Friday after school Mr. H drove up to Quito with a friend. The purpose of the trip was to climb a peak called Rucu Pinchincha. The drive from Shell to Quito is 160 miles and takes five hours.

The picture at the right shows Mr. H in front of the peak. This is the highest peak he's ever climbed. The elevation is about 15,300 feet. We're still doing some research to find out exactly how high the peak is.

The peak is not a volcano, but is actually next to an active volcano called Guagua Pinchincha.

Along the way we saw many wildflowers. You can see pictures of Andean wildflowers taken on an earlier trip to a different volcano. We saw the same kinds of flowers on this trip.

Can you see Quesla in the picture below? The air at 15,000' is thin, but Quesla didn't seem to notice!

Here's Mr. H on the way back down. That's the city of Quito far below. The elevation of the city is 9,300'. The population of Quito is more than 1.5 million. Mr. H is at about 12,500' at this point.