November 11, 2010

Next objective – Pico de Orizaba

La cumbre!!  Just as we knew, the team summited yesterday morning early.  Everyone who went to high camp went to the summit.  Pretty sweet.  Speaking of sweet, the showers much have been, too.  A quick hotel night in Puebla was well earned, but today it’s off to the town of Tlachichuca and up to the Piedre Grande hut on Orizaba.

No rest for the wicked.  This team has another mountain to climb.

Phil Ershler

November 10, 2010

Mexico SPOT trail to Ixta Summit!

We’ve been following their progress on the SPOT Tracker that George is carrying and it looks like our Mexico Team summitted this morning around 5:30am (PST). It’s not official until everybody is down safely but everything seems to be going as smoothly as George anticipated.

We’ll have a full recap after they get down to Puebla and have had a shower and a beer!

Tye Chapman

November 10, 2010

Photo by Miles Heritage

We heard again last evening from IMG partner, George Dunn, leading the November Mexico expedition.  Keep that good news coming, George.  High camp was established, weather remained perfect and the team was doing well.  One member decided he wasn’t quite up for the summit attempt and remained at the Altimoni Hut.  Nice part is that logistics on this trip make it easy for an individual without a health issue to remain at the Hut and not impact other team members.

The summit team should be nearing the summit even as we make this post.  And, we should be receiving confirmation of their success soon.  But the summit will be only the first milestone this day.  Then, the crew has to get down, break high camp, hiking back to the vehicle and then push to the city of Puebla for those much-anticipated showers.  Not many groups who aren’t excited about heading for the hotel after a climb, even if it means a long day.  Like many things, the pleasure is worth the pain.

Hope to be reporting on George’s team’s success at our next post.

Phil

November 9, 2010

Another Mexico expedition is well underway.  IMG partner, George Dunn, has broken away from our Ashford office to lead another expedition to the fun and sun of Mexico.  Assisting him are Austin Shannon and Fernando Posadas.  The guides were down in Mexico City late last week doing a bit of last minute shopping and prepping for the team’s arrival on Saturday.  For the last couple of days, they’ve been out acclimatizing near Paseo de Cortes.  As many times as some of our customers, and guides, have been to altitude, it’s still necessary to log some acclimatization time.  Just no way to short cut this process.  They headed to the Altzomoni Hut near the Cortes Pass yesterday, carried a load to high camp on Ixta and are heading to high camp this morning.  George called in yesterday to confirm that everyone’s in good health, strong and appear quite ready for these climbs.  As usual for this time of year, weather is simply perfect.

Tomorrow’s summit day.  It’s a long one.   Up around midnight, climb, descend and pack camp and bolt for showers in the city of Puebla.  The Ayoloco Glacier is calling first, however.

Ayoloco Glacier above high camp

Follow the team’s SPOT progress here.

Phil Ershler