General Information
Drive from Quito to Hosteria Reventador
Is a 3.5 to 4 hours drive through a paved road 176 km. Since our guide Victor Cansino was free at 1 am we went to San Rafael waterfall to make some time. Beautiful and amazing
place is a short 20 min hike down from the Ministerio del Ambiente office in the entrance to the hydro project camp just a block or two before you get to the hosteria.
This is a very interesting 2 days hike, with different vegetation trough it all. It is a 2 to 4 hours hike from the hosteria to the Caldera. It requires a good physical condition and good rain gear. It is possible to arrange hiring tents, sleeping’s and cooking stuff with Victor, so you don’t have to carry that weight. He leaves down from the hosteria you can see his house it has a satellite dish, we works for the hydro project company but we can make some time to guide you, this is his new mobile number (593) 09 7677176 it is Claro, no Movistar signal at the Hosteria.
We had a beautiful first day, no rain and clear sunny skies, at around 1 am it started to rain nonstop until we got out and drive back to Quito so we aborted our summit attempt. In those 12 hours of rain we encounter some new features on the path on our way back, like new landslides and trees blocking the path which played some tricks on our orientation since we just hired the guide to take us there and leave, but we manage to get out no problem. The trail is pretty well defined much of the way, machete is a good idea, rain gear essential, rubber boots a must.
Hosteria - Rio Reventador
We left the hosteria around one, we took a short cut from the back of the hosteria up to the main road that heads north to Lago Agrio, about some 20 minutes up on the main road we turn left right where the oil pipe (SOTE) coming down from a hill goes under the road, there is no sign but you cannot miss it, you go up the pipe line patch for some 30 min just before it gets very steep you enter the forest to the left. There are some fruit trees at the beginning of this trail, you continue this trail for about 20 min until you get to a stream bead, here you need to cross it and go up some 15 m to find the trail on the other side of the stream, continue on this well defined trail for some 20 minutes until you get to rio reventador (first rest stop), there are some nice pool here to take a bath (if the weather is nice)
Rio Reventador – Half the way
The trail on this part is some 30 m up on the other side of the river there is a red liston on a tree some 2 m up in the trail, here you go up for a little while and then is gently up until you wet to some big trees blocking the path, you will have to negotiate them and continue with some little ups and downs and crossing some small streams until you get to bigger seasonal steam, here you will continue walking on the river bed for some 200 m sometimes on the bed, some on a path on the left or right along the river. Then the trail continues on the right up and out of this river. From here you will go on a gently up trail until you go up and down a hill, cross a stream and up again to the top of a hill were you can hear the highway traffic.
We crained some of the main trail start when you cross the rivers, hopefully they will be there in the future.
Half the way – water source
You go down the top of this hill, there is a big tree blocking the way, then you go up again to find another big mass of vegetation blocking the path, once you negotiate this you will soon get in to a different type of vegetation, according to our guide it is due the 70’s lava flow, the vegetation here is not tall at all and there are many hidden holes between the rocks so be careful. After an hour or so you get to the beginning of a little up hill here to the left you can hear a waterfall coming dong the wall, it is a 20 minute walk to that good water source.
Water source – Caldera camp site
From here you have a steep up hill, close to the top you may be able to see the volcano on your right hand side. You continue this path for a while which eventually gets flat and very buggy, after some 30 minutes you will be out in the clear, the camp site is on the left, you will pass some old camp site with some half burned wood and some plastic containers. There is water source some 10 m south the camp site, it is milky looking water from the mineral, we filtered and boiled no problem.
Page Type:
GPX File:
Date Climbed/Hiked:
Activities:
Season:
Comments
Post a Comment