Cycling Towards Chimborazo — and the First Great Summit

Two months to go before I am facing the next mountaineering challenge with the Kensington Alpine Club. I have been able to assemble a great team. Norm, my adventure partner who I climbed Kilimanjaro with in April, Dave Volman, a happy full of energy guy I have known for many years and consider a very good friend. And C Mikael Mattsson, who took over the leadership of the Greenland Crossing where I picked up a concussion the first day.

I climbed Chimborazo the first time 1986. Whilst cycling from Chile to Alaska. This is an excerpt from the book I wrote, which became a local hit.

Cycling Towards Chimborazo From The Euadorian Coast

 

The first hours in the bicycle saddle that day are burning hot. The road is, so far, the worst of the entire journey. Road, by the way—it’s more like a muddy, stony potato field, which means I spend much of the daylight hours pushing the heavy bike. More than once I feel tears rising in my throat out of anger. Anger that I can’t take any more, which makes me waste a lot of energy cursing all the natural disasters that have struck Ecuador and turned the road into what it is. I also pour out abuse on the foolish road engineers who can’t build tunnels. But I’ve realized that this indignation has become an asset. After the outbursts I pull myself together and shift into an overdrive I didn’t know I possessed, using every ounce of strength to move forward at any cost.

A thick mist settles like a blanket over the mountains near me and gives me protection from the burning sun. But suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch, the sky opens and centimeter-thick snowflakes come pouring through the break. The wind rises at the same time and, on the descent toward the village lying at 3,300 meters, it abruptly breaks my progress. I realize the only thing I can do is immediately pitch my tent and take shelter from the storm there. I quickly set up camp on the side of the road closest to the mountain. On the other side the slope falls away hundreds of meters, and I don’t want to end up there if the wind gets too violent. Twelve hours later I open the tent flap to look out. The worst of the storm has died down and night has fallen. All the electric lights of the town of Alausí illuminate the valley below me. It feels like Christmas Eve. Leaning forward to reduce wind resistance, I pedal hard toward Riobamba to get there before dark. Unexpectedly—like in an improbable dream—three mighty volcanoes rear up in front of me as I reach the crest of a hill. The most beautiful and largest of them is Chimborazo, 6,310 meters high, flanked on both sides by the funnel-shaped Tungurahua to the right and Altar to the left. Chimborazo is completely ice-clad. Already back in my bed in Dala-Järna I had utopian dream-visions of reaching the summit of this mighty volcano. Now, as I gaze at “Chimbo,” I’m again seized by that strange, calm, compelling pull. That Chimborazo awaits…

 

The climb and Full Moon Shows the Way

I mutter despairingly at nothing. My fingers are stiff with cold. Below me lies Rudolf Regner, a kind-hearted German I’ve gotten to know. He has the same problem as I do: getting his crampons on. He gets help from the guide Enrique Veloz, who has summited Chimborazo around seventy times. He’s a living legend in Ecuador for his conquests of various peaks. Rudolf has paid for Enrique’s and my help to reach the top. We are now on a small platform, ten square meters, an insignificant part of the almost vertical Thielmann Glacier. What began an hour earlier in the night as an almost romantic ascent of the high summit has now turned into brutal seriousness. I’m colder than I’ve ever been in my life. With every step upward, the wind grows in force and cold. If a climb of this caliber is to count as pure pleasure, proper equipment is required. My three T-shirts, a sweatshirt, and my mother’s hand-knitted sweater can’t withstand the bitter cold wind. My legs are fine as long as I don’t stop, for then the wind whistles straight through my two pairs of trousers. With each step upward I lose energy because of my poorly clad mortal frame. With the ice axes driven deep into the thick ice and tied to the rope, we take constant breaks to rest and breathe fast and hard. Just a few hundred meters from the top it begins to dawn. I turn around and see that our route has been lit by a romantic full moon. My total concentration on the climb has made me thoroughly neglect the wondrous scenery that surrounds us. I shiver with excitement and fear as I examine the emptiness below me. The slope is almost vertical.

“Ahoy, Señor Cyclist, forward!”

I hear Enrique shout in his gruff voice. He has the classic mountain man’s look—features tanned by the sun, expressive eyes, a powerful mouth. A harmonious face. He seems completely unaffected by the altitude. But he has proper equipment, I think by way of excuse. Between us there’s a kind of healthy rivalry.

“Get moving now before the sun gets too warm and causes us trouble!” he continues gruffly.

So far I’ve only seen Rudolf’s backside. He has the least climbing experience of the three of us and is therefore placed in the middle on the rope.

“Have you seen these incredible views, Rudi?” I shout up to him.

“I’m so afraid I don’t dare look. I’m focusing on Enrique’s feet…” he answers quietly without turning around.

Exhausted, I drop into a sitting position in an effort to draw air I can breathe. Luckily, the ground beneath me is almost flat. I can see the top only a few hundred meters away. But the fatigue I feel surpasses anything I’ve ever gone through, and I start to doubt I’ll ever get there. My throat is as dry as the Atacama Desert and the sharp wind drives more energy out of my body with every second. Getting any energy from the chocolate bars and water we’ve brought requires the use of an iron spike—they’re frozen solid. Enrique, as spry as ever, sees my dilemma and gives me a piece of dried meat and a strawberry yogurt. Rudolf looks worryingly exhausted. He’s crouched on all fours trying to breathe the oxygen-poor air. Enrique provocatively asks whether we want to turn back. I consider his question and decide to say yes. But my mouth answers no. Rudolf nods in agreement. My trousers have frozen to the ice during the short time my backside has been there, and it takes two attempts to get back to a standing position. I feel a little more alert. Two poles with pennants fastened to their tips mark the 6,310-meter summit. To prove to myself that I’ve reached the high point of my life, I grasp the poles. To the north I see Cotopaxi’s almost equally high summit jutting far above the clouds. I realize I have also reached the summit of my physical capacity. No the return journey awaits.

“Jump as far as you can. Then secure the rope to the ice axe and hold on with full force,” Enrique explains to me.

But I don’t understand what he means until I land hard on the packed ice and discover a crevasse five meters wide and about twenty meters deep—one meter from me. Rudolf is almost lifeless from exhaustion. This makes Enrique whisper in my ear:

“He’s too weak. This is going to end badly. Very badly.”

“You’ve no right to bad-mouth Rudolf. He’s paid you several hundred dollars, so it’s your duty to get him down alive,” I hiss in reply—and it gives me unexpected strength.

With fear in his eyes Rudolf hangs on the taut rope. But when he reaches the ground he collapses and slides quickly toward the cliff edge, where a precipitous drop of several hundred meters awaits. His slide is abruptly halted when the rope stretches to its limit. There’s a heavy jerk, but the rope holds fast in the ice axes that Enrique and I have set. When I hear the jolt I notice the peculiar silence surrounding us. Rudolf survives the descent thanks to the fact that he’s attached with two doubled ropes. He falls often, but when dusk begins to return we once again stand on level ground down at base camp.

 

Next week, the Patagonia story continues — the long horseback journey across the wind-swept pampas.
If you haven’t started that adventure yet, begin with Part One