January 4, 2006 - Team Moves to Camp 1 at 17,060 feet

Listen to Audio of Wally's Call (.wav)

A fully loaded Samu heads for the next camp

It’s the 4th of January and I’m calling you from about 5200m (17,060 ft).  Only this time we haven’t climbed up to an elevation like this just to see how it feels and to stretch our legs but we actually moved our camp to a new elevation.  All the guys look really great!

Roger St.PierreWe loaded Samu up this morning with all the gear after 4 nights at that beautiful camp at Laguna Verde.  We took off on the main road a short distance, then turned left straight towards Ojos del Salado, followed a pretty well defined track but at times it was just tire tracks through the sand in front of us.  We had to be careful to keep Samu and our other vehicle going.  Eventually without much problem we got to this camp. We have the Berg Adventures dining tent set up and we are settling in for new nights of acclimatization.  I think these guys are going to do fine.

Oswaldo and Juancho, our two main mountain guides, loaded their packs up right after we arrived with a load of water that was very heavy, I couldn’t even pick their packs up.  These guys managed to get them up on their backs and they carried up one camp higher to stock some water up there.  Remember it is an extremely dry desert and all the water we drink comes in bottles with us all the way from Copiapo.

So the team is going to rest well tonight I’m confident.  Tomorrow will be our own little carry to the next camp, see how we feel.  Ojos summit is getting closer and closer, this team looks like they are ready for it.

Charlie our cook tells us supper is ready!

ACONCAGUA
Argentina
22,841 feet
6962 meters

OJOS DEL SALADO
Chile
22,637 feet
6900 meters