Field Trip: Volcán Imbabura

Pete picked me up in the super-cab Nissan champion mobile, and we headed off down the PanAmerican Highway, which ultimately wraps around Volcán Imbabura to the Imbabura Provincial capital, Ibarra.

After Pete's one errand -- "I have to run into this government building.  It'll just take a second..." -- half an hour later we headed for the hill-town of Esperanza, the good ol' Nissan pounding down the cobble.  

Esperanza is a little village on the opposite side of Imbabura from Otavalo.  Staying here would give us a big head start in both proximity to the trail head and starting elevation.

We stayed here at Doña Aida's famous backpacker's hostel, Casa Aida.  Apparently Bob Dylan and the Stones came here for her famous magic mushrooms (though Pete disputes the Stones, Dylan is a fact).  (We did not sample the psilocybin.)  

Imbabura at sunset, always 6:30, a little earlier closer to the volcano.

Pete carbo-loading for the next day's hike.

Doña Aida was a lovely host.  I wanted to ask about Bob Dylan.  "Don't, unless you want to be sitting in the kitchen and listening for the next hour."  We bid her a buenas noches instead and hit the hay for a 5:00 wake-up.

Imbabura at dawn -- you can see the caldera here where Papi Imbabura, as he's known, blew out the back side of the mountain, 14, 000 years ago more or less.  It is said that the volcano is "not entirely inactive."  In Otavaleño legends, Imbabura is a womanizer.  The weather -- it's no surprise -- affects his moods.

After parking, we had to approach on the cobble.  Note Pete's preferred hiking shoe is the rubber boot, mandatory for campesinos and trabajeros.

Up into the páramo.

Looking down into the city of Ibarra.  Imbabura's lava flow maxed out at the left-most edge of the city.  The soil in this valley is legendary -- 100' deep in places, all volcanic, farmers have not had to amend the soil despite 100s of years of intensive farming.  Just beyond the ridge on the horizon, the Amazon basin begins.  Hard to see in the photo, but moisture from the high cloud forest and rainforest below create the cloud cover.

"You probably only get this clear of a view of Cayambe 20 times a year."   

We took a lot of Cayambe shots.

At 20,000 feet, Volcán Cayambe has a "permanent" glacier, set to melt -- with the latest estimates within the next 50 years.  "Then we're fucked," said Pete.  All of Quito's water supply is glacial.  The equator crosses the volcano's flanks at around 15,000' , the only place along the equator with snow.  For now.

Just above the páramo, Pete's head level, you can see the main caldera.

Here, some of the remnant forests are protected from the wind and moist enough to survive in the  "quebradas" or breaks, just below the caldera.  

Looking back down into the páramo, our trail is at the far left of the frame.

Sampling the flora.

High alpine fern.

Looking down one of many drainages, back toward Esperanza.

Heading out of the saddle, toward the final scrambles.  The clouds rolled in out of nowhere.

Knife-edge trails to the summit, with Esperanza farmland in the background.

Pete on the summit, just over 15,000'.

The pyroclastic explosion 14,000 years ago fused most of the rock.   Still, I didn't trust all of the handholds.

Looking down into the caldera from above.

Que dork en total, in the clouds.

Heading back out, the return was 3 hours after a 4 hour climb.  We felt the burn!

Parting shot: you see the clouds coming up over from the Otavalo side and dispersing on the Esperanza side.  Imbabura, unlike most of the mountains in Ecuador, sits between the double cordillera that runs north-south through South America.  Thus, it's a sort of climatic island between the two ranges.   An incredible hike.