After a sound night's sleep, I felt as good as new. The next objective in the trip was to drive to base camp on Pico de Orizaba, a hundred or so miles to the east. After repacking our gear and a hearty breakfast (I was seriously burning out on tortillas by this point), we were off down the packed roads, headed east over the range that contained Izta and Popo, through the city of Puebla and to the tiny town of Tlachichuca. This several-hour drive was somewhat hampered by a flat tire and the labor of unloading everything in the Suburban to get at the spare. As the day went on, Orizaba reared up on the horizon in front of us - a breathtaking, glaciated peak.

The town of Tlachichuca is a small farming community near the base of Orizaba. The several hundred folks who have scratched out an existence here mainly live off local agriculture and the ferrying of climbers to Piedra Grande, the base camp of Orizaba. Piedra Grande is at the end of a pretty severe 4x4 road, and we'd need the services of a well-equipped 4x4 outfitter to get us there. We pulled into town into the small private compound of our outfitter (sorry, the name escapes me here). It was quite an establishment...within a quarter-block perimeter, there was a house, livestock pens, garage, several vehicles, and even a small set of rooms for climbers needing a place to overnight. After a hearty home-cooked meal, we all piled ourselves and 2 days worth of gear and supplies into a circa-1970 Ford pickup that had a homemade cab on the back and had clearly been lifted several inches and reinforced underneath.

The drive to base camp wound steadily upwards through the fields and forests with Orizaba looming ever larger in front of us. It was about two hours to Piedra Grande, at 14,000' on the north side of Orizaba. And not a moment too soon, as the bumpy road was giving just about everyone a little motion-sickness. The camp consisted of several tent sites and a huge hut - I'm sure it could have held at least 30 people, but there was only a group of 5 other climbers there. A quintent from Spain, they were planning a one-day assault on the summit and were planning on getting up around 11pm to start their day, so we opted to just pitch tents outside in order to avoid the clatter. I was still feeling pretty good, and on advice from Eric I was drinking a lot of water and taking it as easy as I could - to the degree that he wouldn't even let me help get the tents set up. My job was to rest and acclimate, period.

We got camp set up just as the sun set, and used the hut for a huge dinner in preparation of tomorrow's hike - the climb to high camp at about 16,200' just below the glaciated upper slopes of the mountain. I shared a tent with Eric that night so he could keep an eye on me (just in case), but it was a quiet night and I slept as I normally do, which is to say, like a log!

On to day 7...