Always bet on the volcano

Spending hours chillin' in the lodge, waiting for the weather to break, allowed us to meet more new friends... including Katie and Dana from West Seattle.

They are a super cool couple attempting to bandit bag (without official guides) a few of the major volcano peaks through Ecuador.
As I mentioned in the last post, you can actually hike to the glacier without gear or guide, so the four of us adventurers decided to give it a crack... test the ole girl and her willingness to let us in.

We drove to the start of the trail head, err... so not so much a trail head as a general open face up...

To get a better sense of the sheer misery, check out this short video...

We finally made it to a small refuge, a way station for climbers to stay the night before a summit attempt, just below the glacier.

The crew universally agreed that the sound of a warm fire and a hot cup of tea was better than pressing on.
Judging from the weather, it was looking like Cotopaxi was out of our reach... oh well, plenty of other things to do to piss my mom off.
For some perspective, we climbed to just underneath the snow field in the photo below... not too shabby.
Katie and Dana are going to give the summit a go tonight... praying for you both to be safe.