Roman, Lucy, and I returned from our beach vacation on Monday and I got up on Tuesday morning to leave for a 4 day camping trip around the Cotopaxi volcano with the 7th grade class. It was quite an adventure and everyone had a great time. We spent the first 2 nights at the Tambopaxi campsite (12,300 ft in elevation) to the north of the volcano. It rained and hailed on us during the day but everyone kept their spirits high. We awoke on Wednesday morning to a view of the volcano which is spectacular when seen up close–the name Cotopaxi means “neck of the moon”.

Nights can be very cold for camping in Colorado but the nights we spent camping at Cotopaxi were even colder because of the dampness. The third day we hiked about 6 km with our heavy backpacks to another campsite on the south end of Cotopaxi National Park and the kids finished the program with a solo experience on Friday morning before we left for home. This experience made me excited to one day climb to the peak of Cotopaxi with Roman before we leave Ecuador in a few years.