I was woken up by Bob shaking my toes through my sleeping bag. Somehow we'd all sleep through the 11:30pm alarms and it was now midnight. We hurriedly dressed and ran downstairs for a quick breakfast before heading out the door.

It was warm, but very windy. I refused to make the same mistake twice, and I kept my warm fleece pants on as we started up the trail through the moraine above the hut. After 30 minutes we halted beside the glacier to strap on our crampons and rope up.

We passed a few other groups early on and noticed lots of headlamps behind us. As the glacier steepened we got passed ourselves by two Wisconsin climbers and their local guide. Above us we could see a light coming down in our direction, which turned out to be Charles and Travis. Charles had made an excellent effort but was tired out by the steep slope and worried about slipping as he grew more exhausted.

We took a break around 3:45am behind a small snow ridge that blocked the wind. The Wisconsinites were just leaving the same spot. The temperature had grown much colder since we'd been climbing, so I started adding on more layers: my shell jacket, shell mittens and balaclava. I started in on a peanut butter sandwich. It was much nicer feasting on real food on the mountain instead of the steady diet of energy bars.

We continued to follow the well-beaten trail up Cotopaxi, now passing through a glacial playground of seracs, crevasses and snow bridges. The blue ice and white snow glowed in the near-full moonlight and we barely needed our headlamps. A solo climber passed by headed downward. He'd probably given up trying to catch some sleep in the busy hut and just started his climb hours before us.

We take another break on some bare ground where the volcano has melted away the snow. Above us the route headed up a steep snow slope and we found ourselves back in the wind now that we were out of the serac and crevasse filled section. Occasionally I could make out the Southern Cross and Orion in the skies above us.

We reached a long snow rib, which formed the lower side of a crevasse. To cross this obstacle, a ladder had been anchored in the snow on the uphill side of the gap. However, it wasn't long enough to reach all the way to our side, and the first step would have been quite a reach, so someone had tied a bit of cord to the bottom of the ladder to act as a bottom step.

Bob ascended the ladder and set up a quick belay to bring us up. First time I've ever tried ascending a ladder in crampons. We were all pretty psyched about this unique experience and planned on getting pictures when we came back down after the sunrise.

One last snow slope led to the summit. The two Wisconsin climbers and their guide came down as we were headed up, letting us enjoy the summit by ourselves. The sun was just rising above the clouds stretched all over the plains below us. However, we could pick out Cayambe, Antisana and Chimborazo. This was our first sighting of Chimborazo, the highest peak in Ecuador and our next objective.

Below us the huge summit crater of Cotopaxi silently smoked. We had time to take a fairly long break, and two other groups of climbers reached the summit while we stood around taking pictures, re-hydrating and consuming calories for the descent.

We let a two-person group descend ahead of us, since they would more much quicker than our group of four at sections requiring a belay. As we made our way to the large crevasse and ladder crossing we saw another group manage to cross a nearby snow bridge and avoid the ladder altogether. However, we still wanted our photos, so we had to descend via the ladder.

We were back in the shade and the wind was still blowing, but the air temperature was already warming up a bit. Below us the huge triangular shadow of Cotopaxi stretched out on the cloud later.

The glacier 'playground' was even more amazing in the morning light and we could now see some distance down into the crevasses we crossed over. The sun was shining directly on us as began the last long steep descent to the end of the glacier. We didn't bake as much as on Cayambe however, since it was still early. Thankfully, we also didn't have to deal with wet snow balling on our crampons either.

Conditions were still cool and windy as we hiked off the glacier and worked down the moraine again and back to the hut. We made it back down at a reasonable 9:50am, so it was almost a 9-hour round trip.

Travis, Renato and Charles had hot water and soup ready for us, and after a quick meal we repacked everything into our backpacks and headed back down to the parking lot.

Unfortunately, we were going to have to cram ourselves into the Land Cruiser for the ride to Hosteria La Cienega. My thigh started to cramp up just before reaching La Cienega, but wedged in the back seat as I was, there was nothing I could do about it.

We pulled up dirty and smelly to the upscale La Cienega and watched the bowtie-clad porters struggle to carry our expedition luggage into the lobby. All our rooms weren't ready yet, so we sat down to lunch just as we were.

After finally cleaning up, we wandered around the gorgeous 300-year-old Hacienda's gardens and admired the variety of plants and their chapel. Scott and I found everyone else in the bar having coffee and drinks. I decided it was time to order another South American Pisco Sour as we relaxed after the long day.