by Jacob Schultz

It all started one day in July, fellow guides Nathan Spearing and Ben Wilcox came to me with a plan, “Let’s climb Pico de Orizaba this fall! Oh and we already booked our flights!” Pico de Orizaba is a stratovolcano located 75 miles inland from the port town of Veracruz and the Gulf Coast. It is the third highest peak in North America at 18,490 feet (5,636 meters). For some strange reason I was uncharacteristically hesitant to jump on board, but then, after a long night of McCarthy “shenanigans”, I realized I couldn’t let them go without me and booked my flight the next day. Mexico here we come!

Our trip started off in Mexico City; however two days before we were supposed to arrive I received a message from Ben. He had hit a deer while on a road trip in Colorado and totaled his car; ETA in Mexico City was now unknown…….but he said he’d be there. So Nathan and I headed south and met up in Mexico City, unsure and taking bets on when Ben might arrive. However, much to our surprise, some time around midnight, on his scheduled day of arrival, guess who walks through the door? A Mr. Ben Wilcox. Much to our amazement Ben found a rental car, drove over a thousand miles in one day and made it in time to catch his flight. So the adventure was on.

The next day we started our journey to the summit. We caught a bus to the small town of Tlachichuca. The town sits in the foothills of Orizaba and we spent two nights in town. There happened to be a festival that week and every night there were live bands, fireworks and 4 peso tacos. It was quite the experience. We then traveled by truck up to Piedra Grande Hut at 14,000ft. This is where we spent the next four days and it served as our “high camp” on Orizaba. Our first full day was spent acclimatizing by taking a hike up to about 15,800 feet. We went to bed early that night in hopes of a summit attempt the following morning. However, sleep at night was almost nonexistent; the wind was constant and up high on the mountain the clouds moved in. None the less we awoke at 2am and set out to give it ago. We reached the previous day’s high point of 15,800 feet and hunkered down till sunrise to see if the clouds would burn off. Unfortunately they didn’t, so we headed back down to the hutin hopes that it would be better weather the next day. We awoke the next morning, looked out the window and saw the same scene as the day before, nothing but clouds and wind up high. However a team that had summited the previous day told us that, although the weather wasn’t exactly pleasant, that it was still doable. So we saddled up and started upwards.

We set out 3am; visibility was clear until we hit about 16,000 feet. Once we entered the cloud layer, visibility dropped to around 10-15 yards. The wind was constant from the moment we left the hut. Winds speeds were averaging 40+ mph and gusting higher. As we climbed frost built up on our clothes and ice axes, but the team from the day before was right. It wasn’t exactly pleasant but it was doable, so we continued climbing, it kept us warm. Orizaba is a nontechnical climb, the altitude and the weather made it a mental battle. Once we got on the glacier the terrain steepened, and due to the low visibility it was difficult to tell how far we had come or how much we had left. We just kept trudging upwards knowing that every step brought us closer to the summit. At one point I glanced down at my altimeter and realized I was only 500 feet from the top. I stopped to catch my breath and as I looked around, the clouds parted. I grabbed my camera, snapped a few photos, and mentally psyched myself up for the last 500 feet. Ben was above me and had already summited. Nathan, unfortunately was headed down, his feet had become dangerously cold and was forced to turn around 700 feet from the summit. At around 9 am, on the 4^th of December Ben and I stood together on the summit. You could see 75 miles away to the Gulf of Mexico. We took a few photos, a video, and headed down. We met up with Nathan at the bottom of the glacier and the three of us headed down together.

While we waited for our ride to pick us up, we chatted about what to do with the week we had left. More climbing on another mountain? Or Coronas on the beach? Hmm… Tough call… Needless to say the Coronas won out. Cheers to Orizaba.