Pico de Orizaba

Hi Readers,

During Thanksgiving break, I went on a trip to Mexico with my friend GS, with the primary focus being a summit of Pico de Orizaba (5,636 m / 18,491 ft), a volcanic mountain which is the 3rd tallest mountain in North America (after Denali / Mt. McKinley in Alaska, and Mt. Logan in Canada). Here is the full story of the journey to and from the mountain, in case it is helpful for those who will go.

From Mexico City, we first took the metro to the San Lazaro station, and walked to the TAPO bus station right next door. From there, we took the Estrella Roja bus to Puebla city's CAPU bus station, before transferring to a Valles bus to Tlachichuca.

Once in Tlachichuca, it took us awhile to find Senor Reyes place because we took the wrong exit out of the bus station and apparently nobody in town knew where the PEMEX gas station was. Make sure to exit the bus station by going through the building it is stopped at (and not out the road it drove in on), turn left out the front door, make a left at the first street you come to, and make a right at the first street after that. Senor Reyes place will be on the left hand of this street. We found Senor Reyes place too cold at night, so be sure you wear layers or just sleep in a sleeping bag.

The next morning we woke up early to prepare for the trip. You can put your valuables that you don't want to take in a plastic bag and give it to Senor Reyes for safekeeping ; non-valuables can be put in the luggage storage area. The ride up the mountain is done in an enclosed flatbed truck, which leaves at around 11am. It is easy to get carsick in this truck, so make sure you prep for that if that is a problem. Halfway up the mountain the truck will stop for pictures and bathroom break. Around 1pm the truck will arrive at Piedra Grande.

We felt good enough to hike up to the lower alpine camp right away and set up a camp there. Many people just stay at Piedra until summit day, but just a word of warning: the scree trail up from Piedra can be confusing even during the day. Constantly look for small flags and/or cairns (small rock piles) to guide you up the correct way. The lower alpine camp is around an hour and a half from Piedra, and the upper alpine is located a further 45 mins further, at the base of the labyrinth. We weren't really able to sleep either of the nights that we stayed at the mountain, and we didn't have Diamox so we don't know if it helps at all. Upon returning, I amused my friends with stories of hallucinations during these 2 nights without sleep.

We spent the second day around the labyrinth area to acclimatize, and the morning of the third day (2am) we did the alpine start. This was much earlier than we needed to leave at, but we wanted a relaxing climb. We wasted a lot of time at the labyrinth trying to find the correct path that required as little rock scrambling as possible after putting on crampons. In the dark it was quite hard, and by the time we reached the glacier it was about 5:30.

As naive as we are, we thought that we would be able to reach the top by sunrise. Once you start climbing, it doesn't take long to realize how long the actual climb will be. The glacier seems quite endless and the lack of oxygen becomes quite apparent very quickly. We spent close to 4 hours on the glacier before we reached the summit. On this part, you should stick to the path shown by the flags and not try to head towards the summit that you see, because this is a false summit (and there are two more false summits if you head this way).

Reaching the summit was a great feeling. We had missed the sunrise and there were a lot of clouds, but the view was still amazing. It was a cool thought, that we were probably the tallest people anywhere on the North American continent at that moment (because it is not a typical time to climb Denali or Logan). We took the descent very slowly because there was another group behind us who were supposed to return on the same ride back down. Therefore by the time we got down to Piedra it was 3 already (the other group finally arrived at 6pm). One of the guys from the other group had peed his pants on the glacier because he was so tired.

After getting back to Mexico city, we spent another 4 days there, and saw places like Teotihuacan, Coyoacan, and the Museo Anthropologia. It was quite an amazing trip overall, even though the entire sleepless time on the mountain, I was cursing myself for coming. Chalk up another awesome life experience!

-FCDH