Route Climbed: Standard Direct Date Climbed: 29 October 2000
Left the refugio in the dark in clear skies. Had perfect conditions and were on top in two hours. We watched the sunrise from the summit and downclimbed the route back to the hut.
Route Climbed: Normal Route Date Climbed: July 27, 2005
Left the refugio in wet, windy, and poor visibility conditions. We went the lower route to reach the glacier to avoid rockfall but had route finding problems. After 3 hours, we finally reached the glacier but by then, we were completely soaked and were covered in ice from head to toe.
We pushed on for little while on the glacier but we finally turned around approx. 600 feet from the summit. We were pretty cold and prospect of down climbing in poor weather made the decision easy for us.
Route Climbed: normal route Date Climbed: Jna 18, 2005
Great climb, the technical part of it was much shorter than what I had anticipated, didn't place any pro and did a couple of running belays on the way back, other than that the route was great and the climb has amazing views.
The ascent we went around the ridge and over the glacier. The descent we shortcutted over the glacier on ice, it was faster but a little more risky.
Route Climbed: Normal Route Date Climbed: January 18, 2005
Excellent climb! I learned this lesson the hard way, so please take heed:
when they say the approach to the hut takes 3 hours- don't take it as a challenge to do it faster. I did it in 2hours 20minutes. The next day (summit day) I was more fatigued than I needed to be from racing up the approach (which gained me NOTHING, except for this valuable lesson)
about 4 hours to the summit and 1.5 back down I believe. Great, well actually Amazing views! Plenty of fun exposure. Snow pack was stable and hard. We traveled over quite a bit of glacial ice that had little or no snow. Crampons were absolutley necessary. I brought 2 technical tools (BD Vipers) and an ice axe. It was fun to have both tools, but 1 would have been enough in conjunction with my ice axe (BD Raven Pro 65 cm)
big_g - Aug 13, 2004 6:05 pm Date Climbed: Aug 12, 2004
Route Climbed: Ruta Normal
Had an experience similar to Tom's below minus the 40 others in the refuge! Yikes there's only 14 bunks!
Wonderful climb and my favorite in Ecuador. Great weather and some views but not from the summit.
Route Climbed: Normal Route Date Climbed: January 2, 2004
Definitely my favorite climb in Ecuador. We left the refuge at 5:30 (after spending the night with 40 others) and arrived on the summit at 9:00. The weather was not that good (low visibility), but snow conditions were excellent. One pitch of 75-80 degrees just above the first major crevasse (rotten ice) and a few shorter steep sections. We climbed following the red line on the route overview photo, passing to the right of the rock island below the summit. The summit cornice was really impressive (icy and hollow). On descent, we rappelled once from an in situ picket to pass the crux pitch, but otherwise downclimbed with no difficulty.
Route Climbed: La Rampa/Normal Routes Date Climbed: December 28, 2002
After we climbed Illiniza Norte, most of the memebers ofour climbing party decided to take a day off. Thus i made a decision to do a SOLO climb on the Illiniza Sur following the La Rampa Route and combing back on the Normal Route. I depart at 8:00 am. After 30 min of walking on the glassier the slope suddenly became over 60 deg. The ice condition was terrible. My iceaxe penetrated the ice only by 2 cm. Then the 60 deg slope turned into 75-85 deg for about 3 vertical meters. Once i made it through then i easlily climbed through the rock ridge and reached the "mushrum", the point where La Rampa and Normal routes meet. The weather conditions became terrible. The visibility was only 7 m. Thus, taking into consideration the fact that i lost radio and was not able to comunicate with my climbing group for consecutive 3 hours, i made the decition to come back to base camp. If not he weather i would defenetly go all the way to the top. I was standing only 7m (vertical) from the summit
Route Climbed: Normal Date Climbed: January 4, 2003
With my wife Annica Carlsson, I was climbing in the middle of lots of mist and fog, we could not see 10 feet away!. We believe we got about 20 to 50 meters away from the summit, climbing about 98% of the route. We confirmed this later on after talking to a guide that climbed the route the day after we attemped the summit.
We started the climb kind of late, 6:30 AM, and not knowing how far we where into the summit ridge by 10:50 AM, we decided to bail out. We belived that this was a good decision, since the climb has several sustained 60-70 degrees snow and icy sections and 3 large, bridged crevasses to cross and the summit has a cornice. The day was not very cold and we were concerned about the condition of the snow. Iliniza Sur is definetelly a must-do for the alpine aficionado.
Climbed with Matt "dad" Sherman and Linda Josephson. Stayed in tent next to rather grim and dirty refugio. Excellent snow conditions. Placed a few stakes for running belays both ascending & descending. Sunny summit with nice view of other volcanoes including Cotopaxi.
climberben - Dec 25, 2005 9:07 pm
Route Climbed: Standard Direct Date Climbed: 29 October 2000Left the refugio in the dark in clear skies. Had perfect conditions and were on top in two hours. We watched the sunrise from the summit and downclimbed the route back to the hut.
esugi - Aug 5, 2005 11:00 pm
Route Climbed: Normal Route Date Climbed: July 27, 2005Left the refugio in wet, windy, and poor visibility conditions. We went the lower route to reach the glacier to avoid rockfall but had route finding problems. After 3 hours, we finally reached the glacier but by then, we were completely soaked and were covered in ice from head to toe.
We pushed on for little while on the glacier but we finally turned around approx. 600 feet from the summit. We were pretty cold and prospect of down climbing in poor weather made the decision easy for us.
I'll try again some day.
RModelli - Feb 20, 2005 9:19 pm
Route Climbed: normal route Date Climbed: Jna 18, 2005Great climb, the technical part of it was much shorter than what I had anticipated, didn't place any pro and did a couple of running belays on the way back, other than that the route was great and the climb has amazing views.
The ascent we went around the ridge and over the glacier. The descent we shortcutted over the glacier on ice, it was faster but a little more risky.
neoday - Feb 15, 2005 1:10 pm
Route Climbed: Normal Route Date Climbed: January 18, 2005Excellent climb! I learned this lesson the hard way, so please take heed:
when they say the approach to the hut takes 3 hours- don't take it as a challenge to do it faster. I did it in 2hours 20minutes. The next day (summit day) I was more fatigued than I needed to be from racing up the approach (which gained me NOTHING, except for this valuable lesson)
about 4 hours to the summit and 1.5 back down I believe. Great, well actually Amazing views! Plenty of fun exposure. Snow pack was stable and hard. We traveled over quite a bit of glacial ice that had little or no snow. Crampons were absolutley necessary. I brought 2 technical tools (BD Vipers) and an ice axe. It was fun to have both tools, but 1 would have been enough in conjunction with my ice axe (BD Raven Pro 65 cm)
big_g - Aug 13, 2004 6:05 pm Date Climbed: Aug 12, 2004
Route Climbed: Ruta NormalHad an experience similar to Tom's below minus the 40 others in the refuge! Yikes there's only 14 bunks!
Wonderful climb and my favorite in Ecuador. Great weather and some views but not from the summit.
igor cazes - Jul 10, 2004 3:15 pm
Route Climbed: normal route Date Climbed: 15 february 1997Me and Alexandre reached the top of this eroded volcano whith bad weather and no views.
One of the most technicals normal routes in Equador.
Tom Fralich - Jan 3, 2004 10:29 am
Route Climbed: Normal Route Date Climbed: January 2, 2004Definitely my favorite climb in Ecuador. We left the refuge at 5:30 (after spending the night with 40 others) and arrived on the summit at 9:00. The weather was not that good (low visibility), but snow conditions were excellent. One pitch of 75-80 degrees just above the first major crevasse (rotten ice) and a few shorter steep sections. We climbed following the red line on the route overview photo, passing to the right of the rock island below the summit. The summit cornice was really impressive (icy and hollow). On descent, we rappelled once from an in situ picket to pass the crux pitch, but otherwise downclimbed with no difficulty.
Zhenya77 - Jan 23, 2003 7:44 pm
Route Climbed: La Rampa/Normal Routes Date Climbed: December 28, 2002After we climbed Illiniza Norte, most of the memebers ofour climbing party decided to take a day off. Thus i made a decision to do a SOLO climb on the Illiniza Sur following the La Rampa Route and combing back on the Normal Route. I depart at 8:00 am. After 30 min of walking on the glassier the slope suddenly became over 60 deg. The ice condition was terrible. My iceaxe penetrated the ice only by 2 cm. Then the 60 deg slope turned into 75-85 deg for about 3 vertical meters. Once i made it through then i easlily climbed through the rock ridge and reached the "mushrum", the point where La Rampa and Normal routes meet. The weather conditions became terrible. The visibility was only 7 m. Thus, taking into consideration the fact that i lost radio and was not able to comunicate with my climbing group for consecutive 3 hours, i made the decition to come back to base camp. If not he weather i would defenetly go all the way to the top. I was standing only 7m (vertical) from the summit
El Tigre Valderrama - Jan 5, 2003 3:57 pm
Route Climbed: Normal Date Climbed: January 4, 2003With my wife Annica Carlsson, I was climbing in the middle of lots of mist and fog, we could not see 10 feet away!. We believe we got about 20 to 50 meters away from the summit, climbing about 98% of the route. We confirmed this later on after talking to a guide that climbed the route the day after we attemped the summit.
We started the climb kind of late, 6:30 AM, and not knowing how far we where into the summit ridge by 10:50 AM, we decided to bail out. We belived that this was a good decision, since the climb has several sustained 60-70 degrees snow and icy sections and 3 large, bridged crevasses to cross and the summit has a cornice. The day was not very cold and we were concerned about the condition of the snow. Iliniza Sur is definetelly a must-do for the alpine aficionado.
jasonconnell - Sep 7, 2002 1:39 pm
Route Climbed: Standard Date Climbed: Nov 12 1999See trip Report
BicRungee - Jul 10, 2002 3:23 pm
Route Climbed: Normal Date Climbed: January, 2001Climbed with Matt "dad" Sherman and Linda Josephson. Stayed in tent next to rather grim and dirty refugio. Excellent snow conditions. Placed a few stakes for running belays both ascending & descending. Sunny summit with nice view of other volcanoes including Cotopaxi.