Contrary to what many people did on this night, I went to bed early on December 31st . The reason was my 6 am flight on January 1st, destination Mexico City. It was my next objective to climb solo North America's third highest mountain, El Pico de Orizaba or Citlaltépetl (from Nahuatl citlalli = star, and tepetl = mountain) which at 18,875 feet, stands above anything else south of Yukon and Alaska.

I had eyed this mountain for a while and I was looking forward to giving it a try. This was my first time above 16,500 feet, the highest elevation I had reached in the past while climbing in the South American Andes. I got interested in El Pico de Orizaba after talking to a fellow climber on my way down from Mt. Shasta. Mexico is home to three high-elevation volcanoes, El Pico de Orizaba, Iztaccíhuatl (17,423 feet) and Popocatepetl (17,925 feet). Climbers from around the world challenge themselves on these volcanoes as their first high-altitude climb.

Since 1996 Popocatepetl has been erupting, and is therefore closed to all climbing. While Orizaba and Popocatepetl are shaped like the traditional cone-shaped volcano, Iztaccíhuatl resembles our local Mummy Mountain. The locals have renamed it "the sleeping beauty" or "the sleeping lady" because of its shape. Seen in profile, Izta resembles a sleeping woman, and Aztec legend has it that Popo stands eternal guard over Izta who died of grief after Popo’s rivals told Izta that Popo had been killed in battle. While driving to Orizaba, both Popo and Itza are clearly visible, especially Popo which continues to erupt every day.

When in Mexico City, I stayed at the Hotel Catedral, a very nice and clean hotel conveniently located in the heart of downtown Mexico City, also known as "El Zocalo". I spent the rest of January 1st walking around the city and mixing with the locals for a military parade in front of the main Cathedral. The next morning, I met my friend Paul Kuroda at the hotel who had just returned the night before from successfully climbing Itza and Orizaba. Because of dates and logistics we were unable to climb together, but we exchanged valuable information about the climbs.

After saying goodbye to Paul, I headed to the main bus station and boarded a very comfortable luxury bus to Puebla. Contrary to what the name might suggest, El Pico de Orizaba is not that close to the city of Orizaba from which it gets its name. My destination was a little town called Tlachichuca that sits on the northwest flank of El Pico at approximately 9,000 feet. As there are no direct buses from Mexico City to Tlachichuca, I had to change buses in Puebla. After changing buses, I took an old bus from the 60's that had seen better days to Tlachichuca . This bus was what they call a local bus, which translates into "it stops every five minutes to load more people." I stopped counting people when I reached 75 as I was probably afraid to really know how many people were on the bus.

Four hours later I arrived in Tlachichuca and immediately asked for the house of Mr. Reyes or Senor Reyes as he is better known in Tlachichuca. I almost forgot to tell you that being fluent in Spanish made things very easy for me, although many locals are fluent in English. Senor Reyes is a retired surgeon, who upon retirement from his practice, decided that his passion for climbing could be also transformed into a business. He owns a compound in downtown Tlahichuca that literally occupies a couple of blocks. The compound was inherited from his father and from his grandfather; it was originally a soap factory and it was completely restored to its original state. In the main building there are two floors, with the bottom floor a kind of a recreation area with couches, memorabilia, books, magazines etc. and a lot of the original machinery used by the Reyes family. The second floor is accessed by a wooden staircase and it has 15 bunk beds amidst other machinery. The conditions are spartan, but clean and charming.

Mrs. Reyes is an excellent cook and a very nice lady, and she was constantly checking on me to make sure that I was eating well and drinking plenty of fluids in preparation for my climb. During my initial stay, I met four other American climbers, Dave, Sarah, James, and Richard. Dave and Sarah are from the L.A. area and James and Richard from New Mexico. It was good to share stories with them and they gave me a chance to kill some down time. The next day we departed Tlachichuca on some WWII Jeeps which have been restored by Mr. Reyes to new condition. I also met Roberto "Oso" Flores, a Mexican guide who would help me for the next couple of days.

As I suspected, climbing solo was possible and easily doable but the risks in case of an accident were too high to take a chance. After a three-hour stomach-turning ride in the Jeeps, we arrived at the hut which is located on the northern flank at an elevation of 14,000 feet. The weather was good although cold. I set up my sleeping quarter in the five-star world class hut (I actually counted the five stars through the window...). It was filthy inside, but what the heck, it had a roof.

After "checking in" I took an initial hike to start the acclimatization process. I slowly reached 14,500 feet where I spent an hour exploring the area. Dave, James, Richard and Sarah were coming to Orizaba from Izta so they didn't need an extra day for acclimatization. They decided that they would begin the climb that night. After dinner I tried to get some sleep but I didn't get any. Mice in the hut were noisy and so were other people. The next day I started hiking up along the old aqueduct and I reached 15,700 feet, where camp II is located. This camp is usually utilized by those who want to cut the summit day in half, but carrying all the gear and water up to this elevation is painful. I stashed some of my gear (crampons, ice axe, etc.) that I would need for my summit attempt the following day. I spent a good two hours at camp II and then descended to the hut. Camp II is located just below "the labyrinth," a maze of rock and ice that sits in between Camp II and the Jamapa glacier. It is called the labyrinth because finding the right passage in the middle of the night is not an easy task.

After returning to the hut, I spent a few hours with some local Mexican guides exchanging some of the funniest stories I have ever heard on any mountain. Dave, James and Sarah returned from the summit at approximately 2:00 pm. Richard had abandoned his summit bid at 16,500 feet because of poor boot selection on his part and his desire to keep all of his toes attached to his feet. After an early dinner, I again tried to get some sleep to no avail. I finally got up at midnight, had a small breakfast, plenty of coffee and tea and started climbing with Oso. We arrived at Camp II, collected our gear, donned another layer, and started the ice-climb portion within the labyrinth. As Oso had climbed Orizaba 190 times, it took us no time to get through. I have heard that some climbers have failed to summit because they could not find the right passage until daylight when it was too late in the day to safely summit and return to the hut.

We arrived at the Jamapa glacier an hour later and despite the darkness, I realized that the easy part was behind us, the real climb had yet to start. We were at 16,000 feet and every step was in slow motion, just one foot after the other trying to match steps with the breathing. It was cold, and when I say it was cold, it was REALLY cold!! The wind was probably blowing in our face at about 20-25 mph which, believe me, did not make things very easy. We roped up and put the poles away, it was time for the ice axes. The glacier starts at an easy angle of 20-25°, but a slip on the hard ice would leave a mark on you. Just to give you an idea of the hardness of the ice, my body weight alone was not enough to get the crampons to bite into the ice, I had to stomp my feet to get some grip!

Slowly, very slooooooowly we continued the climb towards the summit. We stopped a couple of times on the slope where we set up pickets to anchor ourselves for safety. The sun was rising and I was starting to get a good view of the Atlantic ocean and the Mexican valleys to the west. Halfway up the glacier the steepness increases to 35-45°, and up to 50° just below the crater rim. The steep climb definitely catches your attention even if fatigue, high altitude and cold are pushing hard to reduce your concentration. We were the first climbers on the mountain that morning, but we were closely followed by two Czechoslovakian climbers who passed us not too far from the summit and by 12 Guatemalan climbers (three rope teams of four each) who were a little further down. The Guatemalan climbers had spent the night at Camp III at 16,000 feet.

I decided with Oso to choose a direct route to the summit instead of a typical zigzag up the slope. The high altitude had probably impaired my good judgment and clouded my mind as I thought that a straight-up climb was quicker and easier (yeah, right). Well, we finally made the crater rim and as I was going to celebrate my summit success, I looked to the right and saw that the high point was nowhere near. At that point, Oso started laughing at me and said "amigo, the summit is another 45 minutes from here, keep on climbing, gringo!!" I almost pushed him down the glacier. After eight and half hours of continuous climbing, we reached the summit at the same time as the Guatemalan team who had chosen a different route on the western slope of the glacier. We spent a good couple of hours on the summit, and the Guatemalan team asked me to pose with them for their summit shot, and I proudly complied with their request. Ok, you might have heard this, it's true, we took turns doing the chicken dance and shaking our rear ends for the cameras......what a disgrace.

The weather improved dramatically and it was now warm considering the altitude. The wind had almost died completely making our stay very enjoyable. On the descent, things got a little hairy as the first portion of the glacier just below the summit is very steep and slipping would have had serious consequences. As I was a little tired, I was extremely careful with every step, and I took extra time just to make sure that I came back home safely. We arrived back at the hut at 2:30 pm where there the driver from Senor Reyes was waiting for us. After packing up, he drove us back to the compound in Tlachichuca, where I spent another night. The next morning I said goodbye to the wonderful Reyes family and drove back to Mexico City with Oso who was on his way to Mendoza, Argentina to guide a trip on Aconcagua.

In my original schedule I had added two additional days in case of bad weather, so I returned to the Hotel Catedral and checked in again. As I hadn't had enough of a workout the day before, I went on a 15-20 mile walk throughout the whole downtown Mexico City. Upon returning to the Hotel, I met up with Dave, Sarah, James, and Richard who were staying there as well. Needless to say, we had to celebrate our success with countless Dos Equis beers and tequilas....... Oh yes, we had plenty of fun.

WINTER BACKPACKING

March 9-11, 2007
Report and photos by Erika Napoletano