Fourteen students embarked on a journey to the mountain of Iztaccihuatl, arguably one of the most dangerous trips in ASFM’s history.

On the fourth day of their trip, the day of the most challenging hike, the group woke up at 2:00 am to a chilling -10°C, and got ready for the most dangerous trek, where as explained by their guide in a serious tone: “if anyone slips, they will almost certainly die.”. They were told to refrain from talking and focus solely on their foot placement. After eight hours they finally reached the 5,230 meters high summit.

11th grader Lucía Romero came up with the idea to hike up the nation’s third highest peak; Iztaccihuatl. She was inspired to do this because of her great passion of hiking and traveling, and fortunately she found a group that had her same eagerness to go on the trip.

“It was very hard organizing everything on my own.It was a lot of responsibility and I had to figure out every detail of it, from talking to the agency to making sure everyone payed. It was an experience that I learned a lot from, and I have never felt so satisfied as with this big achievement.”

For their first day, they enjoyed visiting the Archaeological pyramids of Cholula and eating traditional food from Puebla. Later on, they moved by car to ‘La Joya Base Camp’ at an altitude of 3,900 meters.

The next day they hiked on what is called an ‘Acclimatization hike’ because it was important that they did not try to ascend rapidly, since their bodies had to adapt to the altitude. They arrived at the second base camp where the weather was below zero degrees.

After three days everyone made it back safe and sound, with new stories to tell their friends.