The icy wind had chilled the brass instruments and handling the delicate screws and levers with half-frozen hands was almost impossible. Here on the cuchilla, it could be fatal.ĭespite these difficulties, Humboldt still had the energy to set up his instruments every few hundred feet as they ascended. On Pichincha Humboldt’s altitude sickness had been so severe that he had fainted. Nauseous and dizzy with altitude sickness, their eyes bloodshot and their gums bleeding, they suffered from a constant vertigo which, Humboldt later admitted, ‘was very dangerous, given the situation we were in’. It didn’t help that the cold had numbed their hands and feet, nor that the foot that he had injured during a previous climb had become infected. Soon they were crawling on all fours along a high ridge that narrowed to a dangerous two inches with steep cliffs falling away to their left and right – fittingly the Spanish called this ridge the cuchilla, or ‘knife edge’. The fog held Chimborazo’s summit in its embrace. Humboldt, Bonpland, Montúfar and José divided the instruments between them and continued on their own. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New WorldĪt 15,600 feet their porters refused to go on. Once in a while the fog lifted, granting them a brief yet tantalizing glimpse of the peak. Unlike the previous days, the summit of Chimborazo was shrouded in fog. It had snowed during the night and the air was cold. As the rocks became steeper, they left the animals behind and continued on foot. They crossed the grassy plains and slopes on mules until they reached an altitude of 13,500 feet. Early the next morning, Humboldt’s team began the ascent together with a group of local porters. On 22 June they arrived at the foot of the volcano where they spent a fitful night in a small village. But what appeared unreachable, Humboldt later explained, ‘exerts a mysterious pull’. By now Humboldt had climbed so many volcanoes that he was the most experienced mountaineer in the world, but Chimborazo was a daunting prospect even to him. Thousands of boulders and rocks covered the ground, as far as he could see. He saw a blanket of snow on the slopes and the landscape around Chimborazo appeared barren and desolate. Whenever they stopped, an excited Humboldt took out his telescope. For several days as they approached, the mountain stood out against the vibrant blue of the sky with no cloud smudging its imposing outline. Then Chimborazo appeared on the horizon, standing alone on a high plateau, like a majestic dome. Then, as the men slowly ascended, these voluptuous blooms were replaced by open grass plains where herds of small llama-like vicuñas grazed. In the valleys they admired daturas with their large trumpet-shaped orange blossoms and bright red fuchsias with their almost unreal-looking sculptural petals. Related Segment A Science Hero, Lost and FoundĪs Humboldt, Bonpland, Montúfar and José rode towards the volcano, they passed thick tropical vegetation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |