Alright, people, just for you to have a glimpse of what awaits you in case you decide to come pay a visit: this is the Iztaccíhuatl (Sleeping Woman in Náhuatl), 5200 m, the third tallest volcano of the country, almost a month ago, with my dad and one of our dogs. We didn't make it to the top cause we started late (remember Ben Lawers?), at 7:30 AM, but doggie and I reached the belly glacier anyway. I'll leave the Rapidshare link (tell me when it expires, so I upload it again) and comments for certain pics here.
http://rapidshare.com/files/201802311/I ... _.zip.html
That big volcano you can see in the distance in the first pics is the Popocatépetl (Smoking Hill), the second tallest mountain here, 5450 m. Active volcano, ascent has been forbidden for more than a decade, since the last big eruption. They're waiting for it to explode massively to allow you climb it, but obviously you can sneak through and climb it now anyway.
The thing about the Iztaccíhuatl is that it is not a vertical climb: you have to traverse several "flat" sections and pass from one side to the other of the mountain and back several times for almost four hours (only 750 meters of real ascent) before getting to the really vertical, sandy and rocky 300 meters slope that you can see from pic DSC00052 on. If you like serious scrambling, then this is your mountain. You invest another half and hour in the slope and you reach 5000 meters and the crater of the volcano. You can see the Pico de Orizaba and the Malinche volcanoes in the distance, 180 km away the former, 120 the latter. From there, another half an hour until the first glacier, and another hour to the top glacier, passing by the belly and chest glaciers. Unfortunately, due to the global warming, the ice everywhere is melting: the slope that you see in pics DSC00105, DSC00106 and DSC00107 didn't exist seven years ago when I got there for the first time. You could walk directly from the rock into the ice field without putting crampons up, the ice being more than 20 meters deep. You can see how thin it is now; in another decade or less, there'll be no ice left.
Ok, now that you have seen it and are eager to come climb it before the ice is gone, let me tell you something cool: wheter you come as a group or individually, you get lodging with my family, three home-made meals a day (my mom's the best cook in the world) and laundry for a very reasonable fee, and me as a guide for taking you to the five tallest mountains here in Mexico (two of them over 4000 m, the rest over 5000 m). Every member and/or friend of the HWUMC is now officially invited, so, if I were you, I'd start making plans on Wednesday nights at the pub with the mates for coming here next Christmas, the best season of the year for climbing. Just let me know in advance!
