It is the longest night of the year and a new moon hangs lazily over one of the highest active volcanoes on the planet. Shooting stars fill the heavens as we venture our way up through the glaciers. It's been almost a week since we've been granted a clear look at the heavens through the seemingly perpetual Ecuadorian mists. Finally, it seems as if we might have our chance to stroke the "Sweet Neck of the Moon."

Cotopaxi thrusts its almost perfect cone 19,347 feet above sea level at a spot just a few miles south of the equator. Since the days of the Incas, it has stood as a symbol to both the beauty and the fury of Mother Earth. Roughly translated to "Sweet Neck of the Moon" in an ancient pre-Quechuan language, Cotopaxi has been an object of awe and wonder since the arrival of man.

The volcano remains in a state of perpetual activity, a bubbling caldron throughout recorded history. There are loftier mountains which have been volcanoes, but the summit of Cotopaxi, so far as is known, has the greatest absolute elevation above the level of the sea of volcanoes currently in working order.

Edward Whymper wrote about Cotopaxi in 1892 in his timeless book, Travels Amongst the Great Andes. A century later, a band of ski and snowboard adventurers set out in his footsteps.

The summit of this massive cone is one of the closest points on Earth to the sun, closer than even the summit of Mt. Everest, due to it's proximity-less than fifty miles-to the equator. But the spontaneous wind storms, not to mention the sleet and hail, are always just minutes away; Cotopaxi seems to draw all energies towards her. This includes storms from the Pacific, storms from the Amazon, and people like us.

Joining me on this journey into the night are five Coloradans. Dan Gilchrist from Steamboat Springs has come to free-heel; Chris Anthony from Vail is here to ski with his heels locked down. Chris Patterson, our trip leader, hails from Boulder and is planning to document the entire adventure on 16mm film, while his brother, David, from nearby Jamestown, will be shooting stills. Kent Harvey, from Denver, shoots both film and still photos and, as assistant cameraman, he has the dubious privilege of hauling most of the heavy equipment up the mountain.

We're here to film a mountaineering sequence for the 50th anniversary Warren Miller Film, produce one in a series of hour-long television shows for the Outdoor Life Network and craft a feature story for this magazine. As we lug our tons of gear from taxi to train in the hectic morning hours in downtown Quito, each of us knows exactly what we're getting into.

"The mountain is a she," our guide, Juan Gabriel, warns us. "So you've got to be ready for some mood swings." All of the peaks in Ecuador have been deemed either male or female by the indigenous cultures, and the reasons are very evident to those who spend time among them. "Climbing Cotopaxi is different," Juan continues. "You can always feel that she's active. You get what you deserve with her."

We've only just met our guide as he tells us this, all the while we're traveling through the Andean valleys ducking wires and branches while sitting on top of a train. Economy class rides on the roof of the cargo cars, exposed to dust, engine smoke and exotic fruit thrown by kids at the markets. From the bustling city, out into the impoverished suburbs, and, finally, into the lush countryside, the train heads south from Quito, on the route known as "The Avenue of The Volcanoes."

The scenery is amazing: The twin peaks of Illiniza to the west, the crevasse-scarred face of Antisana to the east, and lush river valleys below. But, it's imperative to pay attention. If you gaze too intently at the volcanoes and cloud-forests, an oncoming bridge might take off your head. The 50-mile ride takes nearly four hours (the train broke down twice) and leaves us sunburned, wind-chapped, and caked in dust.

Pichincha is on yellow alert. She's the big volcano towering over Quito and all of it's inhabitants. There are signs all over town explaining what to do and where to go in case of an eruption, and we wonder if maybe we should try to climb an inactive volcano.

"Sometime between five minutes and five years, that's pretty soon either way," a market vendor assesses the likelihood of eruption. "It really depends how mad she is when she does blow. If it's a serious eruption, then there will again be much sorrow."

We tell this guy that we intend to climb, and ski, Cotopaxi. He shakes his head and asks, "Why?"

Natural disasters are nothing new for these people and their ancestors. They witnessed earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and volcanic eruptions long before the Spaniards came to wreak a different havoc on their societies. It's an active land and you can feel changes whenever the wind blows.

Juan Gabriel isn't promising good weather, but he never rules it out, either. "There are no seasons here on the equator, but we experience all four seasons every month. Usually, December is dry and cold, but you never know." Every type of weather can be expected, and we march toward the mountain in a steady rain.

There are four burros hiking along with us. Despite their considerable burden, they move quickly up the steep, muddy, single-track, leaving us behind. These animals carry all our supplies for a week, as well as gear for ascending and descending the mountain. Also marching beside us are two 12-year-old boys. They are wearing rubber boots with no socks and cotton sweatshirts. They don't say much as they climb the muddy trail, pretty much at ease in the rain and wind.

We pick our way up the valley of the Rio Pita, over gently undulating land which becomes more and more sterile and desolate as we approach the mountain. Edward Whymper's observations of his 1877 ascent come back to me:

"As we entered the plain of Limpiopongo, I found in great numbers a rather large beetle belonging to the same tribe as our cock-chafer, of a species that proves to be new to science...."

The findings remain true today. As we follow the burros toward the highlands, we, too, pass through the domain of the ugly, flying cockroaches.

From the lush river valley at 10,000 feet, we trudge upward into the paramo. This moorland, between 13,000 and 14,000 feet, resembles the high chaparral country of the American West-little but sage and heather. Just like the Whymper party, we see the scat of pumas and wolves; the boys tell me to keep my eyes open for "big cats and dogs."

Strapped to the top of the last donkey are a snowboard, a pair of telemark skis and a pair of alpine boards. Instead of battling the holiday crowds for snow at our home resorts, we'll be alone. Rather than the animosity that sometimes comes with diverse equipment, we plan to climb one of the highest active volcanoes and slide down together, three different ways-all brethren of the gliss.

None of this is as easy as it sounds. There are variables that need to fall into place, and the cooperation of Cotopaxi is imperative. All you can do is be on your best behavior, hoping that she'll show mercy. At about 16,000 feet, the boys and the burros bid farewell, descending into the mists.

The first night turns out to be the worst. It's not just that the wind rages all night at 60 mph, but that it comes gusting from all directions, often loaded with blasts of sleet. Wet winds blow from downslope and freezing winds howl down from above. By dawn, our tent resembles a warped igloo.

These storms continue into the next day. We're prisoners of this volcano now, trapped in the fog and flogged by the occasional onslaught of hail. It's foolhardy to go up and no sense in going down; we hang out in camp, awaiting parole. I hunker down and read about Whymper's early studies on altitude sickness, and about the aftermath in Latacunga after her massive eruption in 1877.

Sometime in the afternoon of the third day, the weather starts to clear. The wind keeps steady, but the clouds thin and the sleet subsides. Within minutes, big, blue suckerholes fill the sky and we can see the hanging seracs of the glacier, just a few hundred yards away. The summit clears last, finally revealing her smooth, white cone. Wisps of snow trail off from the summit into the jet stream, shining like a comet caught in the sunlight.

This might be just a tease, but it also could be our window. We decide to take our chances. The temperature drops and the wind finally dies. At midnight, the sky remains clear as we gear up for the climb. With headlamps as our gaffers, we clamber up the steep approach to the glacier. We're roped-up, about 20 feet apart, should one of us fall into one of the crevasses we're so gingerly walking across.

We slowly make our way up through the glacier in the darkness, finding the route around the slots, cracks and holes that drop away into the void. Focusing on our footsteps, we temporarily miss our clues that the darkness is getting darker; the clouds return as quickly as they vanished. We trudge ahead, hoping conditions don't grow worse. Silly boys. It all starts again: gusting winds, freezing rains, thumping hail pellets.

Three hours pass and we find ourselves hunkered down beside a serac at about 18,000 feet, sipping hot tea and seeking the slimmest shelter from this bitter equatorial storm. Our pie-in-the-sky scenario has us pushing on, hoping for clearing at sunrise. But the more rational call is to abort, cut our losses and scamper back down with our tails between our legs.

"Perhaps she isn't ready for us yet," Juan yells to me above the howling wind and pinging hail.

The night seems darker yet, and the sleet freezes over our headlamps. All of us are now encased with a solid inch of ice; we clumsily begin descending like knights in frozen armor. The decision to retreat is a good one. The heart of the storm hits with renewed intensity and conditions deteriorate from bad to worse: temperature drops, the wind billows to gale force, and we feel the bitter sting of the storm's fury.

"Perhaps later," Juan yells, marching down through the fierce storm.

Anchoring our axes into the icy slope to escape being blown into the void, we slowly make our way through the blizzard. Wind and snow have completely covered our footprints. Had we not set a few bright-orange wands to mark our route, we'd be even more lost on this alpine expanse than we already are.

Finally, just before sunrise, we rediscover camp and crawl in what's left of our frozen tent. As we peel off frozen outerwear and climb into our sleeping bags, hot tea and instant oatmeal never tasted so good. The wind never ceases and the hail grows stronger; all that's left is to try to sleep the day away and refuse to accept the reality that we may never stand atop this glorious cone.

Around midnight, I find myself outside the tent relieving my bladder. I'm barefoot in the snow staring up at Cotopaxi, not really certain why. For a brief moment, I think I can just see the summit through the raging storm. But I can't be certain; it's as if some inexplicable power is toying with my mind. With stinging feet, I dive back into the bag. Before I return to sleep, I hear my companions discussing the continuing fog, wind and hail. We're not going anywhere.

Next afternoon, the blizzard again subsides briefly, providing just enough time to chip the ice layer from our warped tent and erect an ice-and-rock wall to protect us from the punishing wind. We try to maintain a brave front, but our supplies are running low, along with our time and strength.

Read and sleep, sleep and read. Thumbing through the pages of Travels Amongst the Great Andes, I feel a bit reassured to find that Whymper, too, was tent-bound:

"When it was possible to work outside the tent, we explored the neighborhood, but our acquisitions here were less than upon any other mountain that we visited. The aforementioned beetles and an ubiquitous frog. Above the camp I found nothing, either animal or vegetable, except some shabby patches of moss at 15,300 feet."

A hundred years later, all that shabby moss is still here.

It's midnight and, like children at Christmas, we pop out of bed to see what's happening. Juan Gabriel is dressed and I hear the clanking of his harness and crampons. Shooting stars again fill the sky and the summit of Cotopaxi seems to be smiling at me under the faint light of the new moon.

"It's a trick," I mutter, half-asleep. "You're not gonna trust her again, are you?"

I slowly sit up and grimace at the thought of pulling on my clammy-wet clothing. Soon, we're sipping hot coffee with our fingers crossed, staring into the clear night, hoping it remains.

Again we leave camp as a train of headlamps, slowly picking our way through the hanging seracs. The wind blows sporadically, stinging my cheeks with spindrifted snow, but the heavens remain clear. After a few hours, we find ourselves at the same serac that served as our earlier shelter. But tonight, after our tea break, we continue upward.

Looming overhead is Yanasacha, the great black wall. This massive feature looms 300 feet tall above the erratic glaciers, with another 100 feet of ice wall piled upon it. This is both the open smile of the mountain and our halfway point. The formation made an impression upon Whymper as well:

"We kept along the crest of an ill-defined ridge which descends almost continuously from the summit. The Yanasacha lava appears to issue from a fissure in the cone between 18,000 and 19,000 feet above the sea."

During the 1877 eruption, Yanasacha was a massive lava flow. A century of glacial grinding has eroded this magma mound into a sheer wall. We scurry past the dark monster toward the upper ice-fields, avoiding the constant barrage of rocks and ice bouncing down the steep face. In the darkness, I hear the echoing boom of seracs falling close by and realize that we are walking through an enormous ice machine. More hours pass, and, with the bulk of the glaciers beneath us, we begin our ascent of the steep headwall reaching toward the top.

The summit is backlit by moonlight just as the first rays of sun silhouette us against the headwall. Our shadows stretch long across the mountain and we appear as three giants laboriously trudging across a moonscape, tied together by a huge chain.

Like an awakening from a weird dream, this surreal imagery changes as the sunlight turns the top of the mountain a cheery pink. Within minutes, the warm rays shine upon our cheeks and our frozen extremities regain feeling. A grudging step at a time, we close on the summit. The crunching under our feet grows louder as the frozen snowpack softens in the morning light. In the distance, Chimborazo and Cayambe-Cotopaxi's inactive Andean boyfriends-gleam in the painted sunrise as we make the final slow steps up to the summit.

Cotopaxi has allowed us to visit her sacred throne for breakfast, and, considering all the effort, we are most grateful. We gaze down into the active crater, and enjoy the sulfuric smell of the steaming, smoldering scree. A glazed cornice hangs above the smoky cesspool, throne-room of the gods. We mortals never can be more than brief visitors. Below the other side of the cone, 4,000 vertical-feet down, lies La Cabeza del Atahaulpa, the thousand-foot-tall protuberance believed to be the head of an Inca leader executed by Francisco Pizarro in 1533. Cotopaxi erupted later that same year and legend has it that she did so in defiance of the conquistadores.

The equatorial sun that beamed a warm blessing at sunrise has become a brutal punishment. As we hurriedly apply sunblock and gulp water, I feel my lips split like a wiener on a grill and my brain dehydrate like a snail on blacktop. The thin air gives us splitting headaches, and we quickly realize we've worn out our welcome; it's time to get back down to earth.

But we're not like all the other people who visited this wonderful place in the long years since Whymper's exploration. Rather than walking back down with our crampons, we attach skis and snowboard, preparing for the ride of a lifetime. Clumsy from the altitude and exhausted from the strenuous climb, we must use our utmost concentration. A fall up here on the headwall probably will end somewhere in the lush cloud-forest, 10,000 feet below. We take our time and make each turn count.

As if the steep pitch and dizzying altitude isn't enough, the lunar snowpack makes our ride even trickier. Harder than a woodpecker's beak and resembling a frozen coral reef, this odd amalgam of ice and snow drains the last of our energy and focus. The surface of the icy headwall seems to have sprouted crystalline cauliflower heads; as we ride through them, they shatter and fly up at us. Kneecaps and elbows take the brunt of the abuse, but my ears and cheeks also get drilled by these glacial shards.

Surface hoar forms like feathers sprouting from the snow, reaching toward the sun during the day, then freezing in the sub-zero night. Rime ice clings to these formations, strengthening them against the elements. Catching an edge on these "popsicles from hell" always is but a turn away; we've never seen a snow surface more intricate and trickier to descend. Sunlight refracts off the crystals at changing angles, sparking colorful-yet distracting-rays into our weary eyes.

Creeping higher, the sun punishes us even more as we reach the stone-throwing black wall of Yanasacha. We're still above 18,000 feet and by no means done with our descent. The snowpack is much smoother and softer here and we're delighted finally to carve some real turns. But our worries aren't finished; the concern now is the crevasses.

Returning to the glacier, we must descend a route pocked with the same cracks, slots and holes that we so gingerly avoided on our ascent. The trouble now is that the softening snowpack has weakened the snowbridges. When we climbed through this glacier in the wee hours, everything was frozen solid. Now, one navigational mistake means a fall into the icy blue underworld.

We descend unroped because, after all, this is what freeriding is all about. We rationalize that skiing and boarding is actually safer than postholing through these crevasse fields. Farther down, we find a smooth snowfield with no erratic glaciation and six inches of fresh, wind-blown snow. With unbridled delight, we carve a thousand vertical of smooth turns. All the waiting and effort suddenly seem totally worthwhile.

As we stare back up at our tracks and hoot in ecstasy, I notice an eerie hum crackling all around us. At first, I figure that my camera has begun to rewind or that my avalanche transceiver is doing something weird. After checking all these electronic gadgets, it becomes apparent that Cotopaxi is doing the shocking. Thunder rumbles in the distance and dark clouds shroud the majestic cone. With eerie similarity to Whymper's experience, hail and wind come again and our beautiful tracks are obscured, never to be admired again.

"Storms of hail were frequent, and both here, and when we were subsequently encamped at the summit, stray flashes of lightning occurred in uncomfortable, if not in dangerous, proximity-blazing out at unexpected times, and conveying the impression that the atmosphere was saturated with electricity."

A single glacier, complete with seracs and crevasses, stands between us and the relative safety of our camp. The crackling hum of the electrical storm persists as we slowly pick our way down, all too aware that our harnesses and packs are laced with dangerous, lightning-conducting metal appendages. With the aid of the orange route-marking wands, we ride into camp just as the storm strikes with all its fury.

Now there's a different feeling as I crawl back into the ice-laden tent. The punishing wind and the pelting hail don't seem quite so brutal. Somehow, this new storm makes our success all the sweeter. We've been granted the precious seven-hour window required to stroke the Sweet Neck of the Moon.

Each time I look up into a winter sky and see the moon smiling down at me, I'll remember that, in some ethereal way, I spent a long morning climbing and riding up there.