I'll try to remember to take a pic while I'm up there. Sounds luxurious.

Cheeseburglar wrote:

Athos791 wrote:There's real outhouses at the Refugio?!? Thats awesome, should make the hut experience a little bit more comfortable this year.. For those of you who are going late season I will update conditions when I get back january 7th.

And to make the suspense even greater, I'll add this:
Our driver brought up a nice porcelein toilet seat when he came to pick us up.
I looked at it, and asked him what he was going to do with it. He said they were going to install it in one of the outhouses.
I'd love to see a picture of it installed. It may be nicer than the crapper I have in my condo.

Who did you drive up with Cheese? Just curious.. That should be very nice, I can't wait to try it out! If it's still there in January I'll take a picture and post it for you. You writing a trip report for this past trip?

Athos791 wrote:Who did you drive up with Cheese? Just curious.. That should be very nice, I can't wait to try it out! If it's still there in January I'll take a picture and post it for you. You writing a trip report for this past trip?

We got a ride from Paco Cobas (sp? Cabas?). Aka Geranimo (pronounced with a silent G).
I just started calling him Geranimo because I forgot his name.
His dad Philipe is referenced in Secor's book. Cool guys. Very flexible about timing. His mom and sister (who is hot) cooked us a really excellent mole meal.
I highly recommend him. I think he is a fireman or something in town for his real job. But that didn't seem to interfere with driving us around. He also guides with the other organizations in town and has been up there many times.
One of my partners is supposed to write a TR. He went to the beach for a week so he is probably busy drinking. It will be up soon.
By the way, my girlfriends doc told her she got HAPE up there...

Thanks for the info Cheese, I remember reading about him in my guidebook..

As for your girlfriend getting HAPE.. That is a scary thing, did she have any symptoms while climbing, did she summit, or turn around before hand? I've been in those shoes, and I never want to be in them again.. Glad she made it home okay!

Athos791 wrote:Thanks for the info Cheese, I remember reading about him in my guidebook..

As for your girlfriend getting HAPE.. That is a scary thing, did she have any symptoms while climbing, did she summit, or turn around before hand? I've been in those shoes, and I never want to be in them again.. Glad she made it home okay!

No symptons while climbing. She summited and skiied down.
On the second try.
Our first summit attempt we woke at 1am and she had a sort of fast pulse and pain in her chest and of course didn't sleep well. It was odd. Minor cough, nothing serious in my opinion. She didn't feel well and didn't want to go, so we bailed on that days attempt. It didn't really match any of the usual symptons used for diagnosis of AMS/HAPE/HACE and made me pretty nervous because I had no idea what was going on. So she tried to sleep while I monitored the situation. We descended to Tlachichula that day. After resting for the day and night we went on back up...
And got the summit. She ascended at a pace that was quite reasonable and most would be proud of...
She was fine until we got back to the states a couple days later. She puked a few times and had some diahrea after we got back. Doesn't sound like full blown HAPE to me, but I'm not a medical doctor. I hear a little fluid in the lungs can lead to pneumonia, so we are watching for that.

Interesting case... Glad to hear that she made it up and down safely. The thing that I am thinking when hearing this is that she got minor HAPE during the first attempt, and after descending, the symptoms subsided and left minor damage which can still be seen days later "according to my Doc." That's awesome the lower altitude helped and that she was able to summit on the next attempt!
Cheers,
Luke

Just returned. Weather was beautiful and the the Jamapa Glacier is in fine shape. Their are 2 new latrines near the Piedra Grande hut. Both are similiarly constructed.



I'm html challenged, the image may be seen at http://www.summitpost.org/image/574200/New-Latrine.html

Some recent photos:

http://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New ... 8213_x3Q45[/url]

piotrowski wrote:Some recent photos:

http://piotrowski.smugmug.com/Whats-New ... 8213_x3Q45[/url]

Very nice pictures.