#YoloCoto

     2021: I decided would be the year I did things I was bad at. I picked routes with foot cutting dynos, big moves, small crimps, and intense drop knees. I TRIED not to knee bar as much, I really did! I worked hard to get better at running. I attempted to obtain my Certified Emergency Nurse specialization (I suck at tests and this was one was no different. Spoiler alert: I failed the exam). I applied for a new certificate outside of my realm of ER nursing to broaden my scope of practice and open some new doors. So when the option came up to climb a 19,347 ft volcano in Ecuador to celebrate Emily and Adrian’s pre-wedding ceremony with 42 of the most impressive athletes I had grown up idolizing, now was certainly not the time to say "no." (#Yolocoto)

Gorgeous pink alpenglow on Cotopaxi the night before our ascent

    Brooks, Katy, Ciara, Naomi, and I did our first test hike on Mount Sopris in Carbondale, CO at the end of September. I knew we had a lot of work to put in when Ciara and I could barely make the hike back down from the steep talus due to knee pain. On the drive home from that hike, I found out Cotopaxi was a glacier and that kinda changed everything. I really REALLY dislike the snow and cold. I own next to nothing when it comes to cold weather gear. But keeping true to my goals of getting out of my comfort zone, I spent the next 6 weeks training to hike steep hills, re-taught myself how to run to strengthen my heart, learned about tight IT band issues and foam rolled my way to new Cotopaxi ready knees. I spent a few weeks in the New River Gorge (*cough* sea level) prior to heading to Ecuador, where Katy, Tyler, Brooks and myself trained in the cold on Kaymoors’ 821 stairs. All we had to do now was acclimatize.

Mount Sopris

We spent a wonderful 5 days in Ecuador prior to our summit push, slowly attempting to acclimatize. Each hike was the highest I had ever been in my life and I sure did feel it each time. Pounding headaches, severe nausea, dizziness, and confusion at the tops of the climbs clouded my head and made me question if Cotopaxi was indeed something I could do. I was determined though, as I now had healthy knees and a partner (Ciara) as psyched as I was to push it as far as we possibly could for the summit.  

Rucu Pichincha 1st summit of trip at 15,400 ft with Katy, Emily, Ciara, Jill

    The evening of Dec 6 was supposed to start with a 4 hour nap after dinner. I laid in bed, hoping for whatever shut eye I could scrounge before our summit push. Nothing ever happened as I anxiously went through everything I didn’t want to forget on the volcano in my head. We woke at 10 pm to some ‘light snacks' (aka bread and jelly) and coffee and boarded the bus. We stepped out of the bus at the base of the hike at 15,500 ft and the first thing I remember thinking is,  “Wow, the weather is nicer than I expected!” (maybe around 40 degrees F), attempting to be optimistic. As we were packing our bags the wind began to howl around us, kicking up dirt and thrashing it into our unprotected eyes. I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh I really hope it isn’t like this the whole way up.”

Pre Coto climb

    We began the long, sandy slog to the hut where I discovered that my entire Camelback of 1.5 L of water had disappeared. Nothing of mine was wet, but I later found out Brooks’ pack was soaked (insert INTENSE guilt here). Nacho, our guide for the climb, was able to get me 1 liter of hot water (thank god because my Camelback tube froze on the upper half of the climb and the hot water helped to unfreeze it). After getting our wits about us at the hut, we embarked on another slog up beautiful, red clay looking dirt, which feels pretty difficult in the stiff mountaineering boots. This combo of hikes took us about 1 hour to reach the glacier. We were ready for crampons. After Ciara happily and proudly exclaimed, “Check it out Nacho, I did it!” Nacho looked at the crampons and found that she put them on the wrong feet. He should have known right then that our climb was going to be a cluster-fuck.  He ended up helping Ciara and I strap on our crampons correctly and we were off, Nacho in front, tied to me in the middle (since I was the slowest) and Ciara in the back. 

Glacier training day with Brooks, Walter, Tyler, Ciara and Nacho

    The initial snow section felt pretty uneventful, mostly just head down walking on a glacier in the pitch dark with the stars glowing above us. The next part was what I called ‘The Slushie Snow,’ a steep one step forward, two steps back type climb. This part began to feel pretty hard and I was surprised how steep it was. As I looked up at the headlights of our friends climbing above us, I realized the WHOLE CLIMB was steeper than I thought it was! There were headlights above us, nearly the whole time.  The next section I called ‘The Steps Through the Glacier.’ They were literally carved steps in the middle of a chunk of ice. If the sun was up, I feel like this would have felt extremely exposed and scary, but luckily we could barely see anything, except for the knife-like icicles hanging beside us that glistened every once in a while when we turned our headlamps to see them. I was psyched for the way down when we could witness more of this beauty! Little did I know at that moment how unlikely a scenario that was.

View of the summit, right before the Wind Ridge. 
One of the very few photos I took while descending

  At around 17,000 ft elevation, I began to feel a little nausea and some headache, but definitely nothing I couldn’t deal with. I kept remembering what Emily said, “You can do anything for 12 hours! It’s all about how much you can suffer.” At that moment, I was about a 6 on my ‘Suffering Scale’ of 1-10 (yes I made this up for my own mental awareness). Upon exiting yet another steep stretch, my stomach was in knots and I was getting short of breath quicker. It felt like I had a stomach bug, like I could do both at the same time and feel a lot better (if you know what I mean). I was struggling to make it up to some pretty easy parts. Honnold was walking past us at the time and saw my struggle. He encouraged me to take care of what I needed to do ASAP so as to not be in pain for the next 6 hours. Just then, Adrian, Emily and crew showed up from behind us! Adrian asked how I was doing and I couldn’t even form words. He saw my demise and said, “Jill, don't go to sleep!” and Emily said, “Oh good, that’s how you’re supposed to feel!” (One of the reasons why I love her, always finds the positive in everything and will make you laugh no matter what). At that point I realized Alex was right and I should try to take care of myself before trying to continue. I took his advice and pooped in a wag bag for the first time ever approximately 5 feet from the entire crew because I literally couldn’t walk any further by myself (sorry TMI). My suffering went from 6 to like 3. I was good to go! This is the point when Ciara was feeling really cold (maybe around 4:30 am) and Nacho actually had to dress her in her puffy pants. We were like children that needed constant care, it was pretty hilarious to be honest. All of the sudden, she was back to “normal” and ready to push on as well. I had it in my head that I just wanted to make it to the sunrise and then maybe I would get a second wind. 

Insane view of the sun rising behind us, Ciara and Nacho

    We continued on for another hour or so, eventually the sun coming up behind us. The view was insane, we were literally on top of the clouds and the snow mounds looked like dollops of marshmallows. We did end up getting pretty psyched because it warmed up a lot. With that though, the higher we went the more intense the wind became. We got to a spot that we all now call the ‘Wind Ridge,’ and my sickness came back again. The wind was pummeling all three of us, knocking us over left and right. We were using all the strength in our arms to use our ice axe and trekking pole just to stay upright. At this point, I was crying, unable to get my body to do what I wanted it to do due to pure exhaustion, lack of oxygen at 18,500 ft, and > 60 mph winds. Ciara and I would go back and forth, I would fall over and sit for a minute, catch my breath, and try to will myself to go on, then I would feel the rope get taut and look back and Ciara would be sitting down with her head in her hands, trying to will herself to go on. This happened for the entire 45 minutes on the Wind Ridge. 

Video by Adrian Ballinger nearing the summit, EPIC

    We finally found a place that was semi-protected and sat for about 10 minutes. At this point I did not think I could go on, my head and neck were pounding, nausea was rearing its head every few minutes, fingers were frozen. My buff was so wet from snot and tears and the wind was so intense that it felt like I was wearing a sheet of ice on the lower half of my face. Ciara really wanted to try to summit. I asked Nacho how far it would be and he said probably another 1.5 hours! I looked up and saw a steep incline to the summit, but also saw people on their way back down. I told Nacho, “I’ll go down with them! You guys go on without me!” Nacho sat in front of us, looked us both in the eye and gave us the most authentic pep talk saying, “I am proud of you two. I understand if you want to try for summit but making it this far is an accomplishment. Especially in these conditions!” That conversation was extremely validating and we felt a sense of liberation to have gained Nacho's respect, so much so that I had tears in my eyes (from happiness this time). It was the first time he put the decision in our hands and was going to back our decision 100%. He had dealt with so much of our llama drama up to that point and was really trying to get us to the summit. He said that it was not possible to split up, we needed to make a decision and all go together either way. At this point, more of the wedding party came up behind us to also take cover. Logan said, “I don't care what you guys decide but you need to make a decision RIGHT NOW.”  I thought for a second, this moment could mark the end of Ciara and I’s friendship, but at the time I didn’t have the energy to care. Since the decision was essentially 2 against 1, I gave in and said I would try to summit (albeit VERY reluctantly).  

Me being a drama llama and wanting to turn around

Nacho, Ciara, and I got up to walk towards the summit and instantly all fell over. Nacho shoved his crampons and ice axe into the snow and for the first time looked really unsteady. I became instantly fearful and cried out, “I AM NOT MOVING FORWARD! I REFUSE! I AM GOING BACK!” Never have I protested like that before. I was terrified for us at that moment. We were exhausted, winds were crazy scary, there was a daunting sheet of ice below us and it felt like we could fall straight down and never stop, and we still had to get back! Even Nacho seemed a little hesitant to move on. Ciara gave in and decided then that we should all turn back. 

Nacho, Me, Ciara above the clouds on the Wind Ridge
Photo by: Kolin Powick 

At first we were going pretty slow but once we got out of the Wind Ridge we tried to hustle. I began to feel really bad again, the nausea was incessant and my head and neck were pounding so much it felt like my brain was herniating down into my spinal cord. My nurse brain started to freak myself out thinking about my vital signs and head pressure. At one point during one of our very short breaks, I laid down in the snow and watched it glisten. I thought to myself, 'I could pass out right here. I could maybe not wake up, and I’m okay with that.’ I shook my aching head and snapped out of it, I made myself get up and keep trucking. I began dry heaving, thinking if I could just vomit maybe the nausea would go away. Ciara was in front at this point, and kept asking, “Should I slow down?” I responded between obnoxious retching, “NO, FASTER!!!” I knew I just had to get down and I would likely start feeling better.

We made our descent, passing the beautiful, majestic icicles on the way down. Ciara said, “Ouuu Jill do you have your phone handy!?” I couldn't even think about stopping to take a picture at that moment. We hustled on. When we got to the vast sea of hilly snow, Nacho had a brilliant idea. “We will slide, sit down!” We did as we were told and, like sleigh dogs with Ciara up front, me in the middle and Nacho in the back, we slid down the hill with Nacho as our Musher. I could barely do anything to help so I just tried to keep my butt down and my crampons up and not smash Ciara in the head. 

Nacho head in hands thinking, "Seriously another break?"
Ciara enjoying a 5 second rest during our descent
Me taking a pic so that Ciara didn't hate me hahaha

A little further down, Nacho unclipped us from the rope and let us slide down the rest of the hill and use our ice axes to self arrest. “Make sure not to go too fast, it is easy to lose control!” I was thinking EFF THAT DUDE I NEED TO GET DOWN. I began to slide and would turn over to arrest myself and each time I stopped I would lay my head down and felt like I could just go to sleep. At one point I saw Walter and he said something to me and I had no energy to hear him or answer him, I just kept on sliding (sorry Walt!).

Once I got to the dirt, crampons were off, and I channeled my inner Michael Jackson and moon walked/slid my way down as fast as I could. Eventually, I made it to the hut and needed some respite from the vicious wind so I laid down on the cold cement floor and I instantly started sobbing! I was just so happy to be down and in one piece. Alex walked past me and was happy to see that I made it down okay and even offered to carry my pack down the rest of the way for me. One of the guides/super mountaineering badasses, Carl, walked past and asked if I needed a hand and put his out for me. You definitely can't turn down the hand of someone who has set the speed record for climbing Cotopaxi (1.5 hours! SERIOUSLY?!). I got up and moon walked the rest of the way back down to the parking lot where the winds continued to howl. I was delayering in one of the buses and looked out and saw Ciara laying down on the ground, laughing her ass off. I later found out that she was actually swept off her feet and landed straight on her ass. That wind was no joke! We ended up back at the parking lot approximately 9.5 hours after beginning our ascent.

Absolutely drained, mentally and physically.
But so happy to have given our best.

We drove back to the hostel and waited for the others and shared stories. I am super proud to have had Ciara as a partner, as I truly believe we tried our absolute hardest and pushed as far as I think we safely could. It took a few days to process this experience, but looking back now, I can say we had a ton of fun, and absolutely suffered the hardest we could. Almost every single person had some EPIC story, many agreeing that the wind was a true crux. One of our crew, Jason, was attempting to ski down and was actually picked up off the ground by the wind. Luckily, someone grabbed him out of the air and slammed him back down. They ended up having to ski down an alternate route for safety and then had an intense down climbing adventure. Many of us got sick, some vomited several times but still made it to the summit (absolute crushers). Brooks made it to the summit but had used up every ounce of his will to get there. Once on the summit, he crashed hard, with some pretty serious delirium and much difficulty getting back down. He was given dexamethasone which likely helped his situation, and felt okay once he was down at the hut. Thankfully, Emily and Adrian seemed to have a great time, joining a lot of the crew on the summit for a pre-wedding summit celebration and then skiing down on the most perfect powder they could ask for.

The ski crew, like kids in a candy store. 

Video by: Brooks Walker

Needless to say, attempting to climb Cotopaxi was the most epic thing I have ever done. Some people talk about having spiritual awakenings and I never really understood it. I may still not understand it, but I do know I came back from that trip a different person. I have never felt support and camaraderie like that from people I barely knew, but now view as family. The sense of tribe and accomplishment despite technically 'failing,' is something I will strive to incorporate into my life as much as I possibly can.

The best crew and guides we could have asked for

I have a new outlook now on failure, as I have spent the year doing a lot of just that. I realize we try to chase these certain goals, but the learning does not come from the success, it comes from the journey and the people you surround yourself with. Life will always have peaks and valleys and this year taught me to enjoy the valleys as much at the peaks. Thanks to all who have joined me on this journey. I can’t wait to continue to fail with all of you by my side. 

View from the Summit 
Photo by: Carla Perez ( <3)