New Adventures

After a hiatus, the adventures begin again. I will be traveling to Ecuador for 24 days, traveling on my own and with a climbing expedition from Earth Treks. This trip will build upon my mountaineering skills developed with Mountain Maddness' Glaciar Mountaineering Course, a six day program I took part in this summer. The other climbers and I were taught the basics of alpine mountaineering and glaciar travel, and I look forward to applying those and my climbing skills to a new arena. Earth Treks' The Road workout was an key instrument in getting me in shape for this summer, but for this trip I have had to rely on some backpacking around MD and FL and a harsh training regime in Quito.
My current plans will provide me a week of acclimatization in and around Quito before I attempt my first ascent on Volcan Corazon (4788m) on January 3rd. I will then take a rest day before ascending Ilinza Norte (5126m) on the 5th. Finally I transfer my base of operations closer to Cotopaxi, climbing Ruminahui (4712m) on the 7th. Then it's back to Quito on the 8th for a rest day before I meet the Earth Treks expedition team.
Once I've met up with the team, we allow the rest of the team a little bit of acclimatization time. We do our first team ascent on January 10th, hiking Pasochoa (4200m). The next day we do the more difficult ventana de morte ascent of Pichincha (4794m). Our final planed ascent will be Cotopaxi (5897m), starting out of base camp at midnight on the 15th. We arrive back in Quito that night after a hard climb. The ET team departs the next morning, leaving me alone to face Cayambe (5790m) or maybe Chimborazo (6310m), both very formidable peeks!
To stay in contact, I expect to post here as the ascents begin, hopefully with pictures too! Facebook and email are always stable platforms to contact me as well.

As Greg Mallory replied when asked why climb Everest:
"Because it's there... [A mountain's] existence is a challenge. The answer is instinctive, a part, I suppose, of man’s desire to conquer the universe.”