Pico de Orizaba, 5636m
Mexico, September 2022
After 13 months of non-stop traveling, my journey through Latin America was slowly coming to an end. However, I still had one major goal that I had been looking forward to for months: climbing Pico de Orizaba (Citlaltépetl). While I was in Nicaragua and climbed the country’s highest mountain (Cerro Mogotón on the border with Honduras), I met a Mexican woman at the summit who gave me a contact for climbing Pico de Orizaba. Several months later, I met up with Julio and another friend of his in Mexico City, from where we drove for several hours to a small village at the foot of Pico de Orizaba. There, we were kindly hosted by a Mexican family before heading to bed in the afternoon.
After climbing the Santa Maria Volcano in Guatemala in mid-June 2022, which stands at almost 4 thousand meters high, I hadn’t been at high altitude for about two months. Most of that time I spent at sea level on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts. However, for the last two weeks of my Latin America journey, I decided to head back to the mountains. I wanted to attempt to climb the three highest peaks in Mexico. Therefore, it was important for me to acclimatize first. My first goal for acclimatization was Cerro Tláloc (Tlálocatépetl). On this unspectacular but beautiful hike, I reached the 4-thousand-meter mark for the first time since Colombia seven months prior. Two days later, I was at „La Malinche,“ where I set up camp in a small cave at 4200 meters altitude and spent the night before climbing to the summit (4461 m) before sunrise.
After being at over 4 thousand meters altitude a few times again, I tackled the third highest mountain in Mexico, Itzaccíhuatl, at an altitude of 5230 meters. I was accompanied by some locals from Puebla, but on the day of the summit-push, a heavy storm forced us to turn back at around 4700 meters altitude. The very next day, I set out for Popocatépetl (5393m and Mexico’s second highest peak), but again, no luck with the weather, and we turned back at almost 5000 meters altitude on the second day of the tour. So unfortunately, no summit success twice, but it was still an exciting experience to be shown the mountains of Mexico by locals. Additionally, I spent another 4 days at high altitude, which was very good for my acclimatization.
Back to Pico the Orizaba: At 10 pm, the alarm went off and we had a quick breakfast before driving with a four-wheel-drive vehicle to Refugio Piedra Negra. From there, we continued on foot at midnight. There were about 1400 meters of altitude between us and the summit, so it was going to be a long day out. In the initially strong moonlight, we ascended to the glacier. There we roped up into a 3-person rope-team and began the ascent. Although the glacier was not technically demanding, it was still quite steep. Even with the first daylight, we were still surrounded by fog. After a while, we reached the crater rim of the volcano and continued the final part of the ascent. The fog cleared up a little bit, allowing us brief glimpses of the cloud cover below us. Then we made finally reached the summit and were standing at 5636 meters altitude, on the third highest mountain in North America, which is also the highest peak in Mexico.
We were rewarded for this success with a few rays of sunshine breaking through the clouds. However, it wasn’t very cozy at the summit. Icy cold and strong winds made us to start the descent relatively quickly. The descent was by far the most beautiful part of the tour. We took a slightly different route than the ascent and descended almost directly from the summit without following the crater rim. From the glacier, we had a breathtaking view of a sea of clouds below us, stretching to the horizon. The sun was now shining with full force, and it was a pure dream to descend the glacier in this scenery.
