Success!

We are thrilled to report that after a 12:30 am start, we summited El Pico de Orizaba (18,491’) at 10:30 am on March 16th. No thanks to the punks that snuck up to our lower cache at 15,700’ and stole a bunch of our climbing gear, forcing us to abort our first summit attempt the previous day at 3:30 am after 2 1/2 hours of climbing.

While I managed to ride about a third of the upper Jamapa Glacier, the majority of it was old, rotten, glacier ice (as seen in the picture) and was unskiable. However, below about 16,500’ it turned to consolidated snow and we were both able to ski the complex and somewhat frightening Labyrinth down to about 14,900’ where the snow ended.

While not a textbook ski descent, we consider it a success.  We still have seven days in country so we’re off to play tourist and go check out Aztec ruins and some of the metropolitan areas of old Puebla and Mexico City.

Viva México!!