Day 10: Cotopaxi Refugio
Charlie and I have a slow morning and hike up to the Cotopaxi climber’s hut.
Introduction
Welcome to 1000 Miles South America. My goal is to run 1000 miles on every continent and I started my fourth on May 22, 2026. I’m currently attempting to run from volcano to volcano in Ecuador, climbing and skiing each one. Charlie McClung from Seattle is joining me for the first three volcanoes. Follow my blog or Instagram for updates.
Trip Report
Summary: Charlie and I have a slow morning and hike up to the Cotopaxi climber’s hut.
We have a leisurely morning in the Tambopaxi Lodge. We just need to arrive at the Climber’s Hut parking lot to meet Roberto by 4 pm, so there’s no rush.
Charlie got bored waiting to run so he went for a pre-run walk before we left Tambopaxi
at noon we started up the road to the Cotopaxi climber’s hut
Bye bye Tambopaxi
This woman saw me running and asked “Where to?” I said the Refugio. She gasped and gave me a huge hug. Thanks for the hug!!
not to dampen this moment, but you’d think we were some kind of renegade pioneers for walking up to the climber’s hut. It’s as if people just assumed everyone has always driven up to the 14,000 feet on Cotopaxi in their cars and that there’s always been a road there. We didn’t see anyone else walking up and as far as I can tell, this isn’t something people do.
Hey Fox
Gunther’s Whorltail Iguana. pretty cool
It’s a madhouse on the road to Cotopaxi. Mountain bikers coming down and a traffic jam of cars going up
This mountain just looks wild. That curtain of hanging ice below the summit!!
The weather turned bad when we got to the parking lot. We arrived before Roberto, so I asked a tour bus if I could take shelter. It turned out to be a group of Americans and they said yes. They had just finished a galapagos tour and unsurprisingly got altitude sickness driving straight up to 14,000 feet.
then, another party knocked on the door also asking to take shelter. They were a family from Brazil driving a motor home from Patagonia to Alaska.
Hey rainbow
We met Roberto at 4 pm and then walked up to the climber’s hut. He and I hid the skis under a rock outside the hut so no one would see them.
We would have dinner promptly, go to sleep and begin the climb at 2 am. I had a dream that I was set to be the third speaker at a National event after George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. I searched frantically for my speech but couldn’t find it anywhere.
I could not explain to you why I had a nightmare about losing my speech for a national event right before skiing Cotopaxi