Visiting Illiniza Refuge

Illiniza Refuge is a beautiful mountainous area of Ecuador that often seems overlooked. You can do everything here from simple hiking and camping to serious mountaineering. The reserve is located high in the Andes, with the entrance already at around 13,000 feet (3,950 meters).

The refuge is named after the twin mountains Illiniza Sur and Illiniza Norte, both of which are popular destinations for adventurers arriving by sprinter van. As soon as you begin hiking, you’ll be rewarded with some amazing views of Illiniza Norte.

Illiniza Norte is by far the more frequently summited of the two peaks. Reaching the top generally requires about a two-hour hike from the mountain refuge, along with some light scrambling. When I visited, I had typical Illinizas weather. Illiniza Norte was visible while Illiniza Sur remained hidden behind the clouds.

Illiniza Sur receives considerably more precipitation, leaving it covered in much more snow and ice. Combined with the mountain’s exposure, climbing it requires an ice axe, rope, and other mountaineering equipment. Illiniza Sur is considered one of Ecuador’s more technical mountains.

I started the morning with some sunshine, but during the two-hour hike to the refuge the weather quickly changed to fog and wind. The hike itself was pretty easy, and shortly after starting I could already see the saddle between the two mountains.

The refuge sits directly in this saddle. You can’t actually see the building until you’re only minutes away, but seeing the saddle gives you a pretty good idea of where you’re headed. The final part of the hike climbed some annoyingly steep terrain all the way to around 15,500 feet (4,700 meters).

Right before reaching the refuge, I came across this Andean fox, also known locally as a culpeo. This guy wasn’t shy at all, and I really think that if I’d had some food he would have taken it directly from my hand!

The Illiniza Refuge looked more like a random hermit’s hideout than a place for climbers and hikers. I wish I’d taken some photos inside because there’s more to it than you’d expect from the outside. There are several large bunk beds, a small kitchen, and a long table for meals.

I was the only person staying there who planned to climb Illiniza Sur, but I met several others preparing to attempt Illiniza Norte. We had some great conversations and plenty of laughs before eventually calling it a night.

Even if you only make the two-hour hike to the refuge, the views can make the trip worthwhile. That’s assuming the weather cooperates. Luckily for me, I watched the clouds slowly disappear down the valleys, exposing some of the most spectacular mountain scenery I’d seen in South America.

From the refuge you can clearly see the route toward the summit of Illiniza Norte. The view of Illiniza Sur isn’t quite as impressive from here because the refuge sits directly at its base, forcing you to look almost straight up at the mountain.

I never saw Illiniza Sur completely emerge from the clouds while viewing it from a distance, although photos I’d seen showed it to be every bit as beautiful as its northern counterpart, if not more so.

That night my guide called me outside and explained that the mountain hadn’t been climbed in weeks because of dangerous conditions. A lack of snow had exposed large rocks and boulders, increasing the danger of rockfall. The steep snow ramps normally used on the climb had also melted and later refrozen into hard ice.

He suggested that we take an alternate route toward the east summit and decide what to do once we reached it.

The next morning we woke up at 4:00 and were climbing by 5:00. It didn’t take long for the sun to begin lighting the way, and I took my first photo of the day above. At this point the mountain still didn’t look particularly technical. It seemed like a giant block that we simply had to circle around before hiking across the top.

Once we circled the base, we did some light scrambling to reach the top of the ridge. At that point we roped up and continued. We were already above 16,000 feet, nearly 5,000 meters, and despite having arrived from sea level only a few days earlier, I was feeling surprisingly good.

Once on top of the ridge, we could see the remaining route toward the east summit. Normally the mountain is much more heavily covered in snow, but during my climb it was mostly exposed rock with patches of snow and some interesting ice formations.

It was after reaching the ridge that the climb began getting technical. Our first obstacle wasn’t particularly difficult, but we had to cross an exposed section with a significant drop below us.

The bigger problem with this route was all the loose rock. It might not look particularly bad in the photo above, but several pieces of the wall I grabbed onto simply came off in my hands. Below is a photo looking back toward another ridge we’d already crossed.

From here we finally started encountering significant snow and some of the more technical sections of the climb. None of the individual moves were especially demanding, but some were definitely exposed. Taking photographs while technical climbing is never easy, although luckily I also had a GoPro running during parts of the climb.

We finally reached the east summit at 8:00 AM, exactly as planned. The west and true summit of Illiniza Sur is photographed above. Under ideal conditions it would have been only another ten minutes away, and from where we stood it certainly didn’t look impossible.

My guide recommended that we not attempt it. There was extensive hard ice along the remaining route that would have required much more serious ice climbing. We didn’t have the anchors, ice screws, and other equipment necessary for those conditions. Descending by the normal route was another possibility, but that would have exposed us to significant rockfall.

Since the two summits are nearly identical in elevation, I was completely satisfied with the climb and saw no reason to take unnecessary risks. If I ever return to Ecuador for another major climb, El Altar would be high on my list.