After a week of planning with coworkers we decided to go camping at the base of Antisana. The original idea had been to hike in and camp then hike out. But as the plans came together the plan changed slightly into driving in and camping a short distance from the car. The dilemma with this trip was that in order to get to the mountain and the campsite you have to go through a hacienda. There isn’t a large house but the amount of land this one family owns is immense. To the point of which you feel like you are driving through a national park but it is the private families land. Thus in order to get to the national park you have to get permission from the family to cross their land and then enter the park. Which turned out to be easier done than we originally believed. However we asked for permission for only two vehicles so the small SUV we rode in was packed with 6 grown men. Needless to say it was a tight fit and not the most comfortable ride but did provide a lot of humor getting there and back. After arriving we set up and had a small lunch before it hailed on us. Thankfully our tents were set up and we managed to stay relatively dry. The hail let up and provided us a chance to take a short hike and explore the area around. Aside from the hail we were lucky to have decent weather that allowed us to see the mountain as well as the lake that we were camped by. Overall it was a nice weekend getaway that was only about 2hrs out of town, hopefully we can do it again before we leave so Caitlin can go instead of doing gradschool work.

The view on the drive in.

Black Ibis and a Caracara in the background. They were all over.

The five other guys who I shared the ride up with.

An amazing Rainbow we saw. We were able to see the whole rainbow and all the colors. Unfortunately I could not get a good picture of the whole rainbow.

View from the campsite.

Sunset.

Close up of Antisana.