Cotopaxi

When we were in ecuador me and my dad climbed Cotopaxi. It is the highest active volcano in the world at 20,000 feet high. Me and my dad didn't get to the toput we got pretty close. We got to 17,000 feet. The day before we got picked up at our hotel and drove to the lodge at the base of the mountain. There we had a late lunch and dinner befor sleeping for about two hours befor geting up to climb at 11:00. We didn't get much sleep so it was a very tiring climb. We drove to parkin wich is abotut 500 feet above the base of the volcano. There we got our gear on and started climbing at night with only headlamps to see. The first part of the climb to the refuge was just as steep as every thing else but what made it hard was that it was like hiking a beach at a 50% angle, it was so sandy. When i got to the refuge i was so hot after the houre hike. I had four layers on and it was hot to be in all of those cloths. I had long jons, a sweater, a down coat, and a shell. I took off the down coat and put a thinner coat on and put the other coat in my back pack. I was still hot at 15,000 feet above sea level. We also had got on our crampons and roped up for the glature ahead of us. After the fefuge we hiked for a few more hours on a 50% angle glature with nothing around to hang on to exept your ice axe. I finally got to tired that we had to go down at about 17,000 feet. I reallised that i did not get enough sleep and that i needed to be in a little better shape. We then heded down and thats where i relized really how tired i was, i was litterally falling down onto the snow wanting to sleep. When we finally got to the car i took my gear off and went strait to sleep in the back of the car. We drove to the lodge where wepacked and got a couple hours of sleep before dirving back to quito. It was a life chanding expeariance that i hope to do again, i will not forget that trip. During the trip it was perfect wether and that made it even more of a great trip.