Mexico Expedition 2007

I traveled down to Mexico for some climbing earlier this year with my brother, Kenny. We climbed Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba, the 3rd and 7th highest peaks in North America.

I don't remember when or why we started planning a trip to Mexico, but it just kinda fell together-not hardly. Kenny would have preferred to go ice climbing in Colorado which would have been a lot cheaper, but I needed some high altitude experience.

Popocatepetl is right next to Izta. and is the 5th highest peak in N. America, but it is an active volcano and is currently closed. It started erupting in 1994 and a few years ago it killed several climbers who were attempting to summit. One day, I hope to summit Popo. and I hope that when I do it is still active, if it is there at all.

Friday, Jan. 5th

We spent last night at Kenny's apartment in Las Cruces so that we only had an hour drive to the airport in El Paso. However, we stayed up late the night before packing and woke up Friday morning, arriving at the airport in El Paso half an hour late and missing our flight into Mexico City. Luckily, American Airlines was able to find us another flight and we were only a couple hours late landing in Mexico City; we arrived around 3pm- eager to get to the mountains.

The Dallas airport

We seemed to wander inside the Mexico City airport for hours looking for a store to buy some maps. We also wanted to make sure that our departing flight was still booked after missing out first flight. We probably asked 20 different people about the map store and each of them told us something different so we walked all over that huge airport. For some reason, everyone was speaking Spanish; needless to say, the language battle had just begun. After a couple of hours, and a lot of frustration, we discovered that there wasn't a map store in the airport (this was the first mistake that our guidebook told us); we were looking for something that did not exist. Normally, shuffling back and forth inside an airport wouldn't be a big deal, but we had 60 lb. bags on our backs with our carry on bags on our chests. Eventually, we finished up and found a taxi to take us to the bus station.


The Bus Station in Mexico City

Our bus left Mexico City at 4:30 and arrived in Amecameca at 7 pm, only 65 km away;the roads in Mexico City were very busy and dirty—out of control. It was getting dark now and there was a lot of smog around Mexico City, but we could see Popo. and Ixta…barely. Kenny thought they looked "freaking high"; they did.

Amecameca is a small town and we arrived on a holiday called Three Kings Day; however, we never met these three kings. The whole town seemed to be out in the Mercado and there were these two tall and goofy white boys wandering around as if they were lost-I think they were. At least they were entertaining, but I did feel bad for the two of them because they looked more confused than a blind homosexual in a sausage factory. They finally found a decent hotel with a very cute señorita at the front desk and called it a night.

A church in Amecameca

We ran into many setbacks this day and were frustrated numerous times, our biggest problem being communication with the Mexicans. However, everything worked itself out and it is these experiences that define a visit to Mexico.

Saturday, Jan. 6th

We had several errands to do in town this morning before we went up to the mountains including buying a phone card, some groceries and some fuel for our stove.


Catching a taxi to the base camp at La Joya.

Later, we found a taxi driver to get us to the base camp of our first peak, Ixta. We told him we needed fuel for our stove and he agreed to stop at a gas station on the way up to the mountain. When we got in the taxi, I totally forgot about the fuel as we approached the peak and I pretended to be a tourist by taking lots of pics. Kenny noticed that we were getting farther out of town and farther into the mountains and still didn't have any fuel so he had me ask the driver about the fuel.

"No, fuel back in town . We go up to mountain," he said.

Wait for it…wait for it. SNAP! Kenny was pissed. Later, we had some issues agreeing on the price for the taxi; he thought we should pay him and we thought we should cut off his testicles for leaving us on a mountain with no fuel. We finally agreed on a price but we should have made the guy take us back into town so we could buy some fuel. Luckily, we ran into a group from New York at the base camp, La Joya, who gave us enough fuel for the entire trip.

La Joya is at 12,926ft (3940m) and if you're ignorant to altitude, the highest peak in New Mexico is only 200 ft higher than the base camp of Ixta. The group from New York was leaving the mountain just as we were arriving but they gave us some useful information about the route before they took off; they told us that only 5 out of their group of 10 summitted. These New Yorkers also warned us of the roaming cattle at the base camp and to be careful with our tents. Of course, we didn’t have a tent; we were using a bivy, so we built a few barricades to protect us from the rabid cows.

This is about the time that a man wandered into our camp. We could tell that this man was very wise; he spoke a mixture of English, Spanish, French, and HTML, making it very difficult to translate his riddles and proverbs. He appeared to be traveling around Mexico on a bike, but I know this was only a cover to distract us from what his real plan, whatever it may have been. Wherever we traveled in Mexico, he was there, and we knew that he was following us, protecting us wherever we traveled. Wait a minute; he wasn't a holy man—he was just crazy. And so, he became known to us as the Crazy Frenchman—we tried to avoid him at all costs.

From the base camp-The summit of Ixta. is in the top left corner. The ridge behind us is the route that we took (hiking right to left) and you can see all of the false summits we had to cross.

We had already decided to do the standard route up Ixta., La Arista del Sol (The Ridge of the Sun), and we wanted to check the trail out and had little time to waste. We hiked for a couple of hours, almost all the way up to high camp, and then returned to La Joya. There were a lot of people on the trail today and I'm sure that the half-way hut was packed (it holds about 30) the night before. When we arrived back in camp it was getting late so we made dinner, read a little and went to bed.


Kenny with Los Pies (the feet) behind him.

We were awakened many times during the night, hearing loud sounds nearby; after awaking and opening our eyes we saw horns and glowing eyes—HOLY S**T. Just a cow but now I had to clean out my underwear. One time, Kenny woke up and yelled at one of them, scaring it so bad that it crapped and ran off; I guess we were even.


One of the wandering cows at base camp (sorry this pic is so bad).


Sunday, Jan. 7th


The sleeping arrangements at La Joya; you can see all of the barricades that we built to protect us from the rabid cows.

All we did this day was move up to high camp at the Grupo de Los Cien hut at 15,042 ft (4585m). Kenny and I got into an argument on the trail on this day, but eventually Kenny realized that he was wrong and told me that he was foolish for ever doubting me and we didn't have any other problems for the rest of the trip. It was really foggy all day and we didn't see anyone else on the trail this day.


Definitly, one of my favorites from the trip-I like to dream that I'm in Patagonia.

There was no snow on the mountain this year so we had to pack all of our water from the base camp. This was a lot because we were drinking a lot in order to prevent altitude sickness. We probably carried 10L of water up to high camp.

When we got to high camp, we walked in to the dirty little hut that had a really funky smell. It took a while to get used to the smell, but lots of drugs seemed to do the trick. The smell was coming from food that was rotting on some shelves in the hut. It is normal for hikers to leave non-perishable food in mountain huts that they don't use; here, the locals wanted to be extra friendly, and leave rotting meats and vegetables on the shelves for whoever the lucky individual was that would follow. We were very thankful.

Mhmm, the smell of maggots feasting on rotting goat meat.

Two locals arrived at the hut after dark, they had summited earlier that day. Kenny didn't sleep very well this night because the gigantic mutant rats crawling around kept waking him.


Just after sunset with Los Pies in the background.

Monday, Jan. 8th

Summit Day-We woke up this morning at 4, ate breakfast and started hiking around 4:30. Our route up Las Rodillas (The Knees) was not the best and there was a lot of scree which made ascent hard, especially at that altitude—this section is definitely the hardest part of the route. We made it to the top of Las Rodillas right at sunrise and we took a short break at an old hut that was in ruins. It was cold, windy and desolate on the top but the views was spectacular.

Sunrise at the top of Las Rodillas with Popo. in the background.

Once you top out at Las Rodillas, you hit several false summits over the course of several miles. Our guide book said 4, but there were at least 6 (this is the second mistake that the guidebook made).

We finally hit the glacier but it was only on flat sections on the trail so we did not need our crampons; this was both, Kenny's and mine, first glacier travel.

Somewhere on the ridge Kenny started to get nauseous as altitude sickness set in, but luckily he never threw up; some people just aren't cut out to be mountain climbers.

We summited Iztaccihuatl, the 7th highest peak in N. America around 7 am after only a little more than 3 hours of hiking (from the high camp). I was overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment,as we hit the peak and felt like I could conquer the world. It was probably only the lack of oxygen speaking though because the next I remember is a goat named Willis walking up and asking for a smoke.

At 17, 126ft (5,220m), Ixta was my first summit over 14,000 and my first 5,000m peak. We did not spend much time on the summit; we took some pictures and some really bad video before descending (the video makes it sound like it was windy, but the wind calmed down a lot right before we summited). We spent about a half hour on the summit.

Me on the Summit of Izta.


A windy view from the top

Jon after altitude sickness sets in

Descending seemed to be harder than the ascent and really took its toll on us; especially, after we picked up our packs at the half-way hut—my knees were killing me. We did not previously hire a taxi to come pick us up at the base camp of La Joya because the guidebook told us that it was busy enough that there would be plenty of taxis around and that we wouldn't need to. Well, now the weekend was over and base camp was deserted except for the Crazy Frenchman and a few tourists (This was the third time our guidebook was wrong).

Unfortunately, without a taxi, we had to hike for two hours to the National Park headquarters at Paseo de Cortes in order to find a taxi. Luckily, we got there just early enough to catch the last taxi into town. However, he only made the trip to Amecameca, the opposit direction that we needed to go, so we went back there for the night.

Treating blisters after hiking all day

We were exhausted by the time we made it back into town, after hiking for almost 12 hours. We were also very hungry and after we ate dinner, we were still hungry so we went across the street to a pizza place. That was a bad choice; the pizza was disgusting and had hot dogs on it. Then we called it a night.

Tuesday, Jan. 9th

We slept in this day and then went to town for breakfast. Our only goal this day was to get to Tlachichuaca, the closest town to our second peak. After breakfast, we made our way back to the bus station to find a bus the 100+ miles to Tlachichuaca but they told us we had to go west a few towns to catch a bus east.

As uninstructed, we hopped on a bus in the opposite direction in order to catch a bus to our destination. I guess there was a little misunderstanding because that town didn't even have a bus station, so we had to catch a ride all the way back to Mexico City. After arriving back in Mexico City we decided to buy first class tickets to Puebla because we knew it was going to be a long ride. On the bus they played Wedding Crashers in Spanish but it wasn’t too bad since I knew most of the lines by heart; I transtlated for Kenny.

Kenny and I were definitely a little cranky today and I was starving, so we ate again at the bus stop in Puebla. KFC never tasted so good; this was the first real meal that we had eaten since we arrived in Mexico.

We didn't arrive in Tlachichuaca (I never learned how to pronounce this one) until 10pm and we took a taxi to the Hotel Gerar; a fairly expensive hotel, but it was nice.

Wednesday, Jan. 10th

Ate a wonderful breakfast at the White House restaurant, their food was so good we ate here many times during our short time in town. Then we went back to the hotel to find out about getting a 4-wheel drive taxi up to the base camp of Pico de Orizaba. The hotel offered taxis up to the base camp, but it was very expensive and we didn't have enough money on us. There were not any ATM's in town (wouldn't you know it) so we had to go to the next nearest town to get some cash. When we got back to we ate at the White House again.

It is about a two hour ride up to the base camp and it definitely requires a 4x4 car. On the way you pass the village of Hidalgo, the highest town in N. America at 11,155ft (3400m).

The Rooftop of Mexico

The Piedra Grande hut at the base camp of Orixaba is much nicer and bigger than the hut on Ixta. This hut sleeps 60 comfortably with plenty of room to cook; there were about 20 of us at the hut during our stay there. The group from New York that we had met on Ixta. had left the day before we got here and we were told that only 4 of the 10 summited. We met a lot of people on Orixaba: there was a group from RMI; a couple from Belgium; Andrew and Greg from MIT; and Greg's dad, Ken; there was also a guy from Colorado; a guy from Austria; and another group from Germany. At 13,943 ft (4250m), this hut is also quite a bit higher in elevation than the base camp on Ixta.


At the base camp of Pico de Orixaba. Notice the sidewalk (aqueduct) in the background.

First thing I noticed, as we approached the hut is there was a sidewalk that went straight up the mountain from the hut. This definitely isn't the kind of thing that you want to see in the mountains; I think "sidewalk to the peak" might be one step worse than bolting big wall climbs. I urgently ask the first guy I see about it and he informed me that it was an old aqueduct and that it only went up a few hundred yards.


Kenny walking along the old aqueduct; the aqueducts are all falling apart.

The first thing that we did when we got out of the hut was go on another day hike. This time we followed the aqueduct up as high as it went and then we noticed another aqueduct up a little higher. We moved up to this aqueduct and then followed it west to a ridge that is above the hut. After a fairly long hike along this ridge we circled back down to the hut. On the way back it was quite amusing watching Kenny who kept falling into these sink holes in the dirt, but I wasn't having any trouble at all—amateur.

Cooking at the Piedre Grande Hut

When we got back to the hut, we cooked dinner and read for a long time before going to sleep.

Thurday, Jan. 11th

After hiking Ixta. and learning how tiring it was to carry gear up to a high camp, we decided against this method on Orizaba and and decided to attempt to reach the summit in one day. However, if we were going to attempt this we needed more time to acclimate and decided to spend two days at base camp.

Kenny relaxing in the Piedra Grande with Gulliver and his travels.

We slept in really late this day and took our time eating breakfast and leaving the hut. We used this day to go and find a good route up to the base of the glacier. The first part of the route, the part on the sidewalk, is really steep then is levels out a little bit as it follows a rocky gully to the base of the Labyrinth.

Scopin' out the trail.

The Labyrinth is a steep section of mixed climbing with both rock and ice but we didn't bring our crampons with us so we did the best we could and only got about half way through this section. We spent hours climbing through the Labyrinth, mostly just wasting time but also looking for the route we would use in the morning.

Exploring the Labyrinth and all of it gullies, couloirs, headwalls, rock bands, shoulders, and snouts was my favorite part of the trip.

Me tiptoeing around the Labyrinth.

Fiday, Jan. 12th

We woke up this morning at 2am in order to summit Pico de Orizaba 18,405ft (5610m), the third highest peak in N. America. This morning three other groups left before us. We left the hut at 2:30 am and started having trouble almost immediately after we left the hut. First my headlamp stopped working and I got really frustrated; Kenny let me use his headlamp, as we approached the Labyrinth.

At the base of the Labyrinth, we put on our crampons and I gave Kenny back his headlamp; he led us through this maze of rock and ice. Fairly soon after we reached the Labyrinth, we saw the group from RMI (Rainier Mountaineering Inc.) coming down and I asked them if everything was alright. They did not reply and I asked them if they were ok. Again they did not reply—we kept moving.

Kenny did an amazing job leading us through the Labyrinth. The route he chose was perfect and saved us a lot of time and energy. Soon after, I noticed that the group from RMI was following us; they finally made a right decision. (I thought it was totally stupid and unprofessional of them to attempt Orizaba after only half a day at base camp. I guess they did make it to the top though, 12 hours later and totally looking like jackasses). We kept going, making good time, even though we only had one headlamp. It’s amazing how much easier it is traveling through the Labyrinth when you have crampons and mountaineering axes. We finished the Labyrinth, after only two and a half hours.

Above the Labyrinth is the Jampa Glacier which was one steep motha’. Soon after we hit the glacier I asked Kenny to turn off his headlamp so my eyes could adjust as the moon rose behind us and reflected off the ice. Hiking in the dark with our limited glacier experience was scary to say the least. The light, or lack there of, only exaggerated the dangers of this hard, cold and jagged ice. You have to remember that our only glacier travel was a only few days earlier on the flat glacier of Ixt.; this glacier was vastly different.

Kenny on the Jampa Glacier

A few minutes afte we turned off the headlamp, a bolt on Kenny's crampons came loose and they fell off. Kenny was already nervous hiking on the glacier and this only increased his anxiety. He managed to put his crampons back on without too much trouble, but he wanted me to lead now. Soon after all the trouble with the crampons, Kenny started to feel nauseous, again. He fought it the best he could and luckily, only had a headache-he did not throw up. I knew he was feeling sick and did not ask him to take any pics of me so there are none of me during the climb, only on the summit.

The Jampa Glacier from the top. Notice the giant rock at the bottom... to stop you're fall. If you look really, really, really hard you may also see the group from RMI; three little specks at the bottom of the glacier. They are so far away, hahaha silly RMI.

The glacier seemed to go on forever. As we walked higher it seemed to grow; we had to stop often to catch our breath. Finally, we hit the top, but alas it was only the top of the crater rim. Kenny was so exhausted that he had to lay down and we took a 15 minute break before we proceeded on our journey.


Taking a breather

We summited Pico de Orizabat 18,405ft (5610m), the 3rd highest peak in N. America, at 7:30 after 5 hours of climbing. We were joined at the top with our friends, Andrew, Greg and Ken, that we had met in the huts two days before. We congratulated each other, took some pictures, and spoke briefly of our journey.


At the summit of Pico de Orizaba. How cute, we match!

Then we knew that we must get off this mountain, out of this country, and back to our homes. We seemed to descend very fast. It was hard on my knees so I took my time, trailing the group. Finally, we hit the bottom of the glacier and I knew that I would live to see another day. We now followed the other group through the Labyrinth which was also a good route.

The shadow of this beast

After we climbed out of the Labyrinth, the five of us sat down, took off our crampons and a couple layers of clothing, and discussed the morning climb; we talked for a long time. After an hour or so, we proceeded down the mountain to the hut; we finally made it back to the hut, several hours later. Our descent took us almost as long as our ascent. I thought that my knees were going to turn on me and force me to stop, but they were brave and finished the climb.


Nap time

When we hit the base camp, we had several hours until our Taxi was supposed to arrive so both Kenny and I crawled back in our sleeping bags and slept; we dreamed of home. All that Kenny had talked about for several days, was seeing his wife again; all that I had talked about was food. We agreed that our first meal after we returned to the states was to be at the Texas Roadhouse in Las Cruces.


Leaving our great advesary. You can see the Labyrinth in this picture; it is the speckled band above Kenny's head.

A couple hours late our taxi came and picked us up and we spent another night in Tlachichuaca, ate at a couple of different restaurants-had a bad run in with a drunk teenager, and took off in the morning.

Saturday, Jan. 13th

First thing this morning we saw the Crazy Frenchman again and realized we needed to get out of town. We spent most of the day on buses getting back to Mexico City; we were lucky enough to catch Wedding Crashers... in Spanish... again.

We spent the next couple of nights in Mexico City; maybe someday I will write about it — probably not.