Meet the patients we climbed for on Cerro de Cajas, Ecuador

Trip Report

El Cajas National Park is a beautiful collection of high altiplano hills and lakes. It rests in the southern part of Ecuador and does not have the same sort of volcanic activity that Ecuador’s famous northern mountains are known for. This park has 786 lakes and lagoons, and many llamas! Although we didn’t see the llamas, we saw a string of never ending mountains and countless lakes reflecting the beautiful thin blue air.

Dr. Diego Aguilar and Dr. Wilson accompanied Dr. Weight on this trip. This was their first Climb 4 Kidney Cancer. In fact it, was their first climb of any mountain. We started by climbing Cerro Las Tres Cruces 4198m (13,772 ft). This hill is near the road and right on the continental divide. From this spot, to the east, all the water travels to the Amazon and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean and to the west, the water travels down through Ecuador to the Pacific Ocean. We didn’t have time to acclimatize, so we were quite short of breath. At this elevation, we only had about 60% the available oxygen that you have at sea level.

The views from here were great, but we saw that if we followed the ridge line from Tres Cruces to the southeast, we could also make it to the top of Cerro de Cajas 4258 (13,969 ft). That is high compared to what we have in the US, in fact, there are only 4 states with mountains higher than this one! For the next hour and a half, we walked along the mildly exposed ridge line, decorated with tiny alpine flowers, red, blue, yellow and white. There were abundant grasses and an occasional chuquiragua flower (the national flower of Ecuador) like the one pictured above.

We moved along with ease, with only a few moves of exposure up and down the rocky and grassy ridge to arrive at last to the summit of Cerro de Cajas. The very summit was rocky and a few 4th class scrambling moves to make it to the summit.

As far as the the eye could see there were mountains cascading off in the distance in every direction. The lakes and lagoon were scattered everywhere the land was flat. The waters were like little mirrors that reflected the underside of the fluffy white clouds. The air was dry so the clouds cast sharp and moving dark shadows over the landscape, adding to the dramatic feel of the view.

We snapped some photos for the amazing patients we were climbing for Greg, Jeff and Cathy.

Stats for the day from my phone, 21,047 steps, 97 floors of elevation gain, and 9. miles. We were inspired by our patients’ grit and the >400,000 people who are diagnosed every year in world.