It should have been a rest day

Prologue

If everything had gone according to plan, we would have climbed Chimborazo yesterday, and today would be a well earned rest day.

However, loads of fresh snow changed our plans and we didn't even travel to Chimborazo. Instead, we had a few easy hiking days up north, so why rest now? Let's go to Corazón!

The hike

Trying to avoid the daily dose of bad weather, Pablo and I started around 6 from the rather luxurious hotel next to the Machachi train station, where I had spent the night. Amazingly, on a pretty awful road he managed to drive his camioneta up to about 4250 m, so we didn´t have to hike all that far.

Occasionally, we needed our hands, but no real climbing was involved. After just over an hour and a half, we reached what appeared to be the summit - there was a cairn, not real big, but bigger than all the ones before.

As we sat down, I looked south along the ridge, and thought that I saw a slightly higher point. We walked along the ridge a few minutes more, crossing two more potential highest summits, before we reached a larger cairn on the next one. After that, the trail descended. My altimeter was not accurate enough to tell which of the four potential summits was the highest, but I think it was the third one, counting from the north.

The clouds had moved in on us just before reaching the summit - no more pictures on the hike down.

Images

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