Hola, otra vez, amigas, amigos, y familia!
So I'm back with more bloody details from my Jan-Feb 2000 southern adventure. As Aconcagua is a volcano, the rock is, surprisingly enough: volcanic. This is the kind of rock that makes one desperately seek snow and ice, and painfully laugh at the phrase "solid as a rock". It was a desert on this side of the range, very dry and few plants. Didn't see much in the way of wildlife, unlike the many bird voices we heard down low in Chile.
I had absolutely no plans to climb Aconcagua and knew little about it when the Chile expedition wrapped up. A couple days before flying home, I decided that I wasn’t ready to head home yet, and it would be fun to check out this peak.
The grand total of my knowledge about Aconcagua was that it was in neighboring Argentina, and that it was very nearly 23,000' (7000m) high, and largely a walk-up. I hadn't been that high ( just 20k several times). I am interested in some more aesthetic and technical peaks of similar heights elsewhere, and knew I should get that high first on an 'easy' peak to check out how the altitude feels before adding technical difficulty.
This means that not only was I unprepared in terms of knowing anything about the mountain, but I also didn't have the gear I needed. My contribution to Chile group gear was very minimal because I was late in accepting the invitation and they had already worked out the group gear. My decision to try Aconcagua was made after we all separated so couldn't borrow gear.
I lacked a tent, stove, warm sleeping bag, parka, warm mitts, and other warm clothes.
Of as much concern was that I had eaten all my nice US food. No fancy energy bars, no nicely flavored quick dinners, no instant refried beans, no ramen,... I bought things like lentils, polenta (cornmeal), plain pasta, "texturized vegetable protein", local cookies, crackers, some nuts, and lots of soups. For those of you who are familiar with my obsession with feeding my backcountry
"tapeworm" (which the guys on the Chile team named. I tried to use that as an excuse to get an extra serving at meals. Didn't work.) and my desire to get enough vegetarian protein, you will know that I was "out of my comfort zone". The food issue was especially acute as I was long-term tired from Chile, that I'd burned my adipose reserves... not exactly the condition I'd like to be in to attempt a big peak.
I didn't even know where the mountain was, just that I had to go to Mendoza to get a permit ($120!). As the bus lumbered over the mountains between Santiago and Mendoza, I was surprised to see "Aconcagua Provincial Parque", and a big (BIG) mountain in the distance. "Wow, I guess that's it", I astutely deduced.
Two days and much money-access stress later, I arrived in the small town I had been told to go to for the side of the mountain (east) I wanted to ascend. I still didn't have that gear, and was hoping I could rent it at the company whose mules I intended to use. No gear for rent in the town.
The wind was blowing like hell. Peter had emailed me notes from his trip years ago, and warned me about the horrendous winds on the mountain. I was fully intimidated by the thought of winds up high based on what they were in town. What was I thinking?! So pathetic, it would be an absolute miracle if I got even NEAR the summit.
I certainly looked like an idiot, showing up alone, lacking critical gear, not knowing where to go, or what the route was like on the mountain. The route I hoped to climb would necessitate a partner or 2, which, needless to say...
In a pathetic attempt to grasp a shred of credibility, I name dropped: the well-known outdoor ed school I taught for. This did seem to help.
One of the employees did have an old, sun faded, over-(sleeping) bag that he'd found and would lend me. Combined with mine, it was hopefully enough (denial has its place). Then I met a guided group and ended up borrowing a stove from them.
With this gear plus my bivy sack (sleeping bag cover that can be used in lieu of a tent in easy conditions), I was willing to start heading up the mountain, trusting that a tent and warmer clothes would appear. I had to bring my town cotton(!) shirt as an extra layer, yeehaa. (Cotton is considered “death cloth” in the mountains.”)
So off I go. During the first day's hike, I realized, in my deep exhaustion, that it didn't even matter if I summited, just getting this far on this adventure had been enough of a challenge, sort of my own Outward Bound experience. I was lucky to be there at all, psyched for whatever. What a kick!
The first evening I met up with a group of three Canadians and an American. They only had tent space for the four of them, so I could hang out with them, but I wouldn't go above basecamp until I found a tent or a team to join.
On the third day we arrived at basecamp (13k'), and it began to blow and snow. I pulled out my bivy sack and cowered behind a rock wall, trying to decide which side to hide behind as the wind kept changing directions. Dave, the American helped me find a better bivy site. We ended up using the tarp wall of a collapsed outhouse to make "The Hovel", a piece of strong plastic held up over rock walls by the pole structure still attached. That was where I slept at basecamp, and it held up fine under snow. It was still intact when we returned 10+ days later!
Over the couple days acclimitizing and carrying a load up to the next camp, I looked around for a party to join. Would you take on someone in that situation? How does one advertise oneself to compensate for the ridiculous shelter and gear situation that might reflect an overall lack of experience, not just a lack of gear? Plus, I need to be sure I think the group has enough experience; I won't climb with just anyone! Argh, not a productive search.
I began to consider going up with just the bivy sack, and started to put together a little A-frame of poles and more plastic tarp so that I could have a shelter to stick my head in and to cook under.
As it turned out I was able to rent a tent from the basecamp doctor. I realized how bummed I'd been over my housing situation by how excited, giddy even, I was after getting this tent.
Dave had an extra top and pair of pants that I could borrow, so now I was (marginally) ready to continue.
My friend Luis showed up! I knew he was on the way as he was working for the same company of the group whose stove I had. Great to see him and talk, a connection with my normal life!
I moved up the next day, a day ahead of the group I was hanging out with, but they caught up and I moved up over the next days with them to the high camp.
Days later, Dave and I set out very early to climb the easier route, the False Polish after much thought about our lack of preparation and gear for our preferred route. Having changed our plan late in the afternoon, deciding to go for the summit the next day, we were up late packing and melting water for a long day on the mountain.
We enjoyed a whopping two hours of sleep, so felt great. Not having expected to climb this route, we hadn't looked to see where the trail started. Big mistake. We spent an extra hour or two, plus loads of energy, clambering up the talus in the dark at over 19,000’. I was warm enough early on, but began cooling down while waiting for Dave to join me on the trail.
We soon stopped twice for crampons to cross the ice, but by then I was getting quite cold. My crampons come off faster than his and he didn't mind my moving ahead to avoid hypothermia.
For the next 6 or 7 hours, I was cold. I was really cold in fact. Deeply cold. I walked backwards because of the wind along the traverse, which was not a problem because I was moving so slow anyway (altitude and exhaustion). I was too cold to stop to eat and drink (which would make me less cold), I kept checking in with myself: was I in hypothermic denial? Was my brain swelling from altitude and not noticing that I was truly too cold? How were my toes REALLY? I was entirely alone, so doubly knew I couldn't make a mistake.
I kept alternating hands with my ski pole so I could ball up a hand to keep my fingers from freezing off. Having not obtained better hand protection, I had to make it work with wearing only thin liner-gloves under $2.50 hardware-store yellow sticky work-gloves. This is considered less than optimal for these conditions. I worked at not shivering. Definitely not summit dress terrain, bummer.
It was grim. The only reason I continued was seeing the sun ahead of me: I knew I would be warm. It was just a matter of getting there. Of course at my slow pace (really slow) it was many hours before I was in the sun.
When I eventually arrived in the sun, I was disappointed how long it took to warm up. As I slowly thawed, my breathing rate went from six breaths per step to three (despite this being the steep section, and over 22k' by now). I wondered how much energy I had burned just trying to stay warm. No doubt my being ill-prepared had cost me a lot of energy! Argh.
There was only one other party high on the mountain that day, a group of people in red coming from the other (main) side. I guessed that they were Asian. This was not reassuring as Asian climbers are known for not compromising their summits to help people who are unprepared (a sentiment I can understand), but to the point of stepping over people dying along the route on their way to the summit.
They were far behind me for quite a few hours, all of us moving along in super slow motion. Eventually they split into fast and slow groups, the former passing me five minutes from the summit as I sat on yet another rock sucking wind.
Turns out they were the Argentine military! A bunch of army boys with their commander out for a spin. They were quite friendly and I knew that had I croaked they'd helped carry my carcass down! I had a good time on the summit yakking and taking pictures with them. Took a photo of them and the Malvinas (Falklands) memorial after they stood around it and recited a prayer. Fun cultural experience. Plus, I actually felt pretty good now that I wasn't having to move much! The weather was closing in, light snow blowing around so soon it was time to move along.
I took 11 hours to summit, but less than 2 to get down. By the time I returned to camp I was thoroughly trashed. Short term hammering on top of my long term pounding. I was beat. Plus, back down at our camp at 19,000', I had a significant headache, ugh. Dave, who had turned back early on, kindly fed me hot soup before I crashed in my bag.
I barely moved for the next two days.
This was a funny camp in terms of food. We both had the major lack of appetite typical of altitude (not even dark chocolate was appetizing!), plus my guts made it clear that any bean product was not welcome. Dave ran out of his benign food too, so we fed ourselves out of abandoned caches: lots of local ramen and instant potatoes, the only food we could get down. One of the guides from that other group burned a bunch of trash and old caches; we didn't tell him that we had been sustaining ourselves out of that trash pile. But we had another source near our camp.
The rest of Dave's group had split up due to having to leave at different times, deciding to go out the other way. Up high, we didn't see much of them and became our own little team.
Then on the third day after I summited, Dave took off again for the summit, but was turned back by the dreaded Viento Blanco, a storm. We quickly packed up our camp and dropped back to camp one at 16k', where the storm was much less severe.
Another group reported that the temp was -10F that morning.
We had one of the horrendous nights trying to keep "my" three season tent both intact and on the mountain as the winds raged and snow piled up against it in the lee of the rock wall. Grim, and all too familiar to many of you!
The next morning we headed down to basecamp, passing the remains of several tents en route; sobering.
'Twas a really good trip for me. Good to find that I can do fine without my fancy food, without my full gear, and without being rested... good for my head. And definitely an adventure, a lesson in trusting, being able to move ahead without knowing if what I needed would materialize. Trusting the Universe.
Well, you've just wasted a perfectly good hour reading this, so you'd better go do something useful!
Love and wild wind, Susan
