Maxing out in Mexico
It’s a strange feeling, a strange place to be in, sucking air past your teeth like each breath cost a thousand dollars, both elbows on one knee and wondering if you can continue on. Physically I was hurting, that was certain, but it was the mental battle that I was finding the most interesting. For an hour and a half I had been focusing on a pile of rocks which I thought were just below the summit. I had got myself into a nice rhythm, 40 paces and rest, 40 paces and rest. All the time telling myself that the summit was just beyond those rocks. Now, as I breathed in hard, fighting yet another wave of brief nausea, I started to doubt myself. The rocks were not just below the summit. Far from it. As I reached them, I looked up, only to see an endless snow ridge, rising indefinitely into the sky. I threw my pack down and collapsed on top of it, breathing hard and cursing my ineptitude. The cold, thin air stung the exposed skin on my face, just as I felt a light headache beginning to throb beneath my temples. So far I had been coping well with the altitude. My forty pace technique had seen me overtake all three teams of Guatemalan climbers and I was making steady progress. However, I had foolishly banked on the summit being only another five minutes beyond these rocks. Now, disheartened and exhausted I wondered whether I could make it to the top. To make matters worse, Geoff Langford, one of my climbing partners decided to pull pin. “This is as far as I go man” he stated. Not a thread of disappointment in his voice. Now it was time for me to make my call. Would I go up, or would I go down?
Pico de Orizaba (Peak of Orizaba) is the highest mountain in México and the third highest in North America after Mt. Logan in Canada, and Denali in Alaska. At 5636m the volcanic cone towers above the Mexican provinces of Puebla and Veracruz, just 200 kilometres east of Mexico City. Citlaltépetl (Star Mountain) to the ancient Aztecs, Pico de Orizaba is one of only 3 volcanoes in Mexico with a permanent snow cover. A rapidly receding glacier blankets the north face of the cone; the sun exposed south face is now only bare rock. Thirty years ago the glacier spilled down from the summit in all directions. Today however, it is a shadow of its former self. The evidence of where the glacier once extended is obvious, the extent of its retreat alarming. It must be one of the last glaciers left within the tropics (outside of the Peruvian Andes). The volcano last erupted in 1687 and is now dormant – but not extinct. Like many volcanoes in Mexico and Central America, it is only a matter of time before Pico shows its true might to the eyes of modern civilization.
Pico de Orizaba is a popular climbing destination for a lot of Mexicans, Americans and anyone interested in testing their steel at altitude, but without the extreme weather or extreme technicality of mountains in the higher latitudes. Every year from around the beginning of December until the end of February the mountain enjoys a steady stream of climbers. Predominantly these climbers are Americans, escaping the brutal winter conditions of the Rockies - getting some training in for the summer climbing season - often preparing for an assault on Logan or Denali. During these months the days are predictably perfect. Still, sunny and clear. The two weeks which stretch over Christmas and New Year are especially busy, as American climbers make good use of their vacation time and head toward Mexico’s highpoint. It was around this time of year that I found myself heading in the same direction. I had first started considering the climb when I was flicking through a Lonely Planet book called ‘A Year of Adventures’. The book gives about four different adventure activities for every week of the year, all over the world. The most perfect place to be, at the most perfect time to be there. Realizing that I was going to be in Mexico in the middle of the ideal climbing season for Pico de Orizaba was too much to bear, it had to be done. Now I just needed to convince my girlfriend. As usual, she was understanding, a four day stint looking at art galleries and markets in Oaxaca - the arts capital of Mexico - the only compromise. A good trade off in my eyes.
The small, farming village of Tlachichuca is quintessential Mexico. Turkeys and dogs reside on the rooftops, a vegetable and fruit market takes command of the Zocalo (town square) from dawn till dusk, and blaring dance music announces the arrival of the gas truck in your street. If this was not the service town for Pico de Orizaba, then few tourists would pass through. It would be just another Mexican puebla, existing on its own terms, mostly oblivious to the outside world and even to the rest of Mexico. This distinct lack of casual tourism makes seeing North Face clad American climbers wondering the streets even more poignant. Wearing thousand dollar climbing boots, with altimeters hanging around their necks, they stand out even more than their beach bound countryman in Hawaiian shirts and knee high socks. Tlachichuca sits right at the base of Pico De Orizaba. The mountain towers over the town like a heavenly guardian, its view from the streets captivating. The town has a couple of services which accommodate these incongruous climbers as they head for the top, and at 2,500 metres is also a useful acclimatization stop. One of these services is run by Señor Joaquin Canchola Limon and his family. They provide lodging, meals and transportation up the mountain for a modest $150 US/person. The food is typical Mexicana done right – fresh squeezed orange juice, spicy green salsa, homemade tortillas and fresh milk every morning from the cow out the back. Transportation up the mountain takes up a bulk of the total cost. The most popular place to base camp at is El Refugio Piedra Grande (Big Rock Hut). Two hours drive from Tlachichuca along a dusty and rutted road that would make the worst farm track in New Zealand look like a four lane highway. After one night at Joaquin’s place we were being driven up this road by his son, Joaquin Junior. The distance up to Piedra Grande is probably only around 40km, but the trip is a crawl in the pick-up’s low gear. It would be easy to get sea sick on this trip as the truck pitches and rolls from side to side like a boat in 3 metre swells. ‘You must get sick of this trip’ I ask Joaquin Junior in my broken Spanish as he revs the engine up a steep incline. ‘Nooo’ he replies, in the typical musical Spanish for which Mexicans are known. ‘I love my job. I love the people. I love the simplicity’. Later he tells me he has probably driven this road over 1000 times and he’ll be happy to drive it a thousand times more. We reach the hut by late afternoon and settle in for the night. Like shift workers swapping over, we take the place vacated by some American climbers who summited that day. Their work is over, ours is just beginning.
The hut is simple, to say the least. Three tiers of bunks take up one half of the internal space, while the other half has some old tables against the wall. The bunks are dusty, uneven boards without mattresses, and the tables are littered with food and packaging left by previous inhabitants. Even though this is an area dominated by western climbers, Mexicans still venture up to the hut for the day to enjoy the mountain scenery. Unfortunately, the facilities are not suited to large numbers of people – the outside toilet is overflowing and you have to watch your step outside for where people have found alternatives. Rubbish is often left behind. The ‘Pack in, Pack out’ policy has not reached here yet. Still, it is a beautiful location and most people who visit do their best to preserve the area. I had come this far and still not found someone to climb with. I had met a large contingent of Colorado climbers the night before in Tlachichuca who were now camping outside the hut. They were intending to have four nights acclimatization before climbing to the summit however, and I wasn’t willing to wait that long. Regardless, I was going to need a day’s acclimatization before I could attempt to summit, so I had the next day to find a climbing partner. Then right before dark, a group of Canadian climbers got dropped off at the hut by Joaquin Senior. They were keen to summit the same day as me and looked like strong guys. Within a few minutes all my problems were solved.
Piedra Grande sits at around 4200 m. The drive up had been a rapid ascent to this height and I was now over the highest I had ever been. My breathing was a little laboured as I crawled into my sleeping bag, and I had a light headache, but otherwise I felt like I was handling the altitude pretty well. Altitude sickness or Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) generally kicks in at anything above 3000 metres, but it can affect people at altitudes as low as 2400 metres. The best way of preventing AMS is to acclimatize slowly, gradually gaining height whilst letting the body adjust to the oxygen levels at that altitude, involving the production of extra red blood cells. The magic rule when climbing at altitude is to ‘climb high, sleep low’; meaning gain altitude on acclimatization hikes and then return to a lower altitude to sleep. Pico de Orizaba falls into the ‘Extremely High’ category when referring to high altitude climbing; as does any mountain over 5, 500 metres. This means that the chances of getting cerebral edema and pulmonary edema – the most serious of altitude sicknesses – is relatively high. The nice thing about this mountain was that if that did happen, descent was not technical, the weather was settled and it was only just in the Extreme Altitude range. Rapid descent would get you to a much safer altitude. Still, an acclimatization hike was very necessary and that was the plan for summit day -1. Climb to 4800m and then get back to the hut in time for lunch and 12 hours of solid rest.
By 8am my Canadian companions, Geoff, Simon, Martin and I were on the trail. Going light and moving swiftly, we gained altitude quickly and did our best to memorize the track in preparation for climbing it in darkness. The sun was hot as we climbed, making the air seem thicker than it really was. We all felt good, breathing deeply, not feeling the altitude at all. By mid morning we had reached ‘El Labrinto’ (The Labyrinth). Not as daunting as it sounds, The Labyrinth is a succession of bedrock ridges, carved by the glacier before it receded from here only a few decades ago. In between these rock ridges is very steep, very hard ice. It is probably no more than grade 2+ climbing, but in darkness can be quite treacherous. We scanned the area for a good half hour before deciding on what looked like an easy enough route. Turning back for the hut, I took a final look at the nearby summit, and allowed myself to imagine reaching it the next day. It looked easy enough. How wrong I was.
The large group of American climbers camping outside Piedra Grande had quickly become friends. They were a relaxed bunch, mainly from Colorado, in training for an assault on Denali during the approaching summer. I had chatted to all of them a fair bit, but Jerry Roach was definitely the most interesting. It wasn’t long before it came out that he was the second ever person to successfully climb the seven summits. A legend of the American climbing scene, Jerry is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, and with one of the longest climbing resumes imaginable. He has climbed the high point of every state in America, including all the fourteeners (peaks over 14,000 feet) in Colorado; twice. “I had just come down from Everest” he quipped casually, as if describing a trip to the supermarket. “And I was in a town during a big festival. It so happened that this was a festival for Sir Ed Hillary, who was been carried through the town on a sort of makeshift throne, with silk scarves all around his neck. I pushed my way up to him and said ‘Ed, I’ve just been to the top’. By this stage the whole hut had stopped what they were doing, and were looking at Jerry with awe. ‘He got this far away look in his eye and asked me with absolute sincerity ‘What was it like?’
‘Just as you remember it’ I said”. That story left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. I could have climbed the mountain right then and there. Jerry was about to climb Orizaba for the 6th time. The first had been in the 1950’s. He had climbed it once every decade since.
It was hard to sleep before the climb. I went to bed at 7:30pm but probably only slept for a handful of hours before the alarm sounded at 3am. The night was made worse by a resident mouse which insisted on munching toilet paper beside my head. By 4am we were plodding up the track, headlights piercing the darkness, dressed warm against the cold. It took hard toe kicks to get crampons to stick into the ice of the Labyrinth. Gradually we moved through onto the steeper section, using an axe for extra purchase and emerging at the top just in time to see the sun ascend from the cloudy blanket covering the Caribbean. It was cold by this stage, probably around -10, but I still stopped to eat a sandwich and some of my One Square Meal, carried especially all the way from NZ. By the time we reached the glacier the sun was well overhead. We were at about 5000m now and I was still feeling strong. There were a lot of people on the slope by this stage. Three teams of Guatemalan climbers and a few of the American group who had decided to attempt to summit that day. Looking up at the slope I tried to memorize its shape, its angle, and its features – before putting my head down and beginning my forty paces then rest routine. By about 5300 metres the altitude was really starting to take its toll. I was breathing hard now and having to stop after every 20 paces. When I did I had to lean on my ice axe and concentrate on keeping my footing. With lungs burning and a light headache building behind my temples I reached my pile of rocks and questioned whether I could go on. Had I allowed enough time for acclimatization?
Altitude is a strange thing. It affects different people in different ways. Legendary Italian climber Reinhold Messner summited Mt Everest twice without supplementary oxygen, effectively disproving what most doctors and climbers at the time had said was impossible. Since then he has climbed every peak in the world over 8000 metres, many without oxygen. Yet over 3000 metres lower than Everest, Pico de Orizaba is littered with old crosses commemorating climbers who underestimated the altitude. One case in particular is detailed on a plaque in the hut - a young American climber who became disorientated on his descent and froze to death.
It was Messner, and not the latter climber, who was in my mind when I fare welled Geoff and made my way to the top. With renewed energy I plugged steps into the snow and angled my way around the top of the cone. I felt good now. I had passed over a dozen climbers and was confident of success. Gradually the slope started to ease and I emerged at the crater rim. The crater of Pico is enormous. In my tired state its size made my head spin. Over a kilometre across and more than 500m deep, it is stunning, and the perfect reminder to watch your footing. The last section to the summit was euphoric. Walking around the crater rim, one side dropping steeply into the crater, the other exhibiting sweeping views of the Mexican plains 3000 metres below. I reached the top, collapsed on my pack and sucked in the moment. Those in front of me had headed down, and those behind me were still ten minutes away. For the briefest of moments I was the highest person in North America, given that the chances of someone being on top of Logan or Denali mid winter were slim. Eating and drinking as much as I could stomach I waited for Simon to arrive. The Guatemalan team (training for Aconcagua ) arrived first. They were stoked. I photographed them with my camera, yelling “Tres, Dos, Uno Guatemala” before I clicked. They all threw their hands up in elation. “What a great feeling” I heard one of them say to his friend. I had to agree with him. I was pretty happy to be there myself.
Mark’s Gear Sponsor: Mountain Equipment Gear
• ME Fleece – Good insulation layer. Warm. Practical.
• ME Down Vest – Excellent insulation layer. Incredibly warm. Ideal for high activity. Don’t need anything else apart from thermal and shell layer.
• ME Gortex Jacket – Great hard shell. Good straps on the wrists for tucking inside gloves. Good hood with peak which extends out enough to act as sun shade.
• Extremities Gloves – So warm my hands would sweat. Brilliant insulation for the extremities at high altitudes or extreme low temps.
• ME Windbreaker Jacket – Great for hiking in or for going to the pub Sleek, warm and incredibly wind proof.
• ME Snowline sleeping bag – A brilliant bag. So warm and snug I almost didn’t get out to climb. Effective to -20 but not stiflingly hot at above zero temps either.
