Entries from Aconcagua
The clouds cleared with sunset last night, but enough of them stuck around to make the moonrise spectacular through bright pillows of distant cumulus with lightning bolts adding to the show. It was an easy night at basecamp although it was somewhat curious -so far up a mountain- to be serenaded by latin hip-hop and rap tunes well into the evening as a dance party -presumably held for some returning and victorious summit climbers- went on for hours, long after we'd all climbed into our sleeping bags and clicked off the headlights. This didn't seem to adversly effect anyone's mood in the morning though. All seemed to have gotten the neccessary rest. We were excited for the day's climbing. Heavy loads were shouldered after a great breakfast. We hit the trail in bright sunshine at around 9 AM and made steady progress up on narrow trails of broken rock and volcanic dirt. Without much trouble at all, we crossed the "East Glacier" on piles of rocky rubble and enjoyed some great views of the Polish Glacier above. We'd prepared ourselves for six hours of uphill toil if that was what it would take to get food, fuel and gear to our planned site for Camp One, but in the end, we did it in much less time as all were feeling good and enjoying the exercise. Peter, Ed and Melissa, our veterans of previous Aconcagua climbs, were each happy to see that a good portion of our route today was snow covered. Our photographers and videographers were charmed with the nature of that snow cover since we walked for some time up a steep track through neve-penitente. Intense sunlight on the snow surface, with the addition of a little dirt blown onto that snow from surrounding ridges had formed its surface into a series of eight-foot high pinnacles. Artistically wonderful, such snow formations would be tough to travel through without the established track. Jake Norton could often be spied wedged between pinnacles with his camera pointed through the jagged openings onto the trail. Kent Harvey, Thom Pollard and Gerry Moffat set up ambush after ambush to capture images of our climbers, seemingly climbing the back of a great white porcupine. Rachel broke her altitude record as she came smiling into the site of our intended gear dump at 16,304 ft. Ever gracious, she thanked Chad and Seth for their guidance and hints while Tim, Andrew, Clark and Kelly were doing high fives and fist bumps with the rest of the guide team. We were already caching the gear at 1 PM and enjoying a look at the route ahead. Peter scouted a bit higher to find the perfect place for our tents following tomorrow's move. Melissa pointed out the ever-so-close sites for Camps II and III (those sites are not far distance-wise, but each represents a significant gain in altitude and so we all know that we'll be taking our time to get up to what we can now easily see... acclimatization is a slow but essential process to avoid altitude illness) We eventually left a gear cache and beat feet down the path and penitentes. We passed dozens of slowly trudging heavily laden upward-bound climbers... perhaps they were attendees of last night's dance party and thus on a late schedule for rising and seizing the day. Our work was all done by 3:30 PM as we pulled off boots back in basecamp and enjoyed the afternoon sun.
Tomorrow, if all goes well, we'll report in from Camp One.
Dave Hahn reporting from Today was our planned rest day. All is well and all are feeling good. We enjoyed a calm night with a huge moon that kept Jake Norton out snapping pictures until quite late. There were a few minor headaches reported and some of the normal insomnia that comes with a first night at real altitude, but for the most part our team was bright-eyed and ready for action today. That action consisted of a relaxed breakfast and then a few sessions of organizing gear and supplies for going higher. The event of the morning was Seth Waterfall's arrival with the last of our cargo. Production people dove into cases full of new gadgets and guides sorted a few more bags of upper-mountain gear and all were happy to see Seth who'd come in at an accelerated pace to catch up with us.
Basecamp is a fairly elaborate village of tents with a few semi-permanent structures thrown in for park and medical personnel. There are about five outfitters here with independent "kitchens" and communications set-ups along with dining tents and latrines for their customers and staff. We set up the RMI tents within a stone's throw of our own outfitter -Grajales Expeditions, and they've been taking great care of us. Peter, Ed and Chad worked today to help our climbers choose what to carry higher while Melissa made contact with the park rangers and finalized the permitting process.
We became aware of an intense and sad story which had played out high on Aconcagua during the days of our trek in. A team of five had apparently been caught out in the open near the summit and had needed to endure several days of extremly bad weather before a rescue party could reach them. From what we are hearing, the rescue effort was massive, with perhaps fifty people trying to get to the stranded team from both sides of the mountain. Ultimately, there were three survivors and tragically, two deaths. Our entire team was saddened and sobered by this news, but our guide team was particularly saddened to learn that we'd lost a friend and colleague in the accident. Federico Campanini guided his own programs internationally, but on Mount Rainier he'd become one of RMI's hardest working and most dependable guides over the past three summers. We have each spent the past days and nights thinking of his skill, strength and competence as a guide... but also of his unfailing good humor and friendly nature. He will be missed. Our best wishes go to his family.
Our plan for tomorrow is to carry loads to 16,000 ft and to then return for a final night at basecamp before moving up. We'll hope the weather improves some as today finished with a fair bit of cloud and and some light snow on Basecamp. All for now, we'll let you know how things go tomorrow... new heights and new sights.
We had a little weather last night with snow a few thousand feet above us. It was a pleasant suprise this morning as we woke up to clear and beautiful skies. This is my eighth trip on Aconcagua and we had the fastest trek that I have ever experienced. This was quite impressive since we were taking the time to take video and photos on the way to Trek Camp Two. This evening everyone is doing very well as we have finished dinner and are settled in for the night. We are heading to the Basecamp tomorrow, which is located at 13,800 ft. Good night from all of us.
Greetings from the Relincho Valley, Camp One on the trail into Aconcagua. This is the January Rainier Mountaineering Inc. expedition attempting to climb the "False Polish Glacier". We converged on this mountain by way of Santiago and Buenos Aeries, with the whole team meeting for the first time in Mendoza. Peter Whittaker, Ed Viesturs and Melissa Arnot guide the clients on our team along with me -Dave Hahn, I'm guiding... but I am the rookie on this climb having never been to Aconcagua before and am wide-eyed and excited to see a new place. So to are our four climbers: Clark Vautier, Tim Sohn, Kelley Maybo and Andrew Turner. Additionally we have a camera team and still photography team attempting to capture quality footage and images for RMI. The videographers are Gerry Moffet and Kent Harvey, along with Thom Pollard. Jake Norton is shooting digital stills and Rachel Rosengarten is overseeing the collection of both video and stills. Seth Waterfall and Chad Peele are guiding the production team. Poor Seth is still back in Mendoza as of tonight, waiting for slow luggage to fly in on a fast plane. He'll catch up with us in no time flat when the gear arrives.
Last night we stayed in Penitentes... a small settlement built around a ski area high in the Andes, perhaps 12 miles from the Argentine border with Chile. We were at 9000 ft above sea level, but passed the night in relative comfort with steak dinners and comfy beds. Fernando Grajales Expeditions of Mendoza is our capable outfitter, and this morning they organized our loads onto 20 mule backs and got us to our trailhead for a journey into the Vacas Valley. We started walking at around 10:40 AM under blue skies and bright sunshine. The mules carry up to 60 kilos each... we carried slightly less for what will be a three-day trek into basecamp. The Vacas River was churning along in a series of rapids next to the trail and we gained altitude slowly on easy terrain. The terrain is stark and bare, with towering cliffs and scree slopes limiting the views. At first we had a few trees along the path, but before long, we were down to small shrubs, grass and the odd flower patch. Most wore shorts and T-shirts for the first few hours, but as afternoon came on the sky filled with clouds and we endured brief showers from time to time. We did pass over a couple of old and dirty snowbanks that had obviously become the final remnants of great avalanche debris piles that were deposited during the last Austral Winter. Peter -a veteran of 7 previous Aconcagua expeditions- views such evidence of a heavy winter positively, pointing out that our climb to the summit will be easier if there is more snow and less dirt and rock up high. Our camp tonight at Las Lenas is situated at 9400 ft. The gang put down a big pot of Chad's famous spiral pasta with red sauce and chicken chucked in for dinner. The clouds are now clearing, the sun is down and the light is fading. We can see new snow left by the afternoon showers on the high rock slopes above us. We'll call it a day for now... the first of potentially 18 on the mountain.
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