Volcano Imbabura

Before we left for Christmas in the US, I had a chance to climb Imbabura with friend and co-volunteer Jonathan Spear. We left our house at 5 am, and were at the trailhead (up from Ibarra) at around 7 ish. We went at a  pretty good pace (I was definitely the one breathing the heaviest) and made it back to the house by 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Here we are just up from the grassy part, just under the rim of the volcano. 














Here is a shot of the rim that we transversed. The trail leads up to the northern side of the rim, but the highest part is on the southern edge. We hiked around the rim counterclockwise until we reached the summit.















Here is one of my awesome self portraits, looking down towards Otavalo and Quichinche. If you could zoom in a ton, you could see our house, just under the clouds.















Here are Jonathan and myself, at the summit. I was relieved to find out that the summit is just slightly higher than Mt. Whitney, which I had climbed earlier and which is the highest point in the continental US. I am really wanting to climb Cotapaxi, which is just shy of 20,000.