Mt. Aconcagua
View of Mt. Aconcagua looking up the Relinchas Valley from near the Casa de Piedra camp.
“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.” Rene Daumal
The Top of South American Expedition to Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere, left home on January 29, and after rerouting all the flights for every team member because of the ice storm in Atlanta, we managed to get everyone in Mendoza, Argentina, within one day of our planned arrival.
The first three days were spent hiking up the Vacas Valley and the Relinchas Valley. On the third day, we had excellent views of Aconcagua and it was certainly impressive. It is a huge mountain and we could see we had a lot of work ahead of us. A recent storm left the mountain white and returning climbers from others teams told of high winds, extreme cold, and frostbite. It caught our attention.
Day 4 was a rest day in base camp at Plaza Argentina at 13,800 feet elevation. We sorted loads for the climb and napped. The next day we began the actual climb by carrying our first loads to Camp I. We returned to base camp that night and on Day 6, moved to Camp I at 15,400 feet elevation. We continued this carry and move pattern over the next four days with two days for Camp II at 17,800 feet and two more for Camp III at 19,200 feet. After six days of heavy carrying, we took our second rest day and visited an ice fall called The Edge of the World where we had views 5,000 feet down into the valley below.
On Day 12, we moved to Camp IV at 20,600 feet. It was cold and hard to breathe, but with all of our other work, we acclimatized very well and were able to adjust. We were up at 5:00 am and left for our summit attempt. Temperatures were in the low single digits with wind chill about 15 or 20 below. We climbed over the Windy Col and finally into the Caneleta, the final, difficult rocky chute leading to the summit at 22,840 feet. We reached the summit at 12:40 pm on February 14, Valentines Day, and were able to spend an hour there, enjoying the view and taking photos. We descended to Camp IV by mid-afternoon.
Day 14 took us from Camp IV all the way to Base Camp in a single, heavy day. The oxygen at Base Camp, after two nights at Camp IV, felt wonderful and we all slept nicely. We took one more rest day, sorted loads for the mules, and on Day 16, we hiked 22 miles of sharp, rocky trail to Pampa de Lenas where the mule drivers cooked us an excellent steak dinner. The final day we walked 8 miles to the trailhead and took the three-hour bus ride back to Mendoza.
The TOSA expedition was a dream for many of us and it lived up to our expectations. Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere, is a beautiful mountain and gave us wonderful experiences. Those experiences combined with the great team we had created excellent memories for us. It was a fine expedition.