My third climbing trip to Mexico, a place I'll return to again and again, it was time to hit up big, rolling Iztaccihuatl, a mountain bearing a name I'd mispronounced a hundred times.
From a camp on the ridge just above stinky La Joya, I'd explored to the hut at 15,500 feet the evening before to get a GPS track and a feel for the route. Returning the next morning, with a 3 a.m. start with DB and Henry the Mountain Man, we continued on up. They slowed much as we neared the top, though DB and I were able to summit as a storm moved in. Despite the threat, the storm never did much and our return to break camp and then hike down to La Joya was uneventful.
This is a nice mountain, and the route far more interesting than the standard route I'd done on Orizaba a couple years earlier.
Iztaccihuatl (17,159 feet)
