Hiking

A few weeks ago I sent out a poll to the ESC group to gauge interest in a group hike at Nevado de Toluca. There was reasonable interest and we slotted this to be a family hike on the 24th. The Padilla’s and Johnston’s had to drop off last minute. It was just going to be Hadley and the Arturo’s now with the three of us. We reached the Shuttle point around 1015, hopped in a shuttle and got to the trail-head around 1100. Couldn’t wait to hop off the shuttle - the gasoline stench coupled with the super dusty windy roads was more than churning my tummy. S did terrific with no complaints! ...

Spent a good few hours out in the woods along with the girl scouts. M is not a leader this year so we took a step back and had a great time just enjoying the outdoors. S had a slow start and was heavily resisting for the first hour or so. She suddenly flipped once we reached the mid point and didn’t want to stop! She clocked around 5.2 miles in 3 hours and this would be one of her longest hikes in quite some time now! Super proud and she did earn her ramen! ...

I’m writing this, sick to the core at 0300, rallying between sweating out the sheets and freezing to the bones. It’s been a rough couple days. Oddly enough I didn’t feel one ounce of pain during the alpine hike I did on Saturday. We summited Nevado de Toluca on Saturday and this would be one of my best hikes so far. Just two hours from Mexico city, this hike has something for everybody. First off, just getting to the alpine lakes from the base, which takes about 20 minutes, opens out the playground. One can literally see the whole terrain and trails that surround the pristine alpine lakes. We decide to head clockwise and summit Pico del Fraile (15388’). The climb up is reasonably straighforward and its mostly choosing your path to get to the peak. ...

S was having a rough day on Saturday and was scrunched up against me all day. Around 1900 I checked my work phone and saw that Mo had texted earlier that morning asking if I would be interested in hiking Pico de Aguilar the next day. I wanted to confirm immediately but given S’s health I wasn’t quite sure. Decided to take a call the next morning and hit the bed. Thankfully, on Sunday morning, S seemed to have almost recovered and I decide to head out to meet Mo at his place. With some starting troubles (literally!) we finally leave for Ajusco around 0830. ...

Got my ass royally whooped last weekend on Izta. The plan was to camp at La Joya until 0000 on Sunday and push for the summit by 0800. With around 4500’ to climb, I knew this would be challenging. What I was not ready for, was the elevation sickness that hit me at about 14000'. La Joya is at around 13000’. We got here around 1200 on Saturday, setup camp and did a short 1.5 hours acclimatization hike to Portillo 1 and got back to La Joya for dinner and rest around 1600. I’m usually able to sleep well despite the surroundings. Today however, I sense a mild headache and am not quite able get much sleep for some reason. ...

Super short hike up to the overlook. Absolutely mesmerized to see the Tradewinds holding down the sea of clouds!

I’ve been wanting to scout out the Izta-Popo national park ever since I got a sneak peek at the volcanoes while in Ikea a few months ago. Several blogs pointed at exploring this region by doing the La Joya traverse which essentially gets one to the base of the Iztaccihuatl volcano. I head out this morning to Amecameca - a small quaint town to the east of Mexico City. The bus that left TAPO [Terminal de Autobuses de Pasajeros de Oriente] around 0700 only got to Amecameca by 0900. Should have left earlier! From there at the Centro, I was able to hop into a cab that got me to Paso de Cortes around 0930. ...

At 12,220 ft and after a 3-hour climb, it felt like home and more importantly I felt real strong. This was my first decent hike in quite some time now and I was pleasantly surprised my body wasn’t really complaining. Early this month, M and I spoke about getting back into the hiking circuit. It’s been about 9 months that we’ve moved to CDMX and we’ve covered a decent bunch of the touristy stuff. CDMX has so many good hikes to offer and quite a few are reasonably accessible from the city limits. With work-travel, visitors and other schedule conflicts; we felt it was reasonable for us to fit in one camping trip and one exploratory hike very month. ...

Took A out for a short hike up Sugarloaf Mountain. More of a hill than a mountain! This one’s a quick 25min hike up to the summit and has some real nice views on the top. The trail generally gets super crowded but looks like the cold weather did keep the majority indoors. A got some tough love but he did enjoy the hike thoroughly!

The initial plan was to hike up to Greenleaf hut by the Old bridle trail and summit Mt. Lafayette at the crack of dawn. Sunrise on the ridge would have been terrific and the switchbacks on the way down would have been just perfect! However, Mountain weather forecast on Thursday indicated a cold front approaching on Friday night - temps dropping down to 3 F! We decided to shift this to a day hike instead. ...