Climbing The Equator

by Neville Shulman

  They didn’t mark the actual site with anything however, thus leading to the subsequent claims and counterclaims two hundred years later of where exactly it was. They also made the calculation of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole, based on the Paris Meridian, which in 1791 would become the basis for calculating the metric system; one metre being taken as being one ten-millionth of the distance between the Equator and the North Pole.

  Members of his team, adventurous and foolhardy in equal part, were also the first to climb Pichincha at 4,794 metres (15,728 feet) and El Corazon at 4,788 metres (15,708 feet) and also determined that Chimborazo was the ‘highest mountain in the world’. Amazingly they actually measured it as being the 6,310 metres (20,702 feet), a measurement which is still accepted today. This belief of it being ‘the highest’ persisted until around 1820, after which the Ecuadorians had to settle for it being only ‘the tallest’. The team also measured many of the other high mountains but unfortunately these measurements weren’t as successful, and controversies still continue today as to the actual heights of certain mountains. Several important mountaineers have come up with differing measurements for various mountains and, very surprisingly in this time of high technology, the exact and accurate agreed heights still have to be resolved. A prime example is Cotopaxi itself, as La Condamine’s team measured it as 5,751 metres, Humboldt at 5,753 metres and Whymper at 5,978 metres.

  After their work was completed, this brilliant and diverse group of scientists dispersed to many different parts and posts, with some choosing to stay in South America. La Condamine himself as the leader had to return to France with his findings but returned via the Amazon in order to map this massive river. His adventures and misadventures down the Amazon and elsewhere, in travelling back to France, are almost unbelievable and he narrowly escaped death on several occasions. He eventually returned to Paris in February 1745 in order to present his report to the Académie, nearly ten years since he had left on his historic journey.

  Baron Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt, was a German (although more aptly in those times described as Prussian) scientist and explorer who first visited Ecuador in 1802, reaching Quito in January. The city was still recovering from the earlier massive Pichincha eruption and the earthquake that killed over 40,000 people, with volcanic rumbling still occurring to warn of the power the mountain was always ready to unleash. One of the results of that eruption was to affect the local climate for a considerable time, so it was much cooler than it had been in previous periods. Travelling through the mountains, Humboldt coined the name ‘Avenue of the Volcanoes’, which has been used ever since to describe the area closed in between the two great mountain ranges of the Cordilleras.

  Humboldt loved being in Ecuador and journeyed throughout the country, making extensive notes of his travels and observations. His pioneering work was such that he is often referred to as the father of modern geography. Even Charles Darwin called him ‘the greatest scientific traveller who ever lived’. Following on from his studies and investigative work of the oceanic currents and the effects they produced, he was honoured by having named after him the cold Humboldt Current flowing from the South Pacific, always powerfully affecting the climate of the Galapagos Archipelago, as well as the mainland coastal regions. The following words help to sum up his depth of feeling for this jewel of a country and the impact it had on him: ‘A trip across Ecuador can only be compared with a trip from the Equatorial Line to almost as far as the South Pole.’ Having travelled to both fascinating areas myself, I can well understand what he meant. Although vastly different in every conceivable way, the tropics and both polar regions exemplify the enormous wealth and beauty of every kind to be found within Nature, as well as the geographical and natural treasures that are readily available to everyone who is prepared to seek them out.

  Humboldt was even described by Simon Bolivar, as ‘the true discoverer of America’. He was born in Berlin and studied botany, mineralogy, chemistry and astronomy. At a very early age he became keen on travel and exploration and decided to dedicate his life to the furtherance of scientific knowledge and studies. In Ecuador, Humboldt commenced his preparations for his subsequent pioneering essays on the ‘Geography of Plants’ and his connecting the relationship of the local flora with its region’s geography. He was probably responsible for the growth of the worldwide guano industry, as he provided the initial samples for analysis to colleagues in Europe. Humboldt invented the term ‘magnetic storms’, so encouraging the establishment by the Royal Society of more observatories, set up initially to study sun spot activity and his work on isotherms and isobars was the basis for the creation of the science of climatology. He was always a man of the people and totally opposed to slavery, calling it ‘the greatest evil’, no easy position to take in those Spanish colonial times. On one occasion, his shoes having disintegrated, he was forced to travel barefoot as he would not contemplate the unfairness of being carried by an indigenous ‘Indian’. His friends included Goethe the German writer and philosopher and of course Darwin, who undoubtedly himself was greatly influenced in his own works by the writings and thoughts of Humboldt.

  Although not a real mountaineer, Humboldt loved the mountains and was the first to establish from his personal experiences whilst climbing on Chimborazo that there was a connection between someone suffering from altitude sickness and experiencing lack of oxygen. He actually weighed the air at altitude to determine the differences occurring. Above all he wanted to achieve the summit and possibly succeeded to reach over nearly 6,000 metres (over 19,000 feet), although some thought he might have ‘miscalculated’ by some 300 metres (1,000 feet). For many years afterwards he always thought he had managed to climb higher than anyone else in the world had, and was bitterly disappointed later in his life to discover that others had climbed higher elsewhere. Perhaps in his mind’s eye however, in so many ways, he had ‘climbed’ the highest of all. He actually also climbed many of Ecuador’s other mountains, including Guagua Pichincha as it started to erupt. The inhabitants of Quito who suffered the ill effects of the eruption were highly suspicious of him, his being a ‘German’ and also a ‘scientist’, and accused him of throwing gunpowder into the volcano crater, without regard for the consequences. Fortunately for us, and more fortunately for him, they didn’t throw him into the crater.

  Humboldt didn’t climb Cayambe, Ecuador’s third highest, but he thought it to be exceptionally special and described it as ‘one of the most beautiful to be ever seen… it can be considered one of the eternal monuments with which Nature has marked the great divisions of the globe.’ Humboldt attempted on three occasions to climb Chimborazo, but unfortunately didn’t make it to the summit. Yet the fact that he attempted it at all, reaching ‘a great height’, made him very famous in Europe, at the time becoming the most famous person after Napoleon Bonaparte.

  He was a true romantic, and one of his main desires in climbing high was to be able to see across to the Pacific Ocean. His comments on achieving that goal bear repeating: ‘We now for the first time commanded a view of the Pacific. We saw it distinctly, reflecting along the line of the coast an immense mass of light and rising in immeasurable expanse until bounded by the clearly-defined horizon.’ Due to his desire for knowledge he would more readily than most believe the stories told to him by the indigenous tribes, and one very fanciful story is always associated with Humboldt who even wrote a detailed paper to confirm it. He was told by some tribespeople that several volcanoes would emit thousands of fish into the air when they erupted, and that the fish would fall to the ground still alive, where they could be easily gathered and eaten. His paper was called Dissertation on a new species of pimelodid, thrown out by the volcanoes of the Kingdom of Quito (Mémoire sur une nouvelle espèce de Pimelode, Jetée par les volcans du royaume de Quito). This story would haunt Humboldt forever, as he just couldn’t find it in himself to admit that he had been fooled.

  Despite his gullible nature, Humboldt made many interes
ting observations, one of which was that in crossing a swaying rope bridge travellers should only cross one at a time and always lean forward, as well as not look down to avoid becoming afraid. Travelling further south, he arrived at the ancient pre-Inca Canari kingdom where he was to investigate the fortress ruins located there and with his writings on them so became the first archaeologist of South America. Using the improved techniques and instruments now available, Humboldt also re-drew many of La Condamine’s maps and this proved of considerable value to many explorers coming after him. Above all he was not afraid to be a man of vision and his ideas and dedication to looking for eternal truths possibly helped to inspire the young Simon Bolivar who declared, ‘Baron de Humboldt did more for the Americas than all the conquistadors.’ A name also very worthy of mention and associated with Humboldt’s is the French botanist Aimé Bonland, a doctor by profession whose medical skill would prove invaluable on many of their journeys. He accompanied Humboldt on most of his travels and explorations as well as his mountain climbing, and Humboldt owed a great deal to him. Bonland was, however, always content to remain in the background and in his shadow, provided he had his plants to collect and study. Humboldt eventually died at the great age of 90 in 1859, the year Darwin’s extraordinary The Origin of Species was published.

  Edward Whymper, a wood engraver by profession, was definitely a mountaineer, the most successful of all those who have climbed in Ecuador. Some years after his masterful but tragic first ascent of the ‘unclimbable’ Matterhorn in the Alps in 1865 (four of his companions died on the way down), he travelled to Ecuador in 1879 where he accomplished a string of high peak successes. First of all he was astounded to learn that Chimborazo had two or more summits whereas Humboldt and Bonland had only mentioned one.

  He also had theories on why it seemed easier to climb high mountains in Europe and wanted to see whether it was something to do with the vegetation they did or didn’t possess. He was therefore surprised to find that the Pacific slopes of the Andes were wooded up to great heights, whereas the eastern slopes were almost devoid of vegetation. Although not the first to accomplish the feat, he climbed Cotopaxi at 5,897 metres in 1880 and in the same year was the first to climb Chimborazo at 6,310 metres. He climbed these mountains with two Italians, the very experienced Jean-Antoine Carrel, age 52, his competitor on the Matterhorn, and his nephew, Louis Carrel, age 26. Whymper was now 40, a more sober character since the Matterhorn tragedy, and throughout his subsequent illustrious climbing career felt he had to atone in some way. At first his tremendous feat was not believed, so incredibly he proved it by climbing Chimborazo a second time in the same year again with the Carrels, but this time also with two Ecuadorian climbers, David Beltran and Francisco Campana. His personally descriptive and painful words about that first triumph, though, standing on the summit of Chimborazo, tell the mountain story for many of us, even with the exhilaration we can often feel on a successful ascent of a mountain. ‘We were hungry, wet, numbed and wretched.’ He, unselfishly and in true scientific manner, carried both aneroid and mercury barometers with him in order to try and establish the mountain’s correct height.

  Whymper then went on to climb Cayambe, the third highest mountain at 5,790 metres and Antisana, the fourth highest at 5,704 metres. Whymper’s book, Travels Amongst the Great Andes of the Equator was published in 1892. In it he sets out some of his thoughtful ideas on altitude survival, saying ‘It has long been debated whether human life can be sustained at great altitudes above the level of the sea in such a manner as will permit of the accomplishment of useful work.’ Following on from some of the observations of Humboldt on the breathing problems caused at high altitude, Whymper also referred to ‘the rarity of air’, and was only too aware of the tremendous difficulties experienced by those climbing high mountains, particularly carrying heavy weight.

  Whymper also recorded the reaction on the human body of being at high altitude and, with some ironic pleasure at being able to experience and record the symptoms at first hand, he suffered the mountain sickness (soroche). In all these mountain attempts he climbed with the two Carrels and they then went on together to climb a further five first peaks, Iliniza Sur (5,248 metres), Carihuairazo (5,020 metres), Sincholagua (4,898 metres), Cotacachi (4,944 metres) and Saa Urco (4,676 metres). The only one he failed at was El Atar. Although a more lowly 5,319 metres, this mountain is a serious technical climb and wasn’t fully climbed until 1963. Whymper didn’t attempt Sangay, the most active volcano, but was very aware of it and watched it from his camp three on Chimborazo, later writing, ‘There were snow-filled beds near its summit, but the spur of the cone was black and was doubtless covered in fine volcanic ash. The saying is current that eruptions of Sangay are to be apprehended when Cotopaxi becomes tranquil and the opinion seemed to prevail that the two mountains act as safety valves to each other.’

  Whymper was a mountaineer but was also much more than that. He was a collector of insects, moths and butterflies as well as crustaceans and other creatures. He even found earthworms at 4,800 metres. Whymper was the one to debunk the Humboldt fanciful story that the volcanoes would periodically shoot a certain type of fish from their craters and they would land in the plains far below still alive, to be caught and eaten by the local tribespeople. Whymper was fascinated by the power and unpredictability of the volcanoes, and studied them whenever he had the opportunity. On his second Chimboarazo ascent, he allowed the others to climb ahead whilst he stopped to watch an eruption on Cotopaxi. ‘I lingered behind and saw the commencement of an eruption. At 5.40 a.m. two puffs of steam were emitted. At 5.45 a column of inky blackness began to issue, and went up straight in the air with such prodigious velocity that in less than a minute it had risen 20,000 feet (6,000 metres) above the rim of the crater. The top of the column was therefore nearly 40,000 feet (12,000 metres) above the level of the sea.’

  Whymper was conscious of the need to collate and impart information for future generations of mountaineers, and was always making and comparing measurements to that end. He produced a table of snow line data showing from various sides of the individual mountains where each snow line approximately began. He would be absolutely horrified at learning that just over a hundred years later all the snow lines have leaped upwards and are continuing to retreat at a very fast pace. The problems of unchecked global warming will leave so many mountains eventually devoid of all their snow coverings and we are all the losers for that, whether mountaineers or not.

  In 1872 the German mountaineer Wilhelm Reiss with the Colombian Angel Escobar were the first to climb to the summit of Cotopaxi’s Summit from the south-eastern side. Another German climber, Alfonso Stubel, in 1873 followed the same route up the mountain but was accompanied by four Ecuadorians, the first time Ecuadorians had climbed any major mountain; Rafael Jantui, Eusebio Rodriguez, Melchor Paez and Vicente Ramon. Reiss and Stubel in that year together made the first ascent of Tungurhua at 5,023 metres. Now Ecuadorians are firmly established as first class mountaineers in their own right and climb in all parts of the world.

  The Ecuadorian climber who gained the highest reputation in mountaineering was undoubtedly Nicolas Martinez, who is considered to be the foremost Ecuadorian climber of his day and an inspiration to all the Ecuadorian mountaineers who have followed after him. He made the first Ecuadorian ascents of many mountains and in fact was the very first climber to climb Iliniza Norte at 5,126 metres in 1912. Martinez also climbed Tunguruhua in 1900, Antizana in 1904 and Cotopaxi and Chimborazo in 1906. The first ascent of the Sangay volcanic mountain at 5,230 metres was by an American Robert Moore in 1929 during a period when Sangay, usually the most active of all Latin American volcanoes, was relatively inactive. Marino Tremonti, who led an Italian Alpine team in 1963, finally climbed El Atar, the last remaining of the unclimbed mountains, at 5,319 metres.

  The less high mountains were by then also being climbed, notably Cerro Hermosa at 4,571 metres by a German team and Quilindana at 4,877 metres by a team of Ecuadorians. N
ew routes were constantly being undertaken and achieved on all the mountains, particularly by Ecuadorians who were finally coming into their own as a strong climbing fraternity. In December 1984 even the north face summit of El Atar was achieved from inside its crater by two Ecuadorians, Oswaldo Morales and Gilles de Lataillade, and in that same month the Canonigo peak of El Atar was also summated from inside the crater by Luis Naranjo and Maurice Reinoso. Truly a golden period of Ecuadorian climbing had arrived and was certainly going to remain as even more ambitious routes were being achieved.

  It is only right to include here a mention of the historic hotel and hostelry known as La Cienega that has been used by many international travellers and mountaineers over several hundred years, particularly by those contemplating an attempt on Cotopaxi. Many mountaineers coming into Ecuador from around the world have stayed in this famous hacienda, either before attempting Cotopaxi or after climbing it, the latter usually either as a reward or for consolation. It is known as a mountaineer’s sanctuary. La Cienega is actually a large country mansion with several acres of land surrounding it and dates right back to the seventeenth century. It has many original cobbled-stone pathways and Moorish-styled fountains and is full of interesting features.

  La Cienega was built originally as a colonial hacienda for the Marquis de Maenza, and his descendants lived there for over 300 years. This family was predominant in the plotting that took place amongst many established aristocrats, who considered their allegiance to Ecuador was far greater than their ties to old Spain. They met in secret to plan the ways in which to remove the authority of Spain and to claim independence. Undoubtedly many of the clandestine meetings took place in La Cienega. As part of its historic connections in the region, a bell was installed in the stone chapel in 1768 (and is still rung on special occasions), to give thanks for the ending of the Cotopaxi volcanic eruptions, which had then been occurring continuously over a 20 year period.