After spending a week in Peru (11,000 feet), my friend Ben and I felt well acclimatized and ready to start our expedition up Aconcagua. Before arriving in Mendoza, Argentina, we had a lay-over in Santiago, Chile and had to pay a hefty $100 US airport fee to fly into Chile, beware of the fees! When we arrived in Mendoza we were amazed at how beautiful the country is, it's also known for the best steaks and Malbec wine at a third of the US dollar! Our climbing teamwas an International effort comprised of 3 British, 1 German, 1 Irish, and Ben and I representing USA. We used Fernando Grajales Expeditions for logistics and guide service; we were very impressed with their services. While everyone else used precious energy to cook freeze-dried meals out in the cold, we sat on chairs inside a big expeditions tent and 3 course gourmet meals prepared for us by their base camp chef! We were also very lucky to have such "good weather"; it only got to 20F *still freezing) with a wind at no more than 20MPH. Aconcagua is known to have the worst weather, which is the main reason two out of three climbers are sent home without reaching the summit. The other reason is that so many people underestimate it as an "Extremely High Altitude" climb (term given for anything over 18,000 feet). As we got higher the views became more impressive, but our breathing got harder due to the lack of oxygen. Simple tasks like going to the bathroom, changing clothes, and even sleeping were difficult at altitude because of the laborious breathing. On the summit day I remember taking 5-8 breathes for every step and only moving 10 feet per minute above 20,000 feet. I have run 2 Marathons before and would say the summit day is like a very slow Marathon, I was working at 85-90% of my energy exertion level for 12 hours. The last 1,000 feet were the hardest, most people are pretty exhausted at this point and I was too, but very slowly our team made it to the summit at 22,841 feet! Ben put together a slideshow/ movie that illustrates the expedition best, it's only available on his FTP site for a limited time and it takes a little time to download, but it's worth it! There is a lot of information about the climb I couldn't include here, if you would like to know more feel free to e-mail me.
Hope you enjoy the pictures!
-Phillip |
