Volcan Pasochoa 4200m

The objective is the peak on the RHS of the photo.

Iliniza sur, norte an Corazon from L to R
The crux...lots of knobby holds

Sinead heading back down.

Antisana to the East...the other side is the Amazon.

Views back down the ridge to the north
Cotopaxi to the left and the objective on the right
Weather moving up and in from the coast (west)
Cotopaxi and Ruminhui clouding in


Pasochoa is only a 45 minute drive from home...an excellent rim walk along the edge of a half blown out crater. Started in a Bamboo forest at 2800m; ended up in the Paramo at 4200m 6 hours later. Fellow collegues Roy, Ewan and Sinead decided they had had enough when we reached the steep bit about 300m below the summit. Sinead gave it a go and then downclimbed it after realizing the summit was still about 45 minutes away. So I hooked up with 3 people from the Catholic University hiking club and ended up doing a traverse of the crater rim with them. The summit turned out to be a false one; the true one being another 30mins away. Awesome views of all the peaks...El nino has made for very dry and clear conditions...very rare to have so much blue sky! However, things do change rapidly in the Andes and only a half hour down from the summit we had light hail which changed to rain and haild further down. One tractor, one pickup and 3 buses later and I was home by 7pm. Great acclimatization peak for Cotopaxi Dec 5-6.