Joel and Alison's Excellent Adventures Part 2

La Malinche is an inactive volcano and the 6th highest mountain in Mexico. The Tlaxcaltecs named the peak Matlalcueitl, which translates to “[Lady of the] Blue Skirt”, a goddess of rain and song, believed to be the local equivalent of Chalchiuhtlicue. The Spanish named it simply Sierra de Tlaxcala (“Tlaxcalan Range”). The current name, Malinche or Malintzin, became popular during the 17th century, and honors the woman who helped Hernán Cortés as an interpreter during the conquest of the Aztec Empire.

On the third day of the trip, we took a short hike from the La Malintiza resort at 10,000′ partway up the trail to La Malinche to about 12,000′, as part of our acclimatization. It was only about 4ish hours which gave us time to come back to the resort, eat lunch, relax, eat dinner and pack for our trip up to the summit the next morning.

As there was no snow, ice or bad weather predicted, we took a rather leisurely approach to the climb the next morning and didn’t worry about an alpine start – I think we left around 7am. The predicted summit time was 5 – 7 hours roundtrip and we did it in 6 hours. I think most of the trails that we are on during this trip are about 1,000′ per mile, which is sorta steep!

Summit shot with Popocatépetl on the skykine in the middle (uncharacteristically quiet with no smoke plumes visible) and Iztaccíhuatl aka Itza on the right – known as the “Sleeping Woman,” its four snow-capped peaks resemble a reclining female figure.