January 6, 2006 - Birthday Wishes from High Camp

Leila, Brian and Roger on an acclimatization hike

It’s January 6th and I’m calling you from the same place I called you from yesterday, high camp on Ojos del Salado at about 19,100 ft (5821m).  It’s a different situation today though because the entire team has carried up and moved in to this camp that we will use for our very early morning departure for the summit of Ojos tomorrow.

Brian SemkowEveryone looks really good.  It took us between 4 and 4.5 hours to climb up today at a slow, methodical pace.  I climbed most of the way with Roger and he was reminding me that today is his son’s birthday.  So happy birthday from the team here at high camp.

Tonight we will try to get a good night sleep before we get up very early to make our attempt for the summit of Ojos del Salado.

ACONCAGUA
Argentina
22,841 feet
6962 meters

OJOS DEL SALADO
Chile
22,637 feet
6900 meters