UKC

Hi all,
My wife and I are thinking of going to do Chimorazo,partly for ourselves but also to visit one of the charities that my wife is involved with which is close by (sos village d'enfant) and we would like to know if anyone has experience there with guides or could pass on some information etc
Any help would be much appreciated

Thank you
Burly

In reply to Burly1973:
Did you read this? https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=21737

I don't remember whether we booked into the refuge or not, it was a very deceptive walk to get to it, my hot water bottle leaked, so I spent much of the night drying my sleeping bag in front of the fire, my partner had food poisoning, so we had to turn around and one of the guides in the hut pinched my sunglasses!

Summitpost seems to have the latest information about chimbo conditions. I just read the page and note that it says you have to have a guide. This was the case in Peruvian cordillera blanca and a BMC membership card was sufficient to prove guide status. In the comments it talks about staying in the refuge a few days to acclimatise, which I'd second, going for higher walls in the second and third days to hang about as long as you can as high as you can and sleep low, though this depends on you being acclimatised to 5000m first!

Acclimatisation would be my biggest drag, it's high, so preliminary acclimatisation can only go so far. (Illinizia Norte, Cotopaxi, in my case.)

In reply to jonnie3430:

Thank you for the feedback...the more info the better

Thanks

In reply to Burly1973:

I tried it in Oct or Nov '12. Was actually traveling on my own, but wanted to get some climbing in on the way. I had been up Cotopaxi a week earlier. Booked a guide and (what I guess you could call) an 'all inclusive package' for 2 days through a hostel in Latacunga for 250$. The guide was local, super friendly and really knowledgeable (he had climbed Chimborazo like 300 times), but spoke no English (my broken Spanish was enough though).

We were driven to the hut, where we stayed the night, then tried to climb from the hut to the summit the next day. Turned around at about 6000m as it had snowed so much (and was still snowing) that the avalanche risk was increasingly high. Went back to bed and drove back to town later that day. Shame, but that's what mountaineering is!

I remember the hut being pretty basic, but we got dinner and as far as I can remember breakfast there. Altitude was no problem for me, though I've found my body is pretty good with that sort of a thing. I assume most guide hire places will have a similar sort of deal.

In reply to MSchobitz:

Thanks for the info