volcano in Ecuador. It is much less known than Cotopoxi or Chimborazo as it is much more remote and as a consequence less climbed.

Having said that, it is an amazing mountain with huge glaciers, rising high (5753m) above the paramo and the eastern ranges.

Because of the proximity of the amazonian forest, the glaciers are very active and route finding in the maze of crevasses and seracs are adding interesting features to the climb.

Thanks to the good work of Felipe, our lead guide, of Romero and Domenica our two other guides, Mark, Tony and I sumited slightly after 7:30am on Wednesday the 30th of December. This was after having climbed for 7 hours, initially in a nice moon light, followed by a fantastic moon set, then some true darkness and finally early morning sun light, going through interesting crevasses and some relatively steep sections. Our route was more or less the West face direct. A true mountaineering experience!

The summit of Antisana (whose last eruption was in 1802) is flat and offers stunning views of the highlands of Ecuador and the other main volcanoes : Chimborazo (6267m), Cotopaxi (5897m), Caytambe (5790m) and Altar (5405m). We also had the chance to see the smoke erupting from the Sangay volcano, far in the distance. A clear feel of the earth seen from above!

Going down allowed us to admire the extraordinary icy formations but also to see in the day light the key passages of the climb we went through during the night including an interesting down climb, front pointing a steep slope, above a bergschrund.

Overall, an 11 hours ascent allowing followed by an enjoyable additional night in our camp (4500m) offering again amazing views over Antisana, the paramo and Cotopaxi.

The day after our ascent another group succesfully climbed the mountain although relatively slowly...

Unfortunately Ruth and Angus who have been great company and participated to the acclimatisation climbs of Gugua Pinchincha, Ruminuahui, Illiniza, to the training on the glacier of Cotopaxi and celebrated new year eve with us were not with us on summit day as Ruth had sadly a bad mountain sickness and had to go down back at lower altitude.

Overall we had very good weather (a big change compared to my last Ecuadorian experience, 4 years ago) over those short two weeks, a real chance to further explore and enjoy those amazing highlands and mountain landscapes!

Thanks to Ruth, Angus, Mark, Tony and our guides.« Previous report | Next report »

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