Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch

January 18, 2014 – First Rest Day at Plaza de Mulas

Well the snow continues on Saturday at Plaza de Mulas. We are going to spend four nights here before we move higher. Some years we spend three nights others we spend four. Osvaldo and I talked it over and think for this group the strategy is to gain great acclimatization before we move up. Don’t worry we will be climbing higher, but the first day at Plaza de Mulas is always a complete rest and acclimatization day.

The weather is not very good. It’s plus 4°C, it’s not very cold, and in some ways that adds to the problem. We had a wet, sloppy rain combined with snow when we woke this morning, and it has continued. We mostly stay in our dinning tent.

Right now we are down to see the doctors Veronica, Louise and Nigel, the physicians who have worked here for a number of years. Today they will check our vitals.

This is a busy place. Yesterday a friend of mine reported he had guided a group to the summit the day before. Also yesterday, we talked with a fellow who was within 200m of the summit and he says he was just going too slowly and he was too cold. This same fellow reported to us that there had been 15 cm at Nido de Condors, that’s our second camp, and that it’s still snowing. And as I look up right now I can see lots of white on Aconcagua, the part I can see, and it’s continuing to snow.

We will report each day about how things are going. This is a busy place, Plaza de Mulas, helicopters flying in, even in this weather the ceiling is high enough that he can fly up to the Horcones valley. He is flying solid human waste and other material out from the mountain; he is flying out rescues and removing people that need to be evacuated. The support for people is quite remarkable; it really helps explain why the permit fees are so high on Aconcagua.

We will keep you posted as our and acclimatization continues at Plaza de Mulas.

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