Itza

After not getting a chance to make much of an attempt at Pico de Orizaba I decided to try to climb another mountain, Itzacewatle (sp, totally wrong, btw). I turned in my rental gear, and drove west towards Mexico City. I needed to run a few errands on the way, including improving my food supply and purchasing a new knit hat (I had somehow lost my hat in the week prior). As running errands in Mexico seems to take quite a bit of time, I fell behind on my drive to Itza. This was not helped by the fact that the road, which seemed to be a freeway on my Mexico County map turned into a dirt road on the way to the mountain. 30 miles of dirt road later, with night oncoming, I decided to try and find a camp ground. The first campground I found was charging an outlandish 200 pesos for a night of camping at a strange disney style resort. I elected to save my 200 pesos and drive the motorbike into the woods about half a mile away from the resort. This is picture of where I camped. Thankfully someone had grazed their cattle in this area recently, so I could see the ground easily and avoid the barb wire that was strung across the area. I chose a spot a good distance from the road so I would have a bit of privacy and hopefully be out of harms way. Things worked out well, and the only thing I had to worry about that evening was animals that might have tried to eat my leftover dinner.



-----------------
OK. Sorry folks, out of time. I have other plans for the night!

Take care! And sorry dad to hear about Ken!
-----------------



The next day I set up my tent next to Itza. Here is a picture from the mountain valley where I camped. Beautiful! I ate a large meal for dinner and went to bed early in prepration for another early morning climb. This was the highest elevation I pushed the bike. I was successful in running the bike to the trailhead, an even 4000 m of elevation.


After sleeping in until 2:30 and leaving the camp ground at 3:30 AM I started to climb. This is a picture West from the mountain towards Mexico City. I took this picture at about 4:30 AM from about 4500 m.



Unfortunately this was the last picture I was able to take as the batteries ran out on my camera. This is picture East towards the rising sun, at about 6:30 AM. The gray horizon we see is the cloud ceiling stretching East towards Vera Cruz and the Caribean Sea.

I ended up climbing until about 10:45, and summited several peaks without ever reaching the true top of Itza. I got a chance to use my crampons on a small glacier near the summit, and they worked even using the New Ballence running shoes that I chose to climb with that day. The summit of Itza is supposed to be 5280m and I got to 5220 m before deciding that I should return to my camp site. The return trip was fast and I was home at 4000 meters drinking coffee by 2:00 PM.